You know, you can join as many groups and talk to as many people who share the same condition you’re afflicted with, but at the end of the day you’re still alone with it.
Obviously, I was having a bad day today. Picture it’s the wild west. You step out on to the dusty main road, the entire town is out to watch you dispatch Baddy McEvil. He struts out. You tip your hat, ready your hand over your revolver. The clock tower strikes noon. BANG. A gasp rushes through the town. Your latch was still on your holster and you’ve shot yourself in the leg. Baddy is laughing like a hyena and walks off with your girl (or guy, depending on who you are.) Then you run into the saloon bathroom and unhitch that darn latch, bring the revolver up and hold it to your your head. You’re looking at yourself in the mirror. This cowboy image you’ve created is bullshit. Everything you’ve done for the town was useless. You’re alone and unloved, and all you have to do is add a little more pressure on that cold trigger. But, everyone’s outside, banging the door down, telling you that it’s okay. That they still think you’re the good guy. That you’re a hero in their eyes, at least. That you’re loved. And you put the revolver down.
That’d be my mood today.
And then I watched Frost/Nixon and almost wept from the overwhelming compassion I had for Nixon in that film. NIXON. I related with his feelings of self-loathing and failure so much. There’s a quote I loved, that pained my heart, but also hugged it knowing that I shared in the feeling. “That’s our tragedy, you and I Mr. Frost. No matter how high we get, they still look down at us.” Yep, and sometimes “they” is ourselves.
Anyways, I just put that out there because I thought some of you may relate or have related once. It’s therapeutic to see someone else feel the same pain we have. It’s some kind of sick justification that we’re all just human, I guess.
Here’s a list that helps me. It’s famous people with bipolar (or who show all symptoms of it,) or who had it until they killed themselves.
Actors & Actresses
Ned Beatty
Jim Carey
Rosemary Clooney, singer
Lindsay Crosby
Eric Douglas
Robert Downey Jr.
Patty Duke
Carrie Fisher
Connie Francis, singer and actress
Shecky Greene, comedian
Linda Hamilton
Moss Hart, actor, director, playright
Margot Kidder
Vivien Leigh
Kevin McDonald, comedian
Kristy McNichols
Burgess Meredith, actor, director
Spike Milligan, actor, writer
Nicola Pagett
Ben Stiller, actor, director, writer
David Strickland
Lili Taylor
Tracy Ullman
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Robin Williams
Jonathon Winters, comedian
Artists
Alvin Alley, dancer, choreogapher
Ludwig Von Beethoven
Tim Burton, artist, director
Francis Ford Coppola, director
George Fredrick Handel, composer
Bill Lichtenstein, producer
Joshua Logan, broadway director, producer
Vincent Van Gogh, painter
Gustav Mahier, composer
Francesco Scavullo, artist, photographer
Robert Schumann, composer
Don Simpson, movie producer
Norman Wexler, screenwriter, playwright
Entrepreneurs
Robert Campeau
Pierre Peladeau
Heinz C. Prechter
Ted Turner, media giant
Financiers
John Mulheren
Murray Pezim
Miscellaneous
Buzz Aldrin, astronaut
Clifford Beers, humanitarian
Garnet Coleman, legislator (Texas)
Larry Flynt, publisher and activist
Kit Gingrich, Newt’s mom
Phil Graham, owner of Washington Post
Peter Gregg, team owner and manager, race car driver
Susan Panico (Susan Dime-Meenan), business executive
Sol Wachtier, former New York State Chief Judge
Musicians
Ludwig van Beethoven, composer
Alohe Jean Burke, musician, vocalist
Rosemary Clooney, singer
DMX Earl Simmons, rapper and actor
Ray Davies
Lenny Dee
Gaetano Donizetti, opera singer
Peter Gabriel
Jimi Hendrix
Kristen Hersh (Throwing Muses)
Phyllis Hyman
Jack Irons
Daniel Johnston
Otto Klemperer, musician, conductor
Oscar Levant, pianist, composer, television
Phil Ochs, musician, political activist, poet
John Ogden, composer, musician
Jaco Pastorius
Charley Pride
Mac Rebennack (Dr. John)
Jeannie C. Riley
Alys Robi, vocalist in Canada
Axl Rose
Nick Traina
Del Shannon
Phil Spector, musician and producer
Sting, Gordon Sumner, musician, composer
Tom Waits, musician, composer
Brian Wilson, musician, composer, arranger
Townes Van Zandt, musician, composer
Poets
John Berryman
C.E. Chaffin, writer, poet
Hart Crane
Randall Jarrell
Jane Kenyon
Robert Lowell
Sylvia Plath
Robert Schumann
Delmore Schwartz
Political
Robert Boorstin, special assistant to President Clinton
L. Brent Bozell, political scientist, attorney, writer
Bob Bullock, ex secretary of state, state comptroller and lieutenant governer
Winston Churchill
Kitty Dukasis, former First Lady of Massachusetts
Thomas Eagleton, lawyer, former U.S. Senator
Lynne Rivers, U.S. Congress
Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States
Scholars
John Strugnell, biblical scholar
Scientists
Karl Paul Link, chemist
Dimitri Mihalas
Sports
Shelley Beattie, bodybuilding, sailing
John Daly, golf
Muffin Spencer-Devlin, pro golf
Ilie Nastase, tennis
Jimmy Piersail, baseball player, Boston Red Sox, sports announcer
Barret Robbins, football
Wyatt Sexton, football
Alonzo Spellman, football
Darryl Strawberry, baseball
Dimitrius Underwood, football
Luther Wright, basketball
Bert Yancey, athlete
TV & Radio
Dick Cavett
Jay Marvin, radio, writer
Jane Pauley
Writers
Louis Althusser, philosopher, writer
Honors de Balzac
Art Buchwald, writer, humorist
Neal Cassady
Patricia Cornwell
Margot Early
Kaye Gibbons
Johann Goethe
Graham Greene
Abbie Hoffman, writer, political activist
Kay Redfield Jamison, writer, psychologist
Peter Nolan Lawrence
Frances Lear, writer, editor, women’s rights activist
Rika Lesser, writer, translator
Kate Millet
Robert Munsch
Margo Orum
Edgar Allen Poe
Theodore Roethke
Lori Schiller, writer, educator
Frances Sherwood
Scott Simmie, writer, journalist
August Strindberg
Mark Twain
Joseph Vasquez, writer, movie director
Mark Vonnegut, doctor, writer
Sol Wachtler, writer, judge
Mary Jane Ward
Virginia Woolf
Thanks to this site for compiling this list.