Some time ago, I was put into the hospital and diagnosed with a lively case of bipolar disorder. It was terrible and expensive and I do not recommendit to anybody.
Pictures from an installation at FLOORSPACE gallery
After that, I went through a phase of telling everyone I knew all about it. If a friend asked a simple "how's it going?" I would launch into a long narrative about my stay in the hospital, how I was on this medication, what the medication does, and I would proffer my views of the sane vs. the insane. I felt it my duty to talk about it, in hopes that others would not be afraid to discuss such things.
I wrote about it in my e-zine, and I also did an installation at an art gallery that I was running at the time. On display as the installation was a journal I had kept in the hospital, hospital clothes and some other paraphrenalia I had managed to sneak out of the hospital with. More embarassing than a personal journal on display for all to see, was the fact that no one opened it. After the show, I realized that the story of a white, midle-class male's trip to the loony bin was not only uninteresting in itself, but it made for uninteresting art as well.
...personal journal on display for all to see
Tapes of me rambling
Since then, I have stopped telling my stories and opinions about the 'insain' so much and have develped a deeper understanding of the mentally unstable. The main insight I gained is that we don't shut up. We are like old men who talk about their aches and pains and tell detailed accounts about trips to the doctor and our bowel movements. It got so that I was sick of hearing myself talk about it. And now I'm sick of writing about it...