I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder at around age 16. I was hospitalized 3 times before the age of 21. The roller coaster of medication and finding the right cocktail of drugs, the involvement of family members whose opinions were skewed, the switching and changing of doctors and therapists, the view that my personality is my disorder. The changing diagnostic criteria. The nearly 10 years off of meds, mostly on my own, sometimes making bold and successful choices in the luck of my mania and who could catch me when I was unstable. Catatonic Depressions. Auditory Hallucinations. Scary choices, wild choices, suicidal ideation, spiritually enlightening hallucinations and finding how they could be both valid and disruptive. Going back into treatment. Finding the right cocktail again. Finding that I had identity beyond the diagnostic criteria. Being given a second really helpful and empowering diagnosis (ASD) that reframed and gave context to my whole history. Grappling with the pain of “Oh I wish it was just ASD! Maybe it is just ASD! Should I go off my meds?” and then realizing—-no—-it is both. I have Bipolar I and ASD.
So that’s my history. I want to note that when people are candid about their mental illness, especially online, that we are rarely looking for pity or sympathy. We’re often just sharing experiences the way we might share an experience of any life event. I am tentative about writing this stuff online not because I still carry shame but because I think peoples’ responses often show that they don’t understand why I wrote what I wrote. The reason we share our stories is often as a beacon for other people who share the struggle. Sometimes it is just to get things off our chests. Sometimes it is because we need to try and communicate something that is misunderstood about us. People who have had a rough time don’t need pity. They need to be listened to. So I wanted to just make that very clear.
Now I want to get to the part of my life that is performing. I am an actor. The easiest roles for me to play are people going mad. And I have really opinions Bipolar Disorder and ASD are shown in films and television. For the most part I see actors with skill and empathy and they serve the story. But there is often something missing. Something I can’t put my finger on but it is along the lines of “I know my kind when I see them.” That’s something that’s often on my mind. That I should be considered for these kinds of roles because of my experience in the same way that my experience as a nonbinary person would be important to playing a nonbinary character.
I don’t have a conclusion for this whole thing, by the way. I am on the edge of loving certain Madness performances and hating some. I feel more irked by the ASD and trans stuff—-autistic actors should play autistic characters and trans people should play trans characters. I’m firm on that. But with Bipolar and the general Tradition of MADNESS that exists in storytelling—-my opinions are tricky.
The thing I grapple with the most is that disclosing the severity of my illness and experience with hospitalizations —-could lose me the job. You don’t want to go in and say “Yes I understand madness I could bring a lot to this role because I have had real mania, real hallucinations, real hospitalizations and Don’t Worry I have a lot of support now! I have the right doctors and therapy and family and friends!” That’s not really something you can bring up. Which is weird because it is such a huge part of my life. Monitoring myself during certain seasons and tweaking the meds during the year, etc. has been my life’s work in many ways. Accepting that this is the reality, being OK with it, allowing it to play out and allowing for experimentations with treatments until something works, facing side effects, etc. This is an enormous part of my everyday life. It’s not some huge dramatic moment most days. In stories we show the most extreme moments of madness. I am intimately familiar with those. It’s just really hard to feel like I can’t share the reality of my life when I audition for certain roles. It feels risky. I have a sense of humor and I’ve grown that sardonic gallows humor that many chronically ill people have. The sense of humor that sometimes jars people.
There’s also The Switch. Like when you tell someone you have Bipolar Disorder or have been hospitalized or have ASD. Something happens. This thing happens where many people just start treating you differently. Like they’re scanning for the symptoms. Like they’re going to catch a glimpse into this thing. To be fair, though, over the years whenever I’ve disclosed I’ve gotten more and more people who have been educated about mental illness. People who have a sister or an uncle or a story they’re willing to share. Something to make me feel like less of a novelty. And that’s cool. I can often tell when I’m with another person with ASD or Bipolar. I just know. And I disclose and we’re at ease and the understanding is there in a deeper way, in a way it can’t be with others.
I would like to play monsters, people who are A PROBLEM, people whose behavior disrupts, people who are going through it, whose minds aren’t working in a typical way. That’s the domain I want to exist in. But it is so so hard to carve out that niche sometimes. It constantly feels risky. But it feels like there are pathways in my body that know a kind of freedom of mania and a weight of depression that lend so wonderfully to my work. I know what colors are on my palette as an actor. I’ve added more, of course I can do more. But someone neurotypical is likely going to get a neurotypical role. And someone who hasn’t been through the painstaking process of trying four million bipolar meds and deciding which side effects they can handle—-is probably going to get the Normal Secretary with Five Lines role above me. And I want them to. They deserve it. I’m not really a normal day-to-day person. I don’t have that experience at all. That’s not a foundational part of my life the way it can be for other actors. I go into rooms of other actors and I can feel that it isn’t a huge challenge for them to not be an alien. And I love aliens, I love monsters. I am monsters. I feel alien and those are the kind of roles I want.
The word “unhinged” was in a character description the other day. I was full of glee. I know unhinged. I live a life almost-unhinged. A life where we delicately get as much stability as we can on the hinges and I’ve mastered grounding the hinges enough to live a wonderful rewarding life. I know wildness, though. I did 7 paintings in 2 days of unhinged-ish manageable energy the other day. I have access to the memory of FULL unhingement. The word UNHINGED was like “Yessssss” and it soothed me. It isn’t a challenge. It is a domain I know how to exist in. And existing in that domain in the sealed safety of performance is really helpful for me. I know I can put all of my wildness into the performance and work hard and get tired and feel like my experience is lending to something rather than disrupting life. I always sleep better when I’m doing a play or a film that requires I be unhinged. Strange, uncanny, etc—-these are all so comforting as character descriptions for me.
I think one of the weirdest parts of all of this is that people wouldn’t want to be me. They wouldn’t want to have a certain wildness. Because it is disruptive. Because that’s not who they are. So when I go in for headshots or something, I often get styled into Presentable. And then I look Presentable. and I feel trapped in myself. I’ve worked hard to try to get closer to the mark on the presentation of who I am but people always seek to smooth it out. I don’t want it smoothed out. And I sometimes think, though, that if I try to express it all on the surface that it’ll be an imitation of what it feels like. Portraits are better than “headshots” and I really feel ill at commercial industry standards. There’s no place for me there. And I always feel deeply rejected and sad in those spaces.
People like me should be your monsters and your madmen and your wild eyed unraveling disruptive people. We know it. I remember I was playing Lady Macbeth once and I told the director that I knew about madness. And I shared a bit with her. She told me “If I would have known I would have cast you as someone else.” And I was furious! No! I’ve had a miscarriage! I’ve had unraveling mind! I want this sort of thing. I believe in exposure therapy, I believe in facing these roles head on and being able to bring my nervous system’s real memories to the role. I was so upset that she wanted to “protect” me. I don’t want to be protected. Performance is one of the only spaces on earth that I can unleash this part of myself without everyone freaking out and rejecting me. It’s important!
I have no way to end this.