Sam was the perfect student, when suddenly his life went off the rails. Through a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, he found the way between the highs and lows.
FADE IN:
OUTSIDE – Forest
A young man plays guitar and sings.
CUT TO: Young man walking at sunset
WOMAN (Mother)
I really don’t want him to define himself as being, you know, a mental patient. Or even bipolar because that’s not who he is. I mean here is this perfectly healthy, brilliant student and then –
CUT TO – INSIDE: MOTHER SPEAKING ON COUCH TO CAMERA
MOTHER
The next thing, you know, he’s in a mental hospital. I mean you would never know just by looking at him. But he’s worked very hard to be where he is now.
CUT TO: Outside, forest
YOUNG MAN
I almost hate to point out some of the positives in this.
CUT TO: Inside clothing store
YOUNG MAN
There’s undeniably some things. For example I went to the Galleria to buy women’s size 4 extra tight black jeans. And I was looking in the mirror, I didn’t have any shoes on or my shirt and I ran through the Galleria, like sprinted through it. And I felt so amazing, I felt on top of the world.
WOMAN
He also was pretty psychotic. Thought he was some master computer that could fix everybody.
YOUNG MAN
I did have hallucinations. They were sort of like visions. Whenever I’d sort of meditate or close my eyes and start thinking. And a movie would just start to unfold. And then I would switch to some crazy form of depression where I couldn’t even move.
CUT TO: Outside
YOUNG MAN
I felt symptoms of both. I would feel trapped and lonely from depression but I would also feel grandiose and have delusions from mania. There was this one point where I was just so sad and so drained of energy from this problem that I literally just collapsed to the floor. I’d never felt that intensity of sadness before. It made me realize how bad life could get and how I think it can get so bad that it’s not even worth continuing.
CUT TO: Young man playing guitar and walking in the forest
YOUNG MAN
At the time I felt very responsible for my depression. But once you understand they come from chemicals in the situation it’s empowering because you realize ‘oh, I just need to change the situation of the chemicals.’ It becomes less paralyzing and it becomes less personal.
CUT TO : Inside, mother speaking on couch
MOTHER
After he was on the Lithium and certainly after a while he was new and improved.
CUT TO: Young man speaking to camera
YOUNG MAN
It’s like most people you know have this wave of ups and downs. Manic depressive people will have ups and downs and if you trigger it enough it will break the threshold level and you’ll go way up and you’ll go way down. I think what Lithium does it creates a barrier where you can’t break that threshold level.
CUT TO: Indoor, people dancing
MOTHER
Now that I think he understands what the medicine can do for him, I think he’s really into it.
YOUNG MAN
What I’d have to say to anyone going through this or anything similar to this is to not take this into your own hands. This is an issue that needs to be taken to professional help. Medicine and therapy are the professional help that are truly needed to address this.
Discuss