Being Bipolar (Psychology Documentary) | Real Stories

[Music] i will be using this with antimatter photon lasers because what i have is creation at the end of my thoughts it's just like this glorious technical world that you're in you know it's absolutely amazing i was completely off the chart um as delusional as you can get [Music] i wonder whether there was any trauma or anything no zero zero zero how do we pull apart environmental factors and genetic factors i think that's the real challenge marble waterfall 100 feet tall there coming all the way down going down in those directions do you just want to die yeah just want to face the wall and die [Music] love you mama [Music] you feel like your life's in danger don't you you've told me that morning goodbye [Music] the cause of most mental breakdown i believe come from the environment it's a learnt set of of reactions and responses [Music] i think too often we we ask what's wrong with someone rather than asking what happened to them and what kind of mental scars that may have left them with [Music] i've come to meet paul in a large hotel golf club spa type place just outside stratford-upon-avon and i'm quite curious as to why i've got to meet him here but here i am [Music] are you paul i am hi i've been looking for you why why did you want to meet here it's a beautiful spot well and when i came here i said the one place that i'm going to own is my home is what i've always called time castle and naturally the day i take over we're going to put time castle where it's supposed to be at the center of everything that happens on planet earth suite number one three three is on the end yeah uh that's that should be my suite yeah in the counter suite most magnificent suite here will be moses and the resurrection of moses and his family and the issa resurrection of jesus christ and his family in the back end solomon in the middle a warrior through there as well accentuating all of the patio all the way around here are facing in the other direction and that's where i'll have the pope stay when he's here vladimir putin and when she bow in those others so who's told you you've got bipolar for uh uh every psychiatrist that i've met um i've been labeled as being something that i'm nowhere near my so-called bipolar disorder doesn't exist i'm infinipola i see the whole of the moon but the moment i step out of the box mental institution or jail cert i wonder what happened uh whether there was any trauma or anything no not at all no trauma before you had your first zero episode zero zero zero can i have a bit more history about your life yes have you ever had any drugs i've tried ever i've tried most things in my time yes of course oh well i when i say a bipolar disorder i simplify it say no i don't have bipolar disorder i have a split personality i'm poor and i'm young there's nothing in between it's not bipolar disorder i'm poor or i'm yeah yeah sounds like a god just the name to me yes he's the greatest mind there's ever been mine is and we'll expose it piece by piece whatever box by box i've just met paul and he seems to have a different reality to most other people nobody can understand what he's talking about so it is a very lonely place to be and i'm going to make this into the most amazing golf course in the world having holes one one one two two three three four five six six six seven seven seven every digit there is covered he has got that mania thing when you connect every single thing and he's taking it to the extreme the 18th hole is going to be 777 yards long past seven there isn't a past seven i wonder how we look after people like that because they don't see themselves as needing looking after i mean he feels completely like he's in charge of the entire universe and remember the marble waterfall 100 feet tall there coming all the way down going down in those directions and i can have it all installed in 60 days from the day of course i take over the world which effectively july the 18th [Music] oh and get really it feels like my skin is crawling it's got better since i changed medication but it never goes away i have a constant internal dialogue so i actually hear my thoughts in my head steve started to notice that i was um behaving different to usual gardening in the middle of the night and pouring [Music] rain [Music] hi i'm philippa i'm sean how do you do hello you've hurt your ankle yes that's not that i have a snap yeah actually when i did i was really manic were you yeah and i was absolutely delighted euphoric because because i broke my uncle never broke my ankle before ah like taking photos posting it on facebook look at my leg everything tastes better smells better everything is far sort of all the colors are more vivid yeah and that it's it's just like this glorious technical world that you're in you know it's absolutely amazing sounds great it is it's a lot of fun until i crash my depression episodes do you just want to die yeah just want to face the wall and die it's it's just it's horrible i get waves you know what i just think i can remember steve sitting there with the tears rolling down his face goodness you've had a really rough last 12 months haven't you we've been talking about your bipolar and i wonder if there was anything in the environment you know was there trauma in your childhood or or yeah i'm really sorry no nothing nothing at all and i've been racking my brains for a good 20 odd years maybe more 30 years and i just think i had all the crap jeans the wild ones you know [Music] best way to describe is a rollercoaster um it's worrying um worrying because especially when i was going to work she didn't know what you're coming home to whether that's where she's depressed or when she's