Do you ever feel all alone with your bipolar disorder? That there is no one out there who could possibly understand the great heights we reach, just as we must hit the pits of despair as well.
I know everyone suffers bipolar disorder differently, but here are a few of my favorite people who I’m proud to stand and be counted with.
Beethoven anyone? Demi Lovato, (possibly) Brittany Spears, Marilyn Monroe, Carrie Fisher, Sinead O’Connor, Vincent Van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Virginia Woolf, Linda Hamilton, and Vivien Leigh.
Ah, the readers, the writers, the dreamers and me…here a few other bios just in case you needed more enlightenment on why you are amazing for just being you. Starting with a Emily Dickinson and ending with Vivien Leigh, just a few amazing people with bipolar disorder. I’ll try to do another one of there as interest shows what’s read and what’s not 🙂
This introverted poet’s work is often dark and gloomy. While it is impossible to know for sure if her mental illness would have been classified as bipolar disorder today, a 2001 study in theAmerican Journal of Psychiatry that examined cycles in Dickinson’s productivity suggests that may be the case.
Dickinson’s doctor diagnosed her with “nervous prostration,” which, according to the study’s author, psychiatrist John F. McDermott, MD, was “characterized by anxiety and depression.” In Dickinson’s time, physicians had not yet identified bipolar disorder as such, but, Dr. McDermott notes, Dickinson’s writing patterns are “not inconsistent” with the symptom profile of the disorder.
Linda Hamilton
Actress Linda Hamilton is best known for her role as Sarah Connor in Terminatorand Terminator 2: Judgment Day. She also starred in the TV series Beauty and the Beast. Despite her professional success, though, she was self-medicating with drugs and alcohol and her mood swings damaged two marriages. Hamilton struggled with symptoms of bipolar disorder for 20 years, a time she calls the lost years, before overcoming it. Though she initially worried that treatment would diminish her talents, she is now on medication and speaks openly about being bipolar. “Somebody needs to come out and make this okay for people to talk about and get help and take advantage of the resources,” she told the Associated Press.
Vivien Leigh