LIVING AND LOVING WITH BIPOLAR DISORDER

Ishita Ahuja

It is often difficult for the media to accurately portray what it is like to live with a mental health disorder and they often stereotype people as being “dangerous” and “frightening”. But recently there have been various television shows and movies that have humanized mental health disorders and tried their best to portray these in a realistic manner. Amazon Prime’s new series “Modern Love” is amongst the TV shows that have successfully portrayed mental health disorders. The show is based on real stories published in a column in The New York Times by the same name. The third episode of this show called ‘Take Me as I Am, Whoever I Am’ follows the story of Lexi, played by Anne Hathaway as she takes the viewers through her struggle with bipolar disorder. In the episode, adapted from the life of Terri Cheney, Anne Hathaway portrays a woman battling the symptoms of bipolar disorder in her personal as well as professional life.

Bipolar disorder is a mental health condition characterized by extreme and intense emotional states that occur at distinct times and extreme alterations in energy levels  The emotional states, also known as mood episodes are characterized as manic, hypomanic or depressive. This disorder causes dramatic mood swings ranging from people feeling more energetic than usual and feeling “on top of the world” -- manic episodes, to people feeling sad and hopeless -- depressive episodes. Although the symptoms of bipolar disorder can be controlled with medication, it does have an effect on a person’s personal as well as professional life.

The episode shows an accurate glimpse into the life of someone combating a mental health disorder and how the disorder manifests itself into the various aspects of their life. The episode begins with Lexi filling out an online dating profile, her answer to a question that asks who she results in her taking the viewers along on her journey with bipolar disorder. Although the disorders is not mentioned explicitly at first, she begins by describing an incident that occurred during a manic episode. Through the progression of the episode, we can see how hiding the disorder and not divulging details of it impacts Lexi’s relationships and job. We see her transition from someone full of life and productive to someone struggling to get out of bed on certain days. 

Navigating her life accompanied by this disorder we are given insight into how relationships are impacted due to this. Lexi meets a man in the fruit aisle of a grocery store during a manic episode and is set to go out on a date with him later that week, but as the week progresses we see her struggle to even make it out of bed to work. Not cancelling the date, Lexi goes to meet him but it is as though a completely different person has attended the date as compared to the one he met in the grocery store. Her job is put in jeopardy too as her inability to make it out of bed causes her to miss too many days of work. Her boss urges her to try and improve her attendance at work but on missing even more days since then she is let go off. It is only after this that Lexi opens up to her boss and friend about her disorder and we can see how liberating that was for her. 

The episode has garnered a lot of praise for the accuracy of the depiction of bipolar disorder. Terri Cheney herself praised Hathaway’s portrayal of her story and commends her for her performance. Cheney was moved not only by Hathaway’s “mini-musical” manic episode but also by her very raw and real reenactment of a depressive episode. Depression is a much harder episode to accurately portray as mania is often like an energetic production with a lot of sparkle and happiness, but depression and its intricacies are harder and more complex. Hathaway’s breakdown in the episode moves the viewers and Cheney herself spoke about how that touched her. 

Drawing inspiration from Terri Cheney’s article in the ‘Modern Love’ column as well as her memoir, Lexi’s life and her struggle with bipolar disorder was insightful into the life of someone battling this disorder and how it manifests itself in every aspect, affecting everything from daily functionality, to their professional life, friendships and relationships. Anne Hathaway and the directors of the show have done justice to Terri Cheney’s journey and the depiction of both living and loving with bipolar disorder. 

References:

Cheney, T. (2019, October 10). Bipolar Love, Anne Hathaway, and Me. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-bipolar-lens/201910/bipolar-love-anne-hathaway-and-me.

Butcher J.N, Mineka S, Hooley J.M, Kapoor P (2019) Abnormal Psychology (17th ed) Pearson India

Carney, John. (2019, October 18). Take me as I am, whoever I am. [3] Hofmann, Trish, Modern Love. New York: Amazon Prime Video.