Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive | |
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Directed by | Ross Wilson |
Starring | Stephen Fry |
No. of episodes | 2 |
Original release | |
Release | 2006 |
Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive is a 2006 two-part television documentary directed by Ross Wilson and featuring British actor and comedian Stephen Fry. [1] It explores the effects of living with bipolar disorder on other celebrities and members of the public. Fry suffers from a less severe version of the illness called cyclothymia. [2] It won the International Emmy Award for Best Documentary at the 35th International Emmys in 2007. [3]
A follow-up documentary, titled The Not So Secret Life of the Manic Depressive: 10 Years On , aired in February 2016. [4]
The Robbie Williams segment, featured in the original BBC broadcast, was cut from further airings as well as the DVD release, likely due to copyright issues with the musical inserts.
Peter Gabriel was reportedly approached to appear. "After my divorce, I got very depressed and ended up doing three years' therapy with my ex-wife and three years on my own," he stated to Mark Blake. "I believe in being open about this, and that led Stephen to believe that I'm bipolar. To the best of my knowledge, I am not bipolar. I can be a little up and down, but not the same extremes as manic depressives I have known. But I think it's helpful to talk about this, especially for men." [5]
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that each last from days to weeks. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with psychosis, it is called mania; if it is less severe, it is called hypomania. During mania, an individual behaves or feels abnormally energetic, happy or irritable, and they often make impulsive decisions with little regard for the consequences. There is usually also a reduced need for sleep during manic phases. During periods of depression, the individual may experience crying and have a negative outlook on life and poor eye contact with others. The risk of suicide is high; over a period of 20 years, 6% of those with bipolar disorder died by suicide, while 30–40% engaged in self-harm. Other mental health issues, such as anxiety disorders and substance use disorders, are commonly associated with bipolar disorder.
Mania, also known as manic syndrome, is a mental and behavioral disorder defined as a state of abnormally elevated arousal, affect, and energy level, or "a state of heightened overall activation with enhanced affective expression together with lability of affect." During a manic episode, an individual will experience rapidly changing emotions and moods, highly influenced by surrounding stimuli. Although mania is often conceived as a "mirror image" to depression, the heightened mood can be either euphoric or dysphoric. As the mania intensifies, irritability can be more pronounced and result in anxiety or anger.
A mood disorder, also known as an affective disorder, is any of a group of conditions of mental and behavioral disorder where a disturbance in the person's mood is the main underlying feature. The classification is in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
Stephen John Fry is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer. He first came to prominence as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1989–1995) and Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993). He also starred in the sketch series Alfresco (1983–1984) alongside Laurie, Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane, and in Blackadder (1986–1989) alongside Rowan Atkinson. Since 2011, he has served as president of the mental health charity Mind.
James Hugh Calum Laurie is an English actor, comedian, writer, and musician. He first gained recognition for his work as one half of the comedy double act Fry and Laurie with Stephen Fry. The two acted together in a number of projects during the 1980s and 1990s, including the BBC sketch comedy series A Bit of Fry & Laurie and the P. G. Wodehouse adaptation Jeeves and Wooster. From 1986 to 1989 he appeared in three series of the period comedy Blackadder, first as a guest star in the last two episodes of Blackadder II, before joining the main cast in Blackadder the Third, and going on to appear in Blackadder Goes Forth and many specials.
Tony Declan James Slattery is an English actor and comedian. He appeared on British television regularly from the mid-1980s, most notably as a regular on the Channel 4 improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? His serious and comedic film work has included roles in The Crying Game, Peter's Friends and How to Get Ahead in Advertising.
Anna Marie "Patty" Duke was an American actress. Over the course of her acting career, she was the recipient of an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Maurice Benard is an American actor. He played Nico Kelly in the ABC daytime soap opera All My Children from 1987 to 1990 and in 1991 portrayed Desi Arnaz in the biographical television film Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter. In 1993, Benard began starring as Sonny Corinthos in the ABC soap opera General Hospital. For his role in General Hospital, Benard received three Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
Links between creativity and mental health have been extensively discussed and studied by psychologists and other researchers for centuries. Parallels can be drawn to connect creativity to major mental disorders including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, OCD and ADHD. For example, studies have demonstrated correlations between creative occupations and people living with mental illness. There are cases that support the idea that mental illness can aid in creativity, but it is also generally agreed that mental illness does not have to be present for creativity to exist.
Cyclical variations in moods and energy levels have been recorded at least as far back as several thousand years. The words "melancholia" and "mania" have their etymologies in Ancient Greek. The word melancholia is derived from melas/μελας, meaning "black", and chole/χολη, meaning "bile" or "gall", indicative of the term's origins in pre-Hippocratic humoral theories. A man known as Aretaeus of Cappadocia has the first records of analyzing the symptoms of depression and mania in the 1st century of Greece. There is documentation that explains how bath salts were used to calm those with manic symptoms and also help those who are dealing with depression. Even today, lithium is used as a treatment to bipolar disorder which is significant because lithium could have been an ingredient in the Greek bath salt. Centuries passed and very little was studied or discovered. It wasn't until the mid-19th century that a French psychiatrist by the name of Jean-Pierre Falret wrote an article describing "circular insanity" and this is believed to be the first recorded diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Years later, in the early 1900s, Emil Kraepelin, a German psychiatrist, analyzed the influence of biology on mental disorders, including bipolar disorder. His studies are still used as the basis of classification of mental disorders today.
The 2007 British Academy Television Awards were held on Sunday 20 May at the London Palladium Theatre in London. They were broadcast live on BBC One in the UK. The nominations were announced on 11 April 2007.
Bipolar II disorder (BP-II) is a mood disorder on the bipolar spectrum, characterized by at least one episode of hypomania and at least one episode of major depression. Diagnosis for BP-II requires that the individual must never have experienced a full manic episode. Otherwise, one manic episode meets the criteria for bipolar I disorder (BP-I).
A Summer in the Cage is a 2007 documentary film about a man's experiences with bipolar disorder. The film follows the filmmaker's friend Sam and features an interview with mental health scholar Kay Redfield Jamison. It was directed by Benjamin Selkow. The documentary debuted on the Sundance Channel in 2007.
Elizabeth Sinclair Miller is a British physician, surgeon, campaigner and writer noted for her outspoken stance on mental health, and bipolar disorder in particular. Although she has a long history of television and radio appearances, she came to public prominence in Stephen Fry's Emmy Award-winning documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive in 2006. In 2008 she was voted Mind Champion of the Year by public poll.
Cyclothymia, also known as cyclothymic disorder, psychothemia / psychothymia, bipolar III, affective personality disorder and cyclothymic personality disorder, is a mental and behavioural disorder that involves numerous periods of symptoms of depression and periods of symptoms of elevated mood. These symptoms, however, are not sufficient to indicate a major depressive episode or a manic episode. Symptoms must last for more than one year in children and two years in adults.
The International Emmy Award for Best Documentary is presented since 1967 by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (IATAS) to the best documentaries produced and aired initially outside the United States.
Hypomania is a mental and behavioral disorder, characterised essentially by an apparently non-contextual elevation of mood (euphoria) that contributes to persistently disinhibited behaviour.
The Not So Secret Life of the Manic Depressive: 10 Years On is a documentary by Stephen Fry. It was broadcast on the BBC in February 2016. It is a 10-year follow-up to The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. In this documentary, Fry looked at how attitudes and awareness around mental health have changed in the intervening 10 years.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to bipolar disorder: