Bipolar Prison

Bipolar Prison (2016)

Hand-dyed cotton and alpaca, triple weave with integrated and separated layers, quilted

Bipolar Prison is a retrospective account of living inside an undiagnosed mind. For twenty years, I lived between mania and depression – between fire and drowning, between exhilaration and despair, with no way to make sense of what was happening. It nearly drove me to suicide twice before my bipolar disorder was diagnosed and treated.

The structure of the piece reflects its subject. Triple weave – three layers of cloth woven simultaneously – represents a consciousness that is both unified and divided against itself. Where the layers separate, they are padded, giving the bars physical as well as visual presence. The face in the center is quilted to add expression.

These are not decorative choices. The work is physically dimensional because the experience of bipolar disorder is both physical and multidimensional. Unlike many other forms of mental illness, bipolar disorder is biologically and genetically driven. It is one of the most heritable genetic disorders, having its basis in the body and not the mind. It is not identity; it is not the person living inside its prison. It is a biological disorder that is often stereotyped and poorly understood.

Color carries the emotional design of the piece. The yellows and oranges of hypomania burn throughout the composition – intense, painful, but also exhilarating. Many people with bipolar disorder refuse treatment because they miss the highs of the “up” cycles, even though they can be as destructive as fire. Against them, the deep blues of depression strike like psychological bruising, the equally painful weight of waking up exhausted and hopeless. The two states do not blend so much as collide.

The bars and wire-mesh patterning produce a third layer: confinement. To be trapped in a cycling mood disorder is to be imprisoned – not by external circumstance, but by the architecture of one’s own body. Because bipolar disorder is genetic, it is also lifelong and inescapable unless diagnosed and treated.

I am grateful for modern medicine, which today allows me to live a normal life.