Rapper Oksimiron released the track «Bipolar», which, among other things, talks about his life with bipolar disorder. Over a million people listened to the song in a day. Many simply listened and got high or were indignant, and some began to understand: what is it? Says the author of the book «Bipolar» Masha Pushkina.
You can have different attitudes towards Russian rap (or not at all — like, for example, I did until last week), but this phenomenon is more than worthy of attention.
When a person who is listened to by millions frankly speaks about his mental disorder, this greatly affects people’s attitude towards the diagnosis in general. And if there are many such brave people in the USA and Europe, then we have Miron Fedorov, if not the first, then one of them. Which is very typical for a “bipolar girl”, after a year and a half without new releases, Miron came up with and recorded the track in one night.
Oxxxymiron’s official website states: «During my studies, I was expelled (from Oxford, in 2006) with a diagnosis of ‘manic depression’ and re-enrolled. So the name of the composition is not an artistic image at all.
But I am a living corpse, the flesh is choking me, and if you stab me, I will tear my stomach.
So pour the song, gypsy.
It became unclear what, there was a schoolboy with glasses.
But I’m not sad ***** [not at all — hereinafter the «translation» of the author], I spit after all.
My bipolar girl loves me.»
The quote “My bipolar loves me” became a meme in a matter of days, and teenagers continue to take it away across hundreds of accounts.
And older people write malicious posts that they had a bipolar, when it was not yet “fashionable”. Judging by social media, most rap fans haven’t given much thought to the context, seeing «bipolar» as a pretty buzzword like «hype.» For example, in Oksimiron’s public page with 800 thousand subscribers they write: “Come on already, get out of depression and creative collapse!”
But there are those who are serious about it. “I can understand from each composition whether Oxy is now manic or depressed,” writes a girl with a sad avatar. And there is some truth in this. Myron’s work betrays not only his philological education, but also all the nuances of the worldview of a person who is regularly thrown from a height into an abyss and back.
A lot of it is about survival, struggle. Fight with yourself, your own craving for self-destruction
I knew my diagnosis in advance — spontaneous combustion.
The doctor said, «Manic depression!»
(«Spontaneous spontaneous combustion»)
Myron throws from depressive hopelessness:
Brown’s movement through dirty dens.
Around either clowns or clones — there are millions of them.
Gray days, gray people, like gray dust,
They settle on my gray convolutions.
(«I’m bored with life»)
… To manic fumes:
Kitties, kitties, kitties, kitties around, I am a March cat!
….Probably, this is my paradise!
(«Madness»)
But all the joys of life are mixed with pain:
And why this pain from the experiment?
I don’t even have the will to be rebellious.
I don’t understand why it covered specifically —
But covered specifically and, like, for a long time.
(«Girl ** [fam fatale]»)
I know virgins will lead to problems
But your *** under the hair dryer and ibuprofen;
When ****** [completed] burst into tears…
(«Spontaneous spontaneous combustion»)
And between these poles — melancholy, apathy and despair:
To live, people run back and forth, only the heels sparkle.
These people always know what to do, but I’m bored.
Life is boring, life is boring, I have nothing to do and therefore it is boring.
Living is boring, living is boring, living.
(«I’m bored with life»)
I need a doctor, better at home and immediately!
Watson, Freud, Kurpatov, Pepper.
The horizon clouded over and a window slammed.
By *** [no matter] who, but give me light: God or optical fiber.
(«Signs of life»)
The good side of “fashion” is that it destroys stigma. People stop being afraid of their condition, consider it something shameful
Miron has stanzas about almost all the symptoms of a bipolar life. For example, about the feeling of one’s own grandiosity:
It’s cool for you — heaven or hell,
Drugs — a gap, and sometimes covered so terribly
It seemed like I was in a film about the New Testament being removed by Jesus!
(«Thoughts stain the brain»)
…and about jumping thoughts
I … I can not convey,
What’s in my cranial TV box.
I’m back, hold on, world!
(«Signs of life»)
A lot of it is about survival, about struggle. With whom, with what? Miron grew up in the family of a university teacher and librarian, studied at a good British school, then at Oxford. So, about the struggle with oneself, one’s own craving for self-destruction.
I lost myself in a year and a half, friends: two are dead, the third is in intensive care.
(«Bipolar»)
I’m alive, thanks to fortune!
I balance across chasms on stilts.
I walk stooping and jumping like a fool
Through fate and storm, to the elusive Ultima Thule.
(«Ivory tower»)
About this anxious-depressive “everything is in place, but something is not right”:
Ok, what are you on? You have everything that an underground rapper could dream of,
You have grown from the mob, instead of calmly enjoying the ups, again deplorable text.
(«Bipolar»)
It is curious that his nickname itself is about a combination of incongruous. Manic depression is also an oxymoron.
It is not surprising that impressionable fans, having heard enough of these rather gloomy recitatives, will find one or another symptom in themselves. (I myself became seriously uncomfortable after two albums in a row.)
But «fashion» definitely has a good side: it destroys stigma. More people will stop being afraid of their condition, consider it something that needs to be hidden with shame.
It will be easier for them to explain their features to others. If in England they habitually talk about someone familiar with bipolar disorder: “Oh, it’s like Stephen Fry”, in the USA — “well, too”, now our diagnosis has received a recognizable face.
And people will finally be able to ask for help. Indeed, many do not even think that their problem is not laziness and irresponsibility, but a disease that has a cure. So Myron’s frankness about his balancing over the abyss may well save someone’s life.