Last night ABC premiered a new drama called Black Box. It focuses on a very successful neurologist, Catherine Black, who is hiding the fact that she has bipolar disorder, but because of her own personal issues she is able to show her patients compassion that other doctors may lack.
It's a drama, in a ten pm time slot, so did I expect it to be a documentary or a true life depiction of a day in the life of? No. I anticipated that it would be salacious and glamorized, but I hoped it would be more responsible. It's as if the writers pulled from the wikipedia definition of what it is to be bipolar and squeezed it all into one episode. And the clincher is that she frequently and deliberately goes off her meds to achieve a high that she feels allows her to be at her best. Here in lies the moral and ethical dilemma of the show.
When someone who is has bipolar disorder is non-compliant with their medication, they can be self-destructive. They usually cycle through extreme mood changes such as a euphoric mania, an intense agitation, and self loathing depression. There are those who cycle through rapidly and those who cycle through over months at a time. But, the show's character skips her medication for one day and all hell breaks lose? That may be the case for a few but not the majority. And I can tell you from experience with my son, her return to work the following day is highly unlikely. Anyone having cycled through a gamut of extreme emotion would be exhausted. She was also able to hide her condition from her boyfriend of one year, having gone off her meds several times. That would be impossible to hide for that long without some red flags being raised. There were definitely creative liberties taken here. And wouldn't it be lovely to have a state of the art facility such as the one where Black works, available to us all? I can guarantee you I'd be battling with my insurance company over whether it is 'necessary coverage', and there is nothing glamorous about that!
There were some very emotional moments that hit home with me though. I was caught off guard by my own reaction to her being placed in the ambulance and put in restraints. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Her struggle to maintain relationships, keeping her secret so that people would "like" her, was all too familiar. Hiding this condition is a lot of work and can contribute to triggers that set off a cycle of mania and depression.
One constant running throughout the show was the term "normalize". In her work, it is her job to normalize her patients whether through surgery or med therapy, but she wrestles with wanting that for herself. She doesn't feel that everyone needs to be what society deems normal. I like to think of the word "normalize" not so much as a label, but as a vehicle to assist someone with mental illness, to live their most productive life possible. Normal is a spectrum in and of itself, and most people if honest aren't comfortable living on the fringe, especially when not by choice. Perhaps normal should be subjective, but we clearly put people in categories we are comfortable with. When Catherine is manic and putting herself in danger because she cannot control her impulses, she is faced with the question posed to her by her psychiatrist, "do you want to be exceptional and dead?" Her point being that her risk taking would end her life at some point, and that staying on her medication and normalizing was necessary to stay alive, for herself, her work, and for who is later revealed as her daughter.
I vacillate back and forth between wanting this show to succeed in order to get the word out, and settling for the way it is done. I had my own reservations as I mentioned and waited until this morning to read the opinions of so many with bipolar posting on message boards. I may have experience with this, but it is those who are actually diagnosed with bipolar disorder who truly know whether they are accurately represented. Many, many did not like the show for the way it handled not taking medication. Not to mention the fact that it focused primarily on the mania, easier to glamorize the highs as opposed to the lows. The depression in bipolar is very real and dark but a one hour drama can't spend much time on something that doesn't make good TV. My question is whether it had an impact on those who do not live with mental illness in some capacity? Did it prompt you to question more? Did it give you cause for more compassion? Did it help you to understand something you knew nothing about? Or was it simply entertainment? Is it true that any press is good press? At what cost? I hope that this prompts more documentaries to be made, so the general public can get a glimpse of what really does happen in the day and the life of someone with a mental illness and those who love them.
Did you watch? What did you think?
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