A Film About Love: This Was My Therapy

If you’d asked me four years ago where I would be in 2017 I would have told you I’d be famous. I’d have explained how I’d move to a city where I would be scooped up by a record label and about to write my very own ‘Adele – 21’. Of course, four years ago I was in the early stages of my first mania. My stepfather, a man who bought me up was on his deathbed, a loss that was about to throw me straight into the deep end of my manic brain. I left home to go and make my dreams come true. Nobody told me that my dreams were to sleep with as many men as possible and spend all my money on drugs and alcohol. My excuse was my age. I was naive, I was young, I was aspirational. I was unwell.

When you move away to University nobody knows the person you were back home. Nobody thinks twice about how many consecutive days your mood is through the roof. To everyone I was meeting, this was just me. I was the crazy kid from Oxford with an oversized ego. But this was not me. This was nothing like me. I felt liberated, I felt free. I took so many drugs I felt like I was flying. I fell in love with this person I’d become. However, anybody who’s listened to Adele’s ‘21’ knows that love hurts. Falling out of that love hurt like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I was heartbroken. My dream had turned into a nightmare that would never end. Mister Depression was my rebound man. He hated me and made me to hate myself so much I resorted to self harm and overdose. Nothing is the same after that. It wasn’t until a doctor in fluorescent lime-green overalls was stitching up the cuts in my forearm, and all I could think about was whether I should go for it and ask for his number, did I realise that I was ill. I didn’t care what I’d done to myself, it didn’t hurt anymore (mainly due to the anesthetic). I was somehow high again, an object of desire, joking around with the doctors, oblivious of the impact of my actions. I thought that everyone sat in A&E wished they were as brave as me, as fearless and desirable as me. That’s when it hit me. There’s no denial when you’re in hospital. Hospital is where you go when you need help. That realisation terrified me. I questioned my safety. I questioned whether or not I was safe to go home. I wanted – felt I needed – to stay hospitalised. I wanted to be safe. I wanted help. I didn’t want the cycle anymore: sad – depressed – hospital – recovery – normal – happy – high – crash – sad – repeat.

In February 2015 I was diagnosed a manic depressive. Classified ill. If you’d have asked me on that day where I would be in 2017 I would have burst into tears. I wanted to drop out of university and move home to my family, to a place I could be safe from myself. I wanted to give up on my dream. Truthfully, I didn’t really want to be alive at all. I definitely did not want to be bipolar. I did not want to take medication everyday. I definitely did not want to gain 56 pounds. The last thing I wanted to do was study for a future I didn’t believe I had.

Bipolar was a new concept for me. All I knew about it was the derogatory remarks made by those with no idea of what the illness actually means. The only thing that came natural to me after my diagnosis was writing. I documented my entire experience from diagnosis to recovery. From these journals I wrote and directed A Film About Love. This was my therapy. This film was my coping mechanism. This film changed everything. This film made me appreciate my experiences in a way I’d never have considered possible. After the film won the Art With Impact competition I was initially terrified. Now everyone would know my secret. How would they react to me? What would they say? What the hell have I done?!

However, the response I received was absolutely overwhelming. My therapy and my recovery was something people found inspiring. Again, I felt liberated but this time I was not ill – I was a winner. Instead of constantly having bipolar control my life I fought back and exposed its exhausting grip on me.

Two years later I’m about to graduate. I’m not famous. I haven’t got a record deal. I am not crying. I am not a college dropout. I am healthy. I am focused. I am certainly not recovered, but I am changed. Today I want to be survive and I want to thrive. To use my creativity as a form of therapy has been key throughout my recovery. Of course there are the inevitable bad days, bad weeks, bad months, but I’ve been through it. No doubt I’ll go through it again but today I feel ready for the world. Time can change a lot, that is my biggest lesson. Everyday there are triggers, everyday there are threats and everyday there is the memory of beating it, the focus to stay alive and fight for my happiness. Bipolar taught me it’s okay to cry, it’s okay to need help. Bipolar gave me the strength I didn’t have before. That is the real victory.

-Dale John Allen

Watch Dale’s winning film here!

• Previous Post
• Back to Blog
• Next Post