Lately, I've been thinking about the musical Next to Normal. I had the honor of seeing it in February at The Kennedy Center before the world went to shit. It was a Christmas/birthday present from my mom. The show deals with bipolar disorder and PTSD.
The story centers on a mother who struggles with worsening bipolar disorder and the effects that managing her illness has on her family.
Rowdy just released a video of The Simpsons episode, Moaning Lisa to address how it's okay to be angry during these hard times. There are two songs in this show that break me as they go together and speak to how I feel sometimes during a really bad time.
The first song, You Don't Know, Diana is angry in this scene as she has stopped taking meds that were helping her but she stopped after being convinced by the hallucination of her dead son to do so. This song is one that gets me as everything Diana says is a perfect summation of how people dealing with mental illness. The biggest line that gets me is this one.
Do you know, do you know, what it's like to die alive?
As that is what my seizures often feel like but on a broader scale, this is an honest assessment of what it likes to think that you are being judged for everything that you are doing and one misstep will be the end of you. This reminds me of a piece of MLP fan art where a class was mocking Derpy by calling her that in a bullying fashion. While what Diana goes through is much severe, there is a point of believing that you aren't good enough. Something else to understand about Diana is that the emotions that she is expressing here are the first true emotions that she is expressing as the meds that she was were suppressing who she truly is. While lashing out may be intense, this speaks to the core message of Rowdy's video, you are going to be sad or angry and people have to accept that.
Things will not always be easy and this is where her husband Dan comes in, with his song, he is trying to be for his wife no matter how much the hallucination of their dad leads her astray. I believe that the opening lines for his song are the most important.
Can you tell me what it is you're afraid of?
Can you tell me why I'm afraid it's me?
He doesn't know how to help his wife but he wants to and this is the biggest point to make as people may not always take to the help that you want to offer. And that's okay, you have to let them work things out on their own accord sometimes. You can't force people to get better, it takes time and if you force people to get better, you could end up making them worse than they were when they wanted to lash out and let out all those angry emotions. While I'm a generally happy person, I've had my bad days and both these songs reflect that. And right now if someone wants to be angry/sad, you have to let them.