hyper sean's mood will dictate to the how the mood is in the house yeah let's see if there's two different people in there yeah it's like there's a switch it's sort of like tomorrowland i guess because machines are getting responsive it sort of brings your mood down a bit as well it rubs off in your sweating yeah when you see things a bit more clearly then i mean the guilt comes and you know to the point where i worry um if it is genetic which one of my boys is going to have bipolar which one of my boys is going to have to go through this [Music] uh oh [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] hi ashley i'm philippa hi how are you nice to meet you yeah not too bad at all this is my uh grotto it looks like you're very busy here i am yeah i'm indeed i play a lot of music [Music] actually you know this has made me feel really hard doing all this just really just showing you your reaction to it now that brings me to another point because if your reaction was you know some negative thing then i could go into a negative spiral and this really is does sum up the my condition i take um these the pills i take that helps my asthma i've got daisy pam and i need to calm myself down a bit how long have you had those uh quite a long time now and also take prozac as well for my depression how long have you been on uh that one a long time as well what years and years and years yeah um yeah so you'd be down again you can tell can't you it wasn't great for you to talk about the medication was it do you want to talk to me about what's going on yeah i would actually yeah what what are you experiencing right now actually i just don't know what it is whether it's a voice or whether it's a thought or i don't know what it is [Music] but when i'm yeah quiet and i'm quiet you know that it's like uh keeps going it keeps going yeah no quiet but there's a voice that keeps giving you dialogue you know what's going through my mind sorry that's just been difficult [Music] he seems to be on a tightrope of sort of ecstasy and agony really it's such a narrow rope he seems to have to walk on i don't know quite what's going on and i've got more questions than answers [Music] [Music] really [Music] would you like to see my little bag of dolly mixtures yes please right that's an antidepressant these are the antipsychotics which i take in the evenings have you found any of these drugs useful um yeah yeah i know the combination isn't right yet but they are managing to sort of quell the two extremes can you imagine what you would have been like if you'd never been put on any psychiatric drugs what would that be like i'd be dead not always about it definitely lived your life yeah yeah any of the bad thoughts only any of the things which is um i think it's about twice i've kind of been very low and contemplated just taking enough medication never to wake up what do you think causes it um and what do you think has caused it in sean's case mainly the biological reasons like brain chemical changes in in the brain is one of the main reasons sometimes like what we see is the the depression comes out of the blue for no apparent reason yes so if it is can an identifiable reason then you can say okay treat the identifiable reason but when it comes out of the blue obviously there is something wrong within the brain chemicals if individuals kind of normal mood or in incise either which goes too high affecting the functioning yeah so the low is the depression the medications do help in bringing these chemical changes chemical imbalances in the brain back to normal we kind of equate it with people with diabetes hypertension and things like that psychological treatment would help as a kind of an additional support for her that's why i've referred her for psychological treatment but i feel that medication management is the mainstay till next time bye take care and you [Music] i've been told that bipolar is caused by a chemical imbalance and i i wondered what you think of that this has become a very well established idea over the last few years actually there really is no evidence that bipolar disorder is caused by a chemical imbalance there's not even an agreement about what chemical might be involved in bipolar disorder so if these drugs don't work by correcting a chemical imbalance how do they work it's much more likely in my view that these drugs are working because they are mind-altering substances in their own right most of them are sedating so they work well in calming someone down and some of them also dampen down emotions i talk to um some people with bipolar and i asked one where would you be now without your drugs and she says i would be dead it may be that people are using sedatives to try and block out their feelings right um now i'm not saying that's wrong maybe that maybe that's necessary for some people but i think in the long term that's probably not a good way to deal with feelings that that you can't tolerate so that's suggesting that although the drugs might provide some temporary relief they don't actually cure anything yeah [Music] [Music] i will be using this with antimatter photon lasers because what i have is creation at the end of my thoughts [Music] yeah so is this it this is it [Music] he understands all about the projects and he also understands me a lot better than many other people do although not completely well you leave me with kevin now i'll leave you i don't know see you in a okay see you in a while how long have you known paul about three years now he made a series of statements to me that um instead of just dismissing them i went and found out on business related issues every single issue he's raised i've checked out has proven to be correct let me first of all