Our Bi-Polar Clouds

With their quickly transitioning dynamic and alternating bursts of extreme energy and power and dissipating calm, clouds very closely mirror the behaviors and tendencies of bipolar mental illness.  Bipolar disorder is characterized by marked and pronounced episodes of extreme highs (mania), and extreme lows (depression) and these shifts can occur rapidly or slowly over months. Like clouds, while no individual experience of Bipolar disorder is identical, there are basic commonalities that allow for it to be independently classifiable and distinguishable, much like the three separate classes of clouds. Though no two clouds are ever the same, there are three broadly general categories under which all clouds fall.

The first class of clouds, cirrus, is defined as having “the least density, the greatest elevation, and the greatest variety of extent and direction” (Hamblyn, 126). Additionally, they are the first clouds to appear in serene weather. As such, these clouds are most like the transitory calm occurring between a manic and depressed episode, when one is emerging from depression but has not yet reached manic heights. 

The next class of clouds perhaps offers the strongest metaphor for Bipolar disorder. Cumulus clouds, the large, fluffy, archetypical clouds, are “the densest structure, formed in the lower atmosphere, and move along the current which is next to the earth” (Hamblyn, 128). They begin as a small anomaly, much like the initial impulses of a manic state. Cumulus clouds begin as a broad, stable, horizontal base, and rapidly grow and escalate into monstrous hemispherical heaps, reaching for the sky. This is much how a building manic state feel, the increased apprehension and energy, manifesting itself in an endless whirl of projects and activity, growing and building until a swift and crash like dispersion, much like the intense but short-lived cumulus cloud.  A more poignant metaphor is that of cumulus clouds continue to build into the night, a thunderstorm can be expected-how equally true for someone in a manic state-if they continue to work with great zeal late into the night, you can rest assured there will be a crashing storm to follow.

And lastly, we have the stratus cloud, “the lowest of the clouds, the cloud of night” (Hamblyn, 130), a broad, low clinging cloud that envelops all and frequently lasts through the night. This cloud is clearly representative of a depressive state, as it even dissipates with the coming of the sun-an apt metaphor indeed.  

The transient yet semi-predictable nature of clouds lends itself to mental illness metaphor, most effectively when describing states like mania and depression. The building of storms, the calm after storms, these are all mirrored in human behavior, and as such metaphors among them have become common figures of speech.