Here’s the the last installment of thoughts about Ian/Bipolar storyline. I am a person with similar presentations of bipolar disorder. Bipolar Disorder is a wide road. Others have different experiences and see the show differently. As always, this is just one gal’s opinion, so take whatever you want and leave the rest in the yard.

Before I begin, a disclaimer. I could see many of you disagreeing with all of this. It’s fine. It’s just a perspective. I don’t even have to like it myself. That said, I encourage people to please be respectful. Please remember that there are people in the fandom that do struggle with mental illness and may relate to parts of this season very deeply. I am one of those people. I don’t have to like it, but unfortunately it’s my life, and it’s all I have. So pretty please, feel free disagree, but no personal attacks. Not to me. Not to anyone. When I say I don’t even have to like it myself, I’m also talking about my own life with this. It’s complicated. It sucks. It hurts. It is.

Dear lord, children. Where should I start? I think I’ll randomly skip directly to the very end because it bugs the shit out of me, just like everyone else. Ian would never fucking be like “Oh gunshots and Mickey’s running, I think I’ll just casually walk slowly around the corner of my house without even looking into the alley.” He would never do that. Never. This is a poor choice writing/acting/directing wise, but I’m guessing the latter. I don’t think it was intentional (or if so, that’s just So Wrong on every level) Even in this state of confusion, anger and pain, he would never. Ever. Do that. It showed an incredible amount of Never. Out of character, completely. There is another thing that deeply bothered me about it. We will get to that.

Quick tip. I want to say that although I know people really want to know about why on earth Ian would ever break up with Mickey, especially in such an incredibly cruel way, try not to scroll and scoot down the post to find it. Everything is going to build, and that part may be unclear or more callus if not (possibly) viewed through another lens.



There have been times, in other recaps or random posts, where I have mentioned the intense need for the recently diagnosed person to learn how to cope with it on their own. LIke, things from learning how to store your pills in a way that works for you coping to Very Large Life Coping. This isn’t a new idea in the arc that pops up in episode 12. In fact, episode 12 quickly brings the removal of the tentative positive steps in that process, brick by brick. The flip side of that is shoving all the bricks over to a different location, just next door, and beginning to build again, messy and with holes in in it.



The start of the initial building process begins in the hospital. Ian appears to have the tiniest pebble of defensive truth that dx might be true starts those coping (or lack of coping) mechanisms in motion.

It’s not pointing fingers at Mickey, especially. Of anyone, he is exactly who and what Ian needs. It’s not pointing fingers at the rest of the Gallaghers. No one, including Ian, is equipped to deal with this. Not exactly. All season, there has been that “Monica was like…” and “I’m not Monica.” Both strategies are flawed because it’s a circle. But there’s only one person that belongs inside that circle, and no one can tell him to step into it.

Ian just hasn’t been able to have that time to work through it. After diagnosis, everything changes. It’s not clear and clean. If anything, it’s murky and incredibly painful. Here’s some personal examples of why.

Here are some things I needed to do after bipolar diagnosis. Keep in mind I’m in my damn 30s and should have been properly diagnosed at 17, when symptoms were already in full swing. Things would have been different then, and probably much more Ian-y in “coping” mechanisms.

I apparently now have the “maturity” to cope with this differently. I was also the one to decide to get help, after a horrible manic and then mixed manic state. After that passed (which included my husband literally holding my arms down so I couldn’t punch myself in my face and head - god he was so scared) I accepted help. I accepted help with a mixture of resignation and a strange empowerment. I was taking care of my life, not some outside person telling me what to do. Not a psych hospitalization to kick it off. It was my decision. I was in control of it. Me. I was in control. I thought that was enough. It wasn’t. It isn’t. That weird empowerment evaporated. And in some ways, it hasn’t come back.

So here’s part of that what that post-dx process looked like for me. See if you can find missing or similar things within show context.

1) I was near-violently mad at my brain, my family history, and the possible outlook of my future with the illness. I didn’t want it. I knew it had been controlling my life already. That scared me until I felt anger, which is still there, sometimes. At the same time, when I went through the dx process, I had a sense of comfort that it really was true, after all, and I wasn’t imagining things. The last emotion is not one I would have had at 17.

2) I fell from the “it’s going to be okay” pedestal almost immediately. I told myself my version of bipolar was probably not that bad.

3) I realized that my version of bipolar disorder is that bad, I just didn’t get the help I needed during those early times. There is a mix of anger, sadness and guilt over that. I hated how bipolar (especially mania) had influenced me, wrecked my life and derailed life plans several times. I wondered what I would have, and could have, been without this illness. To some that may sound like I’m not taking responsibility for my own bad decisions, or blaming the illness for things, or just generally something akin to being selfish or inaccurate. I can’t explain it. It just is. Interestingly enough, I made the decision to drop out of college when I saw star patterns on a road trip, away from the city.

4) I thought that two pills a day were enough to get me stable. I thought that since I was on just those two pills, which weren’t very strong, I was mostly going to kind of level out and have a normal life for the first time ever. Nothing more to do. Just take those two.

5) I was excited to find I still had hypomanic symptoms, because hypomania is fun as shit, and I want to always feel that way. It feels like who I’m “supposed” to be. It’s the best you that you could ever be. It feels more “real.” The most “real” I am. That’s common. If I could live without the bad, I’d be more tempted to go off meds, or kick some out to just feel like that again for a while. But that’s the line of thinking that got me into the mess in the first place. The part of me that’s left over is a scared person I don’t like. I

6) I decided that I could mostly go along with life as usual, with no behavioral changes, because everything else was ok because of those two pills. All lies. Try 6 prescription ones per day.

7) I’ve been angry -really angry-when my dosages and medications increased. Why weren’t they working if this whole heap of bullshit was supposed to help? If I mostly admitted it, why wasn’t that enough? Was it just a losing battle? She kept saying I was responding. But if I was, why did I supposed to keep adding things? Why did I have to add anti-psychotics and keep adding and adding and adding dosage because I kept not being ok? Why did i have to fall into walls and fall asleep at 8:30? Why couldn’t I be normal? Even if the meds carried me through to the next day, and taking a steady stream of meds all day for constant coverage, couldn’t I just be a normal person? Wy did I have to take a literal palmful of meds and vitamins to still be a not-normal person at the end? An abnormal person with a busted brain who couldn’t be cured? Like, seriously. Why?

7) I had to realize that drinking alcohol needed to be cut out, which made me really angry, since it just meant something else had to change in my life. I didn’t want ginger ale, I wanted a damn IPA like a normal human, and now I couldn’t. Or shouldn’t. Whatever. I also need to admit that, at times in my life, I drank too much, trying to self-medicate and control the manias so I wouldn’t spin out too far. It never worked, anyway. I’d just get angry-drunk during those times. So it was just drunk mania. Fantastic memories, people.

8) I had to realized I had to go to sleep way earlier then I wanted to. If I didn’t, I’d get hypomanic. It was a very simple formula. I didn’t care. I was told by Husband I had to go to bed, and the anger and resentment boiled every time. Sometimes I snapped at him. I would sleep alone those nights. Then I’d be back into wishing the good-feeling hypomania would return. Fail. This is mostly moot now since my anti-psych dosage basically shoves oatmeal into my brain and knocks me out within half an hour. At a time I hate.

9) As things have progressed for me, I’ve been really angry that I still had a substantial amount of mania that was not being controlled well. At all. The only thing different was that I was more aware of it. I knew it wasn’t a good thing. It wasn’t fun stuff. It was bad stuff. All I wanted was the good stuff. Just the good kind. Please the good kind, just please please the good kind. There are times where I still just really want the good kind. It’s weird, and in a really fucked up way, sad to try and push it to be gone. Who am I without it? I still don’t even know. Some scared little shell I sometimes hate.

10) So much more, but this: I pushed my Husband away and told him I’d leave him. Told him he should leave me. Several times. And meant it. Completely. In addition, I’ve thought about previous relationships, and how I kind of threw down “This is who I am. Why don’t you accept it?” The start of years where I was not well. Then, too, I meant it completely.

If any of this sounds familiar, I guess you can understand where I’m going with this recap. It is not just this episode, though. It’s been building. It’s a long process no one can be prepared for, and it’s incredibly lonely. And trying to explain it to someone is like trying to speak another language you were just forced to learn on an airplane about to land in like 20 minutes.

Okay, now that framework is out of the way. We find Ian in the back of the truck, resting in the driver’s bed, while Monica chats with pressured speech at the truck driver. (That’s a huge symptom for me - the talk-ats) Meanwhile, Ian appears exhausted. He slowly turns his head and sees lots of the driver’s family photos taped up, smiling. Looking happy. Being cared for in his mind when the driver is on the road. There has never been that care for Ian from his parents. Frank has singled him out, again and again, to physically assault - the only child we have seen onscreen to be on the end of that violence. Frank has come and gone his whole life. Monica has done the same, only now he somehow finds himself traveling with her, uncertain of his future or where he is going. His life is so far from those pictures, a happy family. A stable family. He’s never had that. Not ever. Especially not how, when every member of his family has brought incredible pressure. That pressure has good intentions - they all want him to be well. But they can’t do that.