just show you a big piece of stone okay that that piece of marble was extracted from a hill in northern alabama that is part of about 1.6 billion cubic feet that is known to exist in that location and who owns it interestingly a person called paul down [Music] but this is phillip but she's come to talk to us is he your only child yes it took me 11 years to have him we thought we'd win the pools he was a treasure [Music] his dad spent a lot of time with him teaching him to play golf there you are he was an amazing girlfriend bobby was good yeah chosen for english church playford england he was captain and then counter it was lovely because the house was full of big cups i won the english amber championship at match play and stroke play english i have a stroke play there english amateur there european amateur champion as well that one that one is here what's it like to come second absolutely horrible for me second to the last there's no difference if if you're second or even if you're lost what does that mean to someone as a person when when i was playing golf it would tear me up for i could finish second in the tournament and it would take me three days of depression to get over finishing second and i would be practicing eight hours a day seven days a week and if you didn't win all the cups and if you weren't the best intellect in the world yes then what would you be i wouldn't want to live i wouldn't want to exist you wouldn't want to exist unless you were the best absolutely not i don't mean that's a conscious decision for the mania takes over i think it's a sort of survival mechanism [Music] hello what are you hoping to learn about your genes that they're not crazy that's all i want i'm really worried that one of the boys is gonna end up with bipolar and i've passed it on to my children [Music] i would i'd be devastated [Music] [Music] uh the boys chances of developing bipolar increased because i have bipolar it's not a genetic condition as if there is a gene for bipolar disorder what we know is that there are many probably many hundreds even thousands of different genes that are involved in increasing or decreasing the risk if one parent has bipolar disorder we know that their children have about a one in ten risk of suffering with the illness but on the other hand they're at a nine out of ten chance of not having bipolar disorder over their lifetime so the good news is actually still the chances are children won't have bipolar illness that's a lot better than i thought actually yeah good that's quite comforting to know how can we pull apart environmental factors and genetic factors i think that's the real challenge going forward because environmental factors are also really key because environmental factors are passed on you know we we learn how to self-regulate by how our our parents self-regulate so um we'll we'll learn their patterns of being and behaving the evidence that we have from countless studies in family twin adoption studies and the fact that the genetic studies now that we're doing are coming up with with very strong and well-replicated evidence of particular genetic factors that influence vulnerability to bipolar disorder suggests that the hypothesis that it could be 100 environmental you'd have to reject actually so that's a no then it's a very long very complex [Music] i very reluctantly have to take on board the fact that jeans may well have a determining factor into whether somebody develops bipolar or not [Music] uh is what normally happens is with these spells that he suddenly flashes out to them very very suddenly and that's been the case with them from the beginning how long has he happened about 12. that was about 12 15 12. what was he like as a baby uh yeah he was a lovely baby um in the first year after that he started kind of missing the milestones he found it difficult to interact with other toddlers [Music] are you feeling a bit better going away yeah i'm just learning about you as a baby don't talk about that oh you were a lovely baby actually you're beautiful baby when you were at school actually did anyone sort of know what it was like for you did anybody understand no unfortunately he was bullied a lot at school i don't think he he didn't always tell us about all of it but i mean really quite badly bullied kind of injured and that sort of thing and then we got to the stage where he was escaping from school yeah it was a very hard time actually i actually i think that you've he kind of bottled up all the the upset and the frustration and you've got more kind of unhappy as the years have gone by and you feel like you're your life's in danger don't you you you've told me that i'm honest with you just begins the um the thoughts even now you know it goes to my head [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] thanks there we go [Music] the way i'm thinking about it now is that there was this little girl that was lost yeah that nobody really understood you know to other people but i suppose again that needs to i need to feel that i'm integral it seems to me nobody could interpret your story of how you felt in a way that made sense to you so there remained some dots that weren't joined up and they've fragmented you know fragmented and they're still not joined up no i've got to sort of take a bit of a leap of faith i think to be able to sort of really be open to change and that terrifies me [Music] okay look good luck and i'll see you when you come out and i hope it goes well okay okay thank you okay hello hello yeah thank you thank you today will be about seeing whether they can work together seeing whether they can form a bond depends so much on your relationship with your therapist i mean she's got so much riding