Bipolar and Brilliant- Sylvia Plath

On the frigid night of February 11th, 1963, Sylvia Plath set out bread and milk for her two young children. With wet towels and cloths Plath methodically sealed the rooms between herself and her sleeping children. Plath then ingested a bottle of sleeping pills, turned on her gas oven and stuck her head in it. She was 31 when she died. It was not the first time she had attempted suicide, but it was most certainly the last.

In one of her journal entries she wrote :

"God, is this all it is, the ricocheting down the corridor of laughter and tears? Of self-worship and self-loathing? Of glory and disgust?"

"It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous and positive and despairing negative; whichever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it. I am now flooded with despair, almost hysteria, as if I were smothering.”

Sylvia Plath was a phenomenal poet and writer. During her junior year at college Plath attempted suicide, she was then hospitalized and given electric shock therapy. She later wrote about her experience in The Bell Jar. This is one of my all time favorite books.

Prior to having children, I would spend hours journaling and writing poetry. I have Sylvia Plath the Collected Poems on my bookshelf, her poetry speaks to me on many levels. A vast amount of poets suffer mental illnesses, but that’s a another post in its self.

If you want to know more about her life I recommend seeing the movie “Sylvia”. It was released in 2003, Gwyneth Paltrow plays Sylvia.

Her grave reads: “Even amidst fierce flames, the golden lotus can be planted”. It is a shame her life had to end so tragically, all to often people with bipolar disorder commit suicide, it truly is a deadly disease.