Reply #7: He is bipolar

[Treehugger]

Given my background, I am very, very interested in the brain. "Mel Gibson talks about being diagnosed as bipolar in a new documentary about the NIDA acting class of 1977. . ."I had really good highs, but some very low lows," Gibson said. "I found out recently I'm manic depressive."

Needless to say, this is all conjecture, but my $.02 diagnosis says that he's mucked up from a number of things--

1) he was raised under a fanatical father (have you read up on this guy? Christ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutton_Gibson) who taught his boys a sense of entitlement from day 1;
2) He was evidently too weak (yes, macho guy, *weak*) to really break from that;
3) Celebrity = greater sense of entitlement
3) Severe alcoholism
4) Bipolar disorder (that he quite likely doesn't control very well b/c it is 'unmanly')

(Isn't it always fun to play dimestore psychiatrist? :P )

I'll cap this off by saying that I am so sorry for the pain so many of you have experienced. It goes without saying that domestic violence is a huge and all-too-hidden problem. I am very fortunate that I have never experienced it--I have always been surrounded in gentleness. However, I have a couple of new friends who in the past had to literally flee in the night.

Sure it's tabloid fodder (I confess, I don't usually do so, but I am near-obsessed with keeping track of this one--don't recall doing that to this extent, ever. Well, I do have OCD too, lol). However, I think it is good in that it is bringing domestic violence and uncontrolled mental illness/alcoholism into the arena of the general public. I mean, let's face it, a good deal of us are interested in what particular celebrities do (albeit I could care less about a good chunk of them. I'm 38, so most of "my" celebrities are becoming increasingly irrelevant as these untalented little punks take over).

Yeah, so, given the position I've been in, his mental issues fascinate me. So do train wrecks. :D