Film: Boy, Interrupted

Tonight the Social Work Student Association, which I'm a part of, showed a film, Boy, Interrupted. It's a documentary that this couple made about their son who committed suicide. Here's a clip:




It was intense, to say the least. The parents are filmmakers, so they had essentially documented their family's life, and so had clips of their son throughout his childhood. They decided to make this film a few years after he committed suicide, and included interviews with other family members as well as doctors and school staff whom their son had worked with.
The gist was that their son, Evan, had talked about death, dying, and killing from a very young age, and was eventually diagnosed as bipolar. It was a fascinating profile on someone with bipolar disorder, especially being so young (he committed suicide at 15). There were many things that struck me, but a couple really stood out. For one, the family was clearly quite well off and intellectual. At one point Evan was placed in a therapeutic group-home setting. The place was pretty incredible, and I just thought how fortunate they were to be able to afford such a thing. Not to mention just their general privilege as far as their awareness, access to services, and family and community support. Many, many individuals and families who face similar issues do no have such things.
The other thing that really stuck with me was that the psychiatrist who had worked with Evan for years, and had initially prescribed him lithium, commented on medication and bipolar disorder. A few weeks or months before Evan took his life he had asked to go off of his medication to see how he would do without. Since he had been doing quite well for several years, both his parents and his doctor agreed. He eased off, and reported feeling ok, but his parents noticed a shift back to his depressed behavior, and so had scheduled an appointment to get his dose increased again. 2 days before that appointment, Evan died. What the psychiatrist mentioned was that they would have been able to save him for a while longer, but that most people- I believe he said "all these kids"- eventually want to go off the meds. And this is what happens; for Evan, it was particularly quick. Most people I've known who take on-going medication, either for a physical or mental illness, have at some point tried going off of them for a while. And I think it's pretty understandable, if someone has maintained a good level of health for a while, that they want to test their own ability to cope again. And yet, what the doctor seemed to be saying, was that for the kids with bipolar disorder who do this, the illness comes racing back, every time- that it's particularly dangerous.
I just felt like that was very sad. I can imagine the frustration with that situation- because medications have side effects that people just have to accept. I can also imagine it being pretty scary to know how heavily your functioning depends on this one thing. And of course, just the overall sadness of what people with this disorder may have to endure emotionally and mentally. It was very thought-provoking, and hopefully can increase awareness of bipolar disorder, especially for families dealing with shocking symptoms in very young children.