The Light Bulb Thing
A woman's story about becoming more manic, as she soars to the heights of euphoria, floating on the winds of disinhibition. And then, without warning, we see the fall to despair, to a dark world without meaning; an inner world of depression made all the worse by the still fresh memory of euphoria. This is the world of manic depression, from the oh-so-highs to the oh-so-lows, when the brightness within her – that light bulb thing – has gone out.
Director: Andy Glynne
Voice: Hannah
Animation Director: Paul Rains
Music: Alex Parsons
Transcript
In my final year I was asked to write an essay about dictionary which for me was just the complete antithesis of every reason why I should care about English. I found myself in the library writing these ridiculous things over and over again and my head started to explode because I wanted to write this linguistic big-bang theory.
I felt so attuned to everything I felt so sensitive to everything. I felt like I could feel what other people felt. What you don’t have at that point is a filter and it’s almost like you are walking down the streets you see everything, you feel everything and you know it becomes incredibly painful as well.
It’s when you are stopping to eat and you are stopping to sleep that you know that you are getting into a dangerous zone, where you can spin off. You become then incredibly light and quick on your feet, it’s great fun. But… but… you know there’s a definite point at which you should hold back.
Very, very gradually everybody withdraws their faith that you are coping and then you are on your own. And then you are in hospital.
Coming down from being high you feel a sense of loss and utterly role-less. It’s like I had a role I was a student and then I had a role I was in hospital and then I came out and I had nothing. So you feel that you don’t have a place and you don’t have a meaning anymore. It’s like it’s a constant not even wide noise, it’s like a tone.
So you wake up in the morning and you think God not this day again! It feels like you have done it already again. I remember looking at my fingernails and fingernails had grown, and I’m thinking because it seems it’s like all the same day and I used to think oh God I got to cut my fingernails. They think, my fingernails think the time has past but it hasn’t. It’s like the thing that turns you on, the light bulb thing that’s not there anymore.
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