The process of getting well cannot be rushed. The feelings of being completely worthless are real. The feelings of disappointing everyone are real. The feelings of being so fucking broken that no one, including your partner, could possibly love you is real. The flip side of that is the cascade of other emotions that build with it until it’s a giant wave about to crash on top of you.

Within that vulnerability he has shown (oh god, the “sorry i’m late” scene, his disbelief and eyes closing) and the hunger for asserting himself and his “previous life” before everything got bad (dugout) the denial (hospital) the confusion and sadness (clinic with mickey) his deep sense of the forced removal of love because of his illness and subsequent ‘behavior’ (MP scene) is part of that wave.

Sadly, this intense anger and cruelly can be part of that process.

It’s hard to remember that what we saw in the breakup scene is after Ian’s fucked up time with Monica, where things shifted. Ian and Mickey have not spoken since the “going on a date” scene. Mickey was in the room with the officers, but they didn’t talk. Yes, his appearance there was, to us, a definite proof of his love. It wasn’t that simple to Ian. By the time Monica shows up, the adrenaline from the officers has worn off, and he’s left with that insecurity and sadness. No one has said they love him. No one. Just Monica.

But what Monica shows him is what appears to be a lonely, scrambled excuse for a life. Second to the complete shiv (thanks Imani) of the quick but stomach-dropping breakup scene, the truck stop is the most intensely telling. From the start, when Monica runs behind the truck, CM’s face is amazing at communicating his own memories, his own feelings of what his might look like, traveling around like that. I think it’s a thought that been something he has, so far, been able to jump over. He needed money for gas, back then. But what about the future? The conversation that follows, Ian sharing what appears to be a confusing and painful memory, gets a “We had a lot of great times back then.”

“Your boyfriend? Again? Fuck him.” Decline. But what follows, after a conflicted look, is Monica telling him he is beautiful, and she did a good job making him. That part I could connect with very much, as awful as that may be to say.



Monica’s home is a trailer, yes. With a meth trailer to the side. What I find interesting with this setup is how, even with a very wide open space around them, how deeply claustrophobic things are. This is where the breakdown - the true and saddest breakdown - of Ian’s falling recovery skills are. The insecurity and fragile feeling of leaving the military holding is over. He’s just out there now. He paces, trying to find that foothold.

And that’s when it all falls apart.

I’ve watched the scene with Monica and Ian several times now, after Walter goes in. She expressed her love, and how finding someone to love is the most important thing. “Someone who loves you back. For who you are. I want that for you.”

The message reinforces the one she gave him while visiting him in military holding in ep 11. “There’s always gonna be people that are gonna try and fix us, and you can never make those people happy. LIke, it breaks their heart just to look at you.”

“Yeah, um, even Mickey now. You remember him?”



“I’m sure he means well. but you need to be with people who accept you for who you are. And they’re out there. You should never apologize for being you. You, Ian. I love you.”

Back in ep 12, Monica hugs Ian, who softly cries. Mickey calls again. I need to say here that every time Mickey calls, I think Ian wants to answer. He really does. In his heart, he doesn’t know how to talk about what’s going on.



All of it, the wide open space, the chance for the stars, is the closest Ian has come to space to figure out what next steps he needs to take to just get on with life. Pair that with the awful messages he’s rapidly internalizing, he’s falling apart and feeling worthless. His mom is not just telling him what life will eventually be like. She’s showing him. Not just a life, but what he should accept. What he shouldn’t. What he can except, what he can’t. There has been no guidance to the contrary.

“Just like Monica.”

It’s something I can relate to. Something a lot of people can relate to. If certain things won’t leave, like your illness, if medications fail and have to be tried again, what’s the point? Will it really make life better? Just a little bit? How long? What happens after? Is there a place for you not just in your own life, but in the life of those you love? I say yes, at least for right now. But I’ve realized how delicate that all is. I can tell you completely that it does not feel comfortable. Remember how I said a little scared little shell? Yeah. That.

The sticky wheel is, if he hates how people may attempt to control him, or if he wants to withdraw from the one who loves him so deeply (Mickey), why does he come back at all?

Because he has nowhere else to go. He’s going to fall apart again, so he might as well there. In the end, it’s about control. There is no controlling this. There are so many steps to acceptance and the process of change. Like I said, it can’t be rushed, and in the end can’t be controlled. Sure, there’s medication. He should take it. His refusal to take it isn’t just about what he wants to do. It’s a test. “Would you still love me if I don’t take it?” He’s looking for the “There’s always gonna be people that are gonna try and fix us, and you can never make those people happy. LIke it breaks their heart just to look at you.”

And he sees it.

Ian asks if Mickey would still be with him if he doesn’t take meds. Ian says Mickey used to love him, but now doesn’t know who he was. “Shit, I don’t know who I am half the time.”

Here’s the thing, