1976 - Growing Up Bipolar

1976 - Growing Up Bipolar is a disturbing but darkly humorous and life-affirming mental health memoir by Mark Fleming, a Scottish writer and musician. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in his 20s, Fleming takes the reader into bipolar's depths of depression and unnatural highs of mania, and is candid about his experiences of locked psych wards, the debilitating side-effects of anti-psychotic drugs, and the terrifying places his deluded mind took him to.

Much of the book's timescale overlaps with Grant McPhee's award-winning documentary, Big Gold Dream: The Sound of Young Scotland 1977-1985. 1976 - Growing Up Bipolar also celebrates Scotland's electrifying indie and post-punk music and cultural scenes, with anecdotes about gigging, songwriting, recording sessions at BBC's Maida Vale studios, and teenage obsessions with sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. The cathartic impact of John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show and a long-time devotion to Manchester post-punk legends The Fall figure prominently.

Delving deep into the psyche of a chemically-imbalanced mind, he relives a tragic event during the 1976 heatwave that inflicted the mental injury that might have triggered his bipolar disorder.

Back cover of 1976 - Growing Up Bipolar by mental health writer Mark Fleming

Mark Fleming playing guitar with Desperation AM, an Edinburgh postpunk band, alongside L-R Paul Research and Ross Galloway

background

"I came from a stable, loving family in Edinburgh, had an active social life, wrote short-stories that were published, went through the whole punk thing, playing in bands, gigging across Scotland, getting airplay... only to fall seriously ill with depression and put on long-term anti-psychotic drugs...

This is what happened.

excerpt: low

Signed-off work with stress, I'm actually undergoing a serious mental episode. Today I've tuned into TV coverage of the Tory party conference being held in the Winter Gardens in Blackpool. My delusions spiralling out of control, I think the latest speaker, Norman Tebbit, isn't addressing the crowd. He's talking directly to me.

Rollercoaster, metaphor for uncontrollable highs of bipolar

excerpt: high

BrainBomb describes the downs and ups of bipolar disorder. If the downs represent depression, apathy, and paranoia, the ups, characterised by constant elation, are surely less distressing? No.

excerpt: RECOVERY

After a downward spiral of depression, memories of pogoing to Stiff Little Fingers during my punk youth helped to spark a painstaking recovery.