When we wrote Bipolar Disorder For Dummies, we took some heat for the “irreverent humor” that is characteristic of the For Dummies® series. Some people felt that we went too far. They thought our irreverence crossed the border into the land of insensitivity. Two of our editors told us to soften it up. (In a few cases, we followed their advice.) A couple reviewers gave the book positive reviews and then qualified them by saying that our prose was likely to offend sensitive readers.
The fact is that we have loved ones with bipolar disorder, and we know it’s painful for everyone involved. Believe us, we have felt the sting ourselves. However, we’ve also found that most people with bipolar disorder and their loved ones have a healthy sense of humor – humor that has an edge to it. Maybe it’s because people with bipolar disorder tend to be smarter than the average Joe, or perhaps they’ve just had to deal with so much bad stuff in their lives that they need a moment to laugh. Maybe it’s because the situations they’re often exposed to give birth to funny things nobody else could ever conceive of.
My co-author, Joe, and his wife, Cecie, rely heavily on humor to relieve the tension and confront the absurdities often associated with bipolar disorder and its treatment. During one doctor’s appointment, Cecie was complaining about experiencing weight gain when she was on a combination of Lithium and Zyprexa. The doctor recommended adding topiramate (Topamax) to the mix, explaining that it could combat the weight gain, but that it could also carry the unpleasant side effect of slowed thinking. Joe turned to Cecie and said, “Oh, great, you have the choice of being fat or stupid.”
On it’s surface, that might come across as insensitive to some, but Joe said it in a half-joking tone that called attention to the absurd and often painful choices that people with bipolar disorder are often presented with – medications that treat the disorder but commonly cause dreadful side effects. We decided to add that bit of humor to the book. Some people didn’t think it was very funny, but most people “got it” and appreciated the fact that we had the audacity to poke fun at the painful truth.
No doubt about it, bipolar disorder can cause intense suffering. An “innocent little fling” triggered by mania can destroy marriages and friendships. Mania can drive people to spend or gamble away their family’s life savings… and then some. Both mania and depression can ruin a person’s career and place a huge financial burden on all involved. We are well aware of all the bad, ugly things that bipolar can do, but retaining a sense of humor through it all can help us tolerate the profound distress that we live with.
When we choose to laugh at bipolar disorder, we never intend to dismiss or diminish the significance of the real suffering it often causes to those who have the disorder and the people who love them. Nor do we want to include ourselves in the ranks of those who deliver “reassuring” platitudes, such as…
Or
We simply use humor as another weapon in our arsenal to disarm the disorder and acknowledge just how maddeningly ridiculous it can be. We even found humor in my name and profession – a shrink named Fink? Why that’s a perfect name for my Web site… let’s call it FinkShrink.com!
Humor helps us cope. It can defuse an escalating situation. It can make us more accepting of our own foibles and those of our loved ones. It can place some of the bad things that happen in perspective. It can help us appreciate the absurdity that surrounds us and some of the positive things that bipolar disorder brings into our lives – events and encounters we otherwise would never have had the opportunity to experience.
In Paradise Lost, John Milton writes, “The mind can make a heaven out of hell or a hell out of heaven.” Humor enables us to make a heaven out of hell. It allows us to put painful episodes in our past and laugh about them, maybe not forgetting them but hopefully forgiving the pain they caused. It empowers us to take back our humanity and ourselves from the bipolar beast.
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I love it! Most of my fellow bipolar friends have amazing senses of humour. Humour is much more fun than self pity!
LOL I had to laugh at the jokes. I’m Bipolar and find humour is the best way to counter fear and uncertainty at times. My favourite is saying that I run on ‘Lithium Energisers’ which is a take off of energiser batteries. Keep up the good work.
I share the bipolar burden with a daughter and a son. We often use humor to diffuse a tense situation. For example sometimes when I am really feeling explosive I will remark “You guys are driving me crazy!..Wait,… (I am already crazy) …” My husband and I are in our early 50’s, and he has been diagnosed with early onset Parkinson’s disease. We both suffer minor memory loss as a side effect of medication. You can imagine the situations that arise in such a marriage - we could never survive without humor!
When my wife begins to cycle into mania, she usually experiences “pressured speech,” talking very rapidly and constantly. Recently, when her moods were escalating, she was also catching a cold. We were in the kitchen and our 21-year-old son was there with us. Everyone knew that “mom” was cycling, and she was consulting with her doctor to avoid a major mood episode, but we were all kind of avoiding the sensitive topic.
My wife was talking fast and constantly and jumping from one topic to another. She began saying something about her cold or allergies and telling me that she thought whatever was causing her cold symptoms was not anything contagious.
She then asked me, “Do you think it’s contagious?”
I said, “No, honey, from everything I’ve read, bipolar disorder is not contagious.”
She burst out laughing and our son followed. He then said, “That really wasn’t appropriate, but I have to admit, it was funny.”
Well, I have a diagnosis of bipolar, and I am somewhat in denial. Can I talk to someone about the symptoms and other related questions I might have…
I do think humor is great, but I guess some of us have some “touchy” subjects like ouch–I’ve got the weight gain (causing major problems in my marriage & my already shaky self esteem) & am taking Topamax & do have memory difficulties & at this point I am FAT & STUPID so I guess I wouldn’t find that particular remark funny at all. You can’t be sensitive to everyone, I guess, or you just wouldn’t be able to write anything humorous. But, gulp, that is not funny to me.
Now, I do have my individual therapy appt. & my dialectical behavioral therapy group/class on Thursdays so I tell my husband to take advantage of my being “sane” on Thursdays as by Friday I will revert to my old irrational self again. So I can look at my “crazy” thinking with humor sometimes. My husband sometimes finds me very entertaining the way I “connect the dots.” He’ll call me “Lucy” as in Lucy Ricardo, because I just come up with the most, let’s be polite, “creative” solutions, answers, explanations, etc. He’s just amazed at how my brain works!
He’s just so totally rational (Ph.D in chemistry for God’s sake). It is very difficult for him to understand a disorder that is so intangible, that can’t be measured in a lab, that is internal–my thoughts are impaired…
But he has stuck with me…
And we can laugh at times at what this bipolar has brought about in our life. It helps, because most of it is really completely devastating.
Humor will keep you from dying, I swear. I have BP and just went through breast cancer. Whoa, talk about a ride. It was CRAZY, I was INSANE and my husband and his family stood by and supported me all the way through it. My cancer is in remission. I’m still BP….wish they could have chemoed that out too. LOL The jokes are great. I wish we could all go into remission with our BP.
Before I was diagnosed with BP I would eventually crash any friendship I managed to cultivate. Even now with treatment people don’t always understand when I withdraw or when I am manic and inappropriate, I use humor to get me through this. A humorous approach keeps my friends from feeling burdened with my condition. If I am going into hiding mode I tell them that my Polars and duking it out right now and I need to stay home. Some ask me if I have tried going without medication. I tell them I am medicated for thier sake as well as mine. Without medication I am either drunk and darn near homicidal or depressed and suicidal. They usually decide that maybe medication isn’t such a bad thing.Humor also keeps me from taking myself so seriously when the self centeredness of paranoia is upon me.Humor has allowed me to remeber that no matter what is happening mood wise…this too shall pass.
I too, question the diagnosis of BP. If I was tested or screened I was never made aware of it. I came to therapy for depression that became totally incapacitating after the sudden death of my fiance. First diagnosed w/ PTSD, and certainly major depression, I cannot figure out how this Dr. whom I talk to once every five months for a refill, got the notion that I have BP. I don’t know all the nuances but I do know, with certainty, that I do not, and never have had manic episodes of any type. So how does this work?
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