Amy Winehouse, a hard pill to swallow

So it’s almost the end of Dry July and the words ‘detox’, ‘rehab’, ‘get clean’ come to mind and all I can think of is the recent passing of Amy Winehouse.

Not since the shock of Cobain’s suicide in 1994 has a celebrity’s death shaken me up so much. All I see in the pictures is deeply troubled turmoil and I’m not the cry-baby type yet its brought me to tears on more than a few occasions. But it’s been the constant barrage of negativity and judgement of the self-righteous commentary that has made me feel so sad. Comments such as “you should have said ‘yes’ Amy” on her Rehab YouTube and “where were her family and friends?”

The sad truth of it all is that Amy suffered from Bipolar disorder and was constantly self-medicating (a symptom of the disorder) at least she knew it. She didn’t want to take the personality numbing medication her Doctors prescribed her. Yes we saw her public struggle and demise that she wasn’t afraid to hide. People self-medicate - that’s what we do it’s a choice. If the statistics are true that one in four of us will suffer from a mental illness during our lives, why are we all up in arms about this? People spend $1,000’s on therapy but yet they can judge others for drinking and falling over during some troubling times. The whole judgement culture we have spawned and developed, not helped by reality TV is doing no-one any favours, where is the love and compassion?

Depression is rife in my family amongst other things and we are big self-medicators. And thanks to the attempts to instil some good old-fashioned puritanical Christendom during our youth, a night of self-expressionist medication can result in double the feeling of shitness the next day given the self-judgement we were taught. Thanks God, you’ve done wonders for my self-image.

A few years back during a particularly bad break up, my Doctor offered me: Xanax, Valiums, Mogadon and Normasins. Imagine the state I would have been in if I had of accepted this generous offer from the legal drug business.

But I decided to self-medicate through the whole deal, OK it took a good two years. However, if I had chosen the cocktail my Doctor offered up I certainly wouldn’t have achieved the consistent High Distinctions from my college, I definitely couldn’t have grew the part of the business I was working in 4 times over and I sure as hell wouldn’t have trained for the half-marathons I ran.

I’m not saying Amy was right, I’m not saying she was wrong, clearly its all ended tragically; I’m just offering an alternative to judging her decisions. From where I see it, Amy Winehouse was a phenomenal artist who chose her own ways of medicating and she left (us) the world with some magic to be remembered forever. I wonder what all those self-righteous “you should have said ‘yes’ Amy” types will leave the world besides their uptight, allergy ridden children. For all those judging her family, producer and friends for not helping, crawl back into your little IKEA decorated holes and pray your children don’t put you into nursing homes too early where you’ll enjoy the highs of all the retiree drugs you can get your arthritic hands on.

A beautiful friend of mine who was recently diagnosed with bipolar told me his Doctor wanted him to take medication. “How ridiculous” he quipped, ”why would I do anything to mask my gift?” I love this attitude and I think more of us should see the beauty and absolute courage in that. Next time your friend needs to self-medicate when they are going through something tough, be with them, protect them from harm, make sure they get home safe and love them. Any amount of unconditional love will shorten the period of crazy-town. Who says we need to live till we are 90 anyway? I would rather a short creative life full of self-expression than a long one of pent up self-repression.

RIP Amy, thank you for your music.