Last Thursday, my wife and I attended a viewing of Dr. Delaney Ruston’s documentary film Unlisted followed by a panel discussion. The film and panel discussion focused primarily on schizophrenia, but individuals with bipolar disorder and their families face similar struggles.

I was very impressed by the keynote speaker, Dr. Alan Breier, MD, who passionately and compassionately described the struggles of people living with schizophrenia. He called schizophrenia the “quintessential human experience,” because it affects the two qualities most responsible for making a person feel human:

• The ability to work
• The ability to love

Check out this interesting interview with Richard Dreyfuss about living with bipolar disorder. Dreyfuss also talks about self-medicating.

Last night my wife and I watched Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking – the HBO film version of her solo Broadway performance based on her book of the same title. In Wishful Drinking, Fisher recounts the emotional ups and downs of her childhood and career and her struggles with depression and mania, all in a very humorous way.

One thing that struck me, and I’ve noticed this in other situations, is that families are often pretty screwed up and sometimes it’s the most “normal” person in the family, the one who seems to really have it all together, takes the hit and ends up with the bipolar label. Then the family treats that person as the crazy one – the problem. I can’t claim that this is usually how it plays out, but I’ve observed it in a couple cases.

MAY CONTAIN A SPOILER

I recently had the pleasure of seeing the new film Black Swan. It is the best movie I have seen this year, and I believe is the best artistic depiction of a psychotic break that I have ever witnessed.

I do NOT recommend it for those who are currently in a fragile mental state or those who are easily upset. The film is VERY intense. It contains some elements that are more characteristic of a horror flick, although I’ve seen a couple reviewers mistakenly refer to it as a “horror movie.”

I would like to know what you think of the film. For those of you who haven’t yet seen the movie, be warned that the comments that follow this post may contain spoilers, so you may want to see the movie first and then come back to read the comments.