[venusss]

- Mania manifesting itself in the internal or intellectual ways. Apparently, the only way to be manic is to have a jazz soundtrack and having lots of sexy sex and randomly dancing.

(for me? I do dance randomly or skip but I hate jazz. I really really hate jazz. My manic soundtrack is psychtrance.)

- Do people ever get side effects from their meds/meds not working in movies/series on MI? It seems they are mostly stupid for not wanting to take them/going off them and they get better the minute the pills touch their lips.

- Does somebody actually end up single and happy in MI movies (and movies in general)? Why the need to rescue boyfriends/girlfriends?

(I will add more later on, that's the most obvious ones on my mind for now).

Thank you for this. I hated Silver Linings Playbook for some of these reasons, and others. It was such a flimsy look at MI, but then again, it was more a money-making love story and not really a look at MI. Ugh.

[wing]

"Girl Interrupted" shows someone doing well after a hospitalization. However, the star of the show is the whacked-out character Angelina Jolie played, so I doubt anyone left the movie theatre thinking "Wow, some people do get out of the hospital because they get better".

I can't tolerate most movies about MI. They trigger me to no end.

[pawn78]

Anyone remember the character "billy" from 6 feet under?
http://meloukhia.net/2010/12/examini...lly_chenowith/

It was a fairly accurate drama of serious bipolar, but it was also kind of offensive, showing billy as a raving, dangerous, mean, manipulative whacko....
I had mixed feelings about it, but it definitely paints bipolar in a negative, scary picture.

[Nammu]

The truth, that would take too long.
Being misdiagnosed, put on meds that destroy your health, the wait to find out if meds accurately work, that Pdocs don't actually know why or how meds work.
That the medicines are for symptoms that bother other people and side effects that only bother the MI are of no consequences.
That people can work if other people won't so uptight about differences, not everybody has to be a stepford robot.

[manic_monday]

I think “Rachel Getting Married” is an honest look into the lives of those who suffer from MI. I know the movie is mostly centered around drug use but she clearly has some BPD/bipolar tendencies (both mania and depression) and as someone who personally went to treatment, the reaction from her family and friends was a similar experience for me. Everyone walks in eggshells around her, even though she hasn't had an episode in months and is medicated (though struggling). It seems they've lost faith in her recovery and they treat her like she's this giant walking mass of destructiveness.

But still she soldiers on, mostly on her own. And even though every day is a battle, she appears to gain inner balance with herself. Yeah, the movie does end with happiness and love all around, but you still know that it's going to be a life long battle and she has a lot of work to do as a single human being, not a couple.

It may not be specific to what you were asking but it's definitely a real look into what a lot of us experience, especially if you've gone to treatment or even just an over night hospital stay. It's not 100% accurate but there's some definite truths in there that I could relate to.