A Dance Between Darkness & Light: My Struggle With Bipolar Disorder
From: Aubrey Ralph
Length: 09:31
When you look into the eyes of someone who’s Bi-Polar, it’s like looking at a hurricane from space. You can see the swirling mass, but the real horror and devastation are a hundred miles below you, only visible in your imagination.
I have been fighting this for most of my life, and using story and sound design I'll take you into my mind, so you can see what that storm looks like from the inside.
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2 Comments
Amen, brotherI happen to share the producer's condition. I thought it was described very aptly here, and creatively too. |
Broadcast History
Wisconsin Public Radio: To The Best Of Our Knowledge - 29 May 2011
Transcript
A Dance Between Darkness & Light: My Struggle With Bipolar Disorder
Music in:
When you hear someone say Bipolar disorder, what comes to mind? What do you think of? Those comedy / tragedy drama masks, or eccentric musicians, who famously fell.
Cut: Hendrix
Maybe you’ve heard the term, but don’t really know what it means. Unlike Jimi Hendrix, most people with bipolar disorder are not open about it, and there are a lot of us. Its been estimated that 5.7 million Americans are Bipolar. That’s 2% of the population, including myself, living mostly in the dark. Unlike a disease of the body, a sickness of the mind fundamentally changes who you are. It messes with your programing like a virus in a computer. Bipolar disorder is especially devastating because of the way it tears you back and forth between invincibility and hopelessness. Even when you find the courage to seek help, doct...
Read the full transcript
Intro and Outro
INTRO:When you look into the eyes of someone who’s Bi-Polar, it’s like looking at a hurricane from space. You can see the swirling mass, but the horror and devastation are a hundred miles below you, only visible in your imagination.
Well, producer Aubrey Ralph has been living in that storm for most of his life, and he’ll be our guide, taking us down past the clouds, and into the darkness that lies at the core of it.
Musical Works
| Title | Artist | Album | Label | Year | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Riverz End | Skinny Puppy | Last Rights . | Nettwerk/Capitol | 1992 | 00:20 |
| Manic Depression | Jimmy Hendrix | Are You Experienced. | Track Records | 1967 | 00:10 |
| A.I.N. | Obka | Cuts From The Vault . | Follow/Sunset | 2008 | 01:06 |
| Lux Aeterna | Stuttgart Schola Cantorum | 2001: A Space Odyssey (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). | Turner Entertainment | 1968 | 00:43 |
| Help Me, I Am In Hell | Nine Inch Nails | Broken . | TVT/Interscope Records | 1992 | 00:40 |
| Moodswing | Doubting Thomas | The Infidel . | Wax Trax Records | 1991 | 00:45 |
| Poison | Alice Cooper | Trash. | Sony Music Entertainment | 1989 | 00:12 |
| Something I Can Never Have | Nine Inch Nails | Pretty Hate Machine. | 1989 | 00:04 | |
| Fritter | Skinny Puppy | Too Dark Park. | Nettwerk/Capitol | 1990 | 00:20 |
| Natures Revenge | Skinny Puppy | Too Dark Park . | Nettwerk/Capitol | 1990 | 00:23 |
| Corona Radiata | Nine Inch Nails | The Slip. | The Null Corporation | 2010 | 01:10 |
| The Pedestrian Boogie | The Bloodsugars | I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On. | Engine Room Records | 2009 | 00:55 |
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Deanna Clohessy
Posted on April 05, 2012 at 12:35 AM | Permalink
Heartbreaking
Having spent more than a year in a relationship with a Bi-Polar person, my heart broke all over again listening to this. There is nothing as heart-wrenching as watching the person to whom you've given your life, your heart, devolve into someone you don't know - someone who can be a hateful and miserable opposite of the sweet and sensitive person you love.
You know you love this person with every fiber of your being, and yet they're never quite within your reach. You can't rightfully hate them because you know they aren't really themselves, but at the same time you have to protect yourself - and there's a lot of guilt and conflict and pain associated with that.
I've looked into those eyes and watched that swirling hurricane. I've been on the ground and survived the first side, and never fully relaxing during the eye of the storm because it was always only a matter of time before the other side of the storm slammed into our world again. I've lived it on the outside. Now Aubrey puts a sound and a voice to the disorder on the inside - a haunting rendition of what I always imagined it sounded like behind those stormy eyes.