on it i hope it works for her it go oh she was great oh really really great i'm having a moment this is the start of it now this is the start of the end of it do you think this is going to be transformative yeah thank you you know the trouble with the um i've got bipolar it's a disease or i've got bipolar it's genetic it closes down the whole exploration of what might be happening or what happened i think she's beginning to see that she has got a choice however difficult it is i hope she gets her emotions to work for her rather than her being the slave to her emotion [Music] i was not very good i wasn't any i felt like he wasn't really on my wavelength um and uh found it very difficult to actually uh talk to him so he understands what i'm saying [Music] you do so much to try and help yourself i don't know anybody who works harder at working out what it is you need and asking for it yeah thank you hello there hi mike nice to see you again mate how's it going rupert dude hello she's off yes please [Music] i can't change it though that's anything unless someone else plays it hello looks i'm sorry this is why this is what's going to happen isn't it i knew it would i knew bleeding would as well i just god sorry fella but i really am sorry i cannot apologize more i can't i kind of i just don't know what to do hmm [Music] [Music] 15 [Music] he tries his hardest to keep himself calm and a lot of the time he manages it and he needs to give himself credit for managing it this is eighty program i mean what was uplifting about today is that his friends appear to accept him and accept his mood swings and don't seem particularly fazed by them and i think that's a great thing might give ashley some sort of maintenance to help him feel better about the fact that he does have these symptoms cool man cool mean [Music] [Music] i'm a little bit nervous about seeing paul actually because last time i did find him rather intimidating at times because he was so full on and he made so many connections all over the place that i couldn't keep up with him hi paul welcome hi good to see you you too come on in a little bit different this time i think are you how did you feel about watching yourself well i was completely off the chart um as delusional as you can get what i felt at the time of recording was it was so hard to try and sort of you couldn't ask me any questions that made any sense because i was living in my own delusional world and you and you and you were trying to ask real world questions i think there's a point that's where i'd redesign the golf course that's right when i last saw you you were definitely in a mania yes what does that feel like does it feel good well it feels absolutely fantastic whatever you want to happen will happen and that you can do no wrong and everything everything is going to work exactly as you want even absolutely ludicrous things i think one thing that exacerbated everything is is i had a form of legal hive you were chain smoking yeah these odd cigarettes well they weren't cigarettes virtually nobody has ever been as high as and delusional as i've been you're even the best at that i've certainly gone higher than anybody else i think but of course that means you go lower than anybody else too how are you feeling well i mean i'm down i mean but i'm bouncing back a little bit as i'm beginning to get involved in sorting out the business activities you were an only child so you weren't like one of the kids so you didn't have that way of being average if you like and then because you're a golf champion and then a really very very successful businessman you never had any practice at just being another person that's definitely true that part and so if something did go a bit wrong then you hadn't got the ways and means or the practice of coping with that so maybe your brain then just switches into the mania so you don't have to face disappointment or that's a possibility in conjunction with the legal highs that have that have that have accelerated them yeah to an incredible degree a few years ago they arranged appointments with a psychologist what he said to me and it was that he spends virtually all of his time convincing people that it's okay to be average and of course i've always rebelled against that and tried to excel in in what i what i've done paul is undoubtedly a lot more sane than when i met him earlier um he's not deluded anymore but i do notice even in his sanity he has this all or nothing thinking going on i'm either the best or i'm the worst i'm more depressed than anyone else i'm higher than anyone else he describes his current depression as being circumstantial because he's at home looking after his mother and he's not achieving anything he's not got any net worth and i think that's sad because i think he is valuable the people i've met all have their highs and lows and obviously suffer great distress but i'm wondering how useful the bipolar diagnosis is because they're all so different i feel it might be more helpful to approach everyone as individuals with unique issues because although being labeled bipolar may help some people make sense of their moods it too often marks the end of self-exploration when in fact it should really be the beginning

Channel: Real Stories

Views: 159,849

Rating: 4.6968575 out of 5

Keywords: Real Stories, Real Stories Full Documentary, Real Stories Documentary, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, full documentary, full episode, bipolar disorder documentary, mental illness, health (industry), mental health, bipolar disorder, manic depression, health care, psychological disorders, bipolar disorder symptoms

Id: P0MEF-RWtBA

Length: 45min 48sec (2748 seconds)

Published: Thu May 14 2020