by Wanda June Hill » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:57 pm
Wow! I have learned a lot here today! Thank you all so much for helping me to see clearly about the bipolar issue... I agree that Elvis was not the type person to consider suicide at all! He loved life, he loved his life and he wouldn't do that to all his fans, friends and his family-it would have been out of the question and though he did mention he thought at one time of "giving up" he very quickly realized he couldn't do that- he had too much to live for so he was not one who had that type thinking. I don't know much about bipolar at all, except for what brief comment I read about them being highly stimulated and then falling into depression and being irrational and losing their temper etc:... Elvis was very nervous, had been from birth and had difficulty sleeping etc:...BUT I believe it was due to the fact he was very intelligent, very sensitive and perceptive even as a small child...he was just one of those people who "tuned in" to others and who seemed to "know" what one felt. At that time he had no one around him who understood, or knew what he was-they merely told him to keep quiet about what he felt and thought and thought he saw and heard etc:... and his mother even washed his mouth with soap when she caught him doing "something she thought evil natured-hand signs and chanting" but he was responding to what he "heard" and "saw" as a child. He thought it was "angels" and music from heaven...maybe it was.
Childlren are more tuned to such things when young, it is "lost" by most as they develope and learn the ways of life and living-too much other stuff takes over the brain and what is of the child is shoved to the back-to make way for the new. We need to do that to get along out here. In Elvis' case, he was one who hung on to those memories, who loved hearing the "music of the spheres and heavens" and who had it inside him. Great musicians and artists I think retain that and that is what helps make them stand out and be great at what they do. Anyway, I fear so many won't understand what I was saying about bipolar and Elvis- therefore I am going to just say that Jerry Schilling mentions that he felt Elvis might have had had some symptoms similar to what is now being known as "bipolar" in regard to his being very nervous that made it difficult for him to relax. But he did not fit the bipolar mold and therefore I don't believe that he was anything more than a person under stress and pressure far more than most people ever are and he handled it all very well considering he was the first of his kind to live so fully in the pulbic eye and under the preverbial microscope that type fame brings.
I'll work on the wording but this is the gist of what I will change the two paragraphs I have down to. I say I don't know much about the conditions of bipolar and how the affect people right up front then mention Jerry's comment etc; anyway, and will post what I finally come up with on here. I am not an expert, and did not know just how serious that condition is- I too think it might be related to an early trauma, and they were not given any help or way out, and that it could be a combination of things-many things and all would react differently anyway- Elvis was not irratic in his behaviour...not as I saw it-he was always the same...and I understood his anger-which he controled far more than was good for him...he'd been better off if he yelled, kicked and screamed his head off a few more times than he did, I think. I told him to go out in the desert and scream and yell until he got it all out of his system. He said he did that once and turned around and three coyotes were sitting there looking at him and "drooling"...waiting for him to lay down so they could jump this nut case for dinner. He probably was making more of it than it was as I doubt coytoes would have come "that close" but he might have seen them off at a distance coming to watch "the show". wjh
Wanda June Hill
author of "We Remember, Elvis" & "Elvis - Face to Face"