Margaret Trudeau

Posted on May 7, 2006 in Journalists & Pundits Stigma

I think the celebrities who come out to tell their stories mean well, but the media often screws up and sensationalizes so that the rest of us feel isolated and unimportant.

Another celebrity comes forth to tell us that she suffers from mood swings. Margaret Trudeau revealed that she has been suffering from bipolar disorder since the 1970s, when she gave birth to her second child. Apparently oblivious of lithium, she stated in a Friday confession that there wasn’t help for her back then. Others report a wild life that included orgies with the Rolling Stones that preceded her “fall”.

The most bothersome part of this story is that Canadian newspapers describe Trudeau’s condition as “depression”. I feel this perpetuates the stigma against those of us who suffer from bipolar disorder. Trudeau herself described her disease as bipolar depression or Type 2 bipolar. The media, therefore, reinforces the stigma and misunderstanding. Depression, the subtext goes, is cool, but bipolar scares people and no one wants to impugn a favorite of the papparazi with such an unpredictable and embarassing disease!

I thank Margaret Trudeau for her courage to tell the rest of us what has moved her passions all these years. I thank her doctors for being there. And I point once again to media refusal to acknowledge that sufferers of bipolar disorder can function and contribute to Society. Fie on the purblind prosodists and headline writers! Fie on them!