Flipswitch

On our show, we talk about a lot of things.  And more than one person has brought up this question: “Why should we listen to you people?  What makes you know so much?“  There’s a good answer to that and a not so good answer to that.

The good answer is that I have quite a few years of training in the psychological area and so know my stuff pretty darn well.  The other good answer is that our co-hosts all know what the stresses of high school and college are like first hand currently.  They don’t have to remember…they know.

The not so good answer is that it’s really hard to account for both the amazing amount of things that come up when someone is stricken with a mood disorder as well as the sheer momentum of a mood disorder.  By that, I mean it is easy to say things like “Get good sleep or it will eventually trigger a depression or a mania.”  But in the grips of a depression and especially in the grips of a mania, that sentence is just a string of words put together.  It becomes much like telling someone to get over their lifelong pet dog that was run over that day.  It just seems impossible if not absurd to suggest something so obvious and so, at the time, seemingly shallow.

Because of those things that are hard to account for with mood disorders, it’s often hard for us to convey a real taste of what true depression, true mania, true bipolar disorder, etc looks and feels like.  Worse, it’s sometimes hard for our co-hosts to think about because, indeed, they are a motivated bunch that, generally speaking, things are going pretty well for right now.  However, sometimes life clears all that away for you, and puts you face to face with the genuine souls that must deal with the stark realities of a mood disorder, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all.

That’s exactly what happened with Claire.  We became aware of Claire after she asked permission to use part of one our videos in a movie she was putting together for Youtube.  After seeing her video, we knew we had to get her on our show, as her video was a perfect example of someone taking matters into their own hands to make things better for everyone.  In a word, it’s advocacy.

Upon meeting Claire, we were struck by the sometimes harrowing story of her depression:  thoughts of suicide, more than one long stint in a hospital, disruptions with school, interpersonal issues, etc.   Any one of the parts of her story would have been a lot for any of us to handle.

After hearing her story, one might well have expected Claire to be a reclusive and morbidly quiet person, almost crying when she had the energy.  But that wasn’t Claire at all.  She was quite different.  She was full of life.  Full of hope.  Full of desire to let us all in to her world in order to get the message out that things don’t have to be hidden, that there’s no shame in falling prey to a mood disorder as it happens a lot in this world.

And that is what passion for an idea can do for you.  It can give you the drive to think past the bad things that have befallen you in order for some greater purpose. In this instance, Claire’s passion was for bringing the specter of depression out of the stigmatizing dark world of “hide it at all costs” and making it something we could all talk about. Claire was/is trying to make the world better by making videos about mood disorders that shed light on the world.   And she’s got one golden rule going for her:  if you’re feeling something, it’s likely someone somewhere is also feeling the same thing.  Sharing your world with others really does help.

And that’s what really changed all of us at Flipswitch:  We got to see someone up close and personal that not only struggles and makes mistakes while dealing with depression, but also strives to overcome it and to be better.  Not to say that she always succeeds, but that she detests being depressed and the stigma that goes with it, aiming to fight it with every ounce of her being.  We got to see that fire.  It became quite real for us.  And we’re all better people for it.

In my next blogpost, I’ll talk a little bit about the actual video itself that became our centerpiece for the advocacy show and the things Claire did to make it and help get people talking about the all too often hidden problems of depression and bipolar disorder.  If you’d like to check out her video, it’s broken into three parts on youtube.  Just go to http://www.youtube.com/depressionfree.

Until next time, find your own way to bring light to the darkness.

Chris