This Is a Person's Life!

I understand that it's human nature to stop and look at the train wreck as it happens.  It's who we are as humans.  I get it.  But what do you see when you look at the train wreck that is Charlie Sheen right now?  Do you see entertainment?  Or instead, do you see a person in the process of a highly manic episode who is in serious need of help?

For those of us who have a friend or relative who is depressive, manic depressive or an addict, watching Charlie Sheen for the last few weeks is anything but entertainment.  It's a scary reminder of what we've seen in the lives of those we care about, both the ones who live with their condition and those who lost the battle to live with their condition.  And we wish more than anything that people would stop treating Charlie Sheen and his actions or words as entertainment.  Let me be clear- the man is NOT entertainment!

This is a person with a serious medical condition that alters his body chemistry so severely that he literally can't think straight.  So he rambles and makes no sense when he talks.  He has no impulse control whatsoever and makes really bad decisions in his life- like calling random radio stations or hopping a jet at the spur of a moment with porn stars.  He has grandiose ideas about himself and thinks he's invincible.  He feels like he's riding on a roller coaster that he literally can't stop- even if in a moment of clarity he wants to stop it.  And for those of us with experience in this area we know that there's only one outcome to all of this- the inevitable crash.

And when the crash comes, it will be more ugly, violent, and heartbreaking to him and his family and friends than you can imagine.  If he's lucky, he'll survive it and get help to manage his life and condition better from here on out.  And if he's not lucky, he either doesn't survive the crash at all or he survives it and cycles down for a while, only to  return to this state again at some point.  That's the kicker to all of this.  It's a never-ending cycle that never fully goes away- you only really survive by learning how to tame the beast, or the black dog as Churchill called it, and how to live with it.  Otherwise, in the end the condition makes you its slave.

Now, did anything I wrote in the last two paragraphs above read remotely like entertainment?  I didn't think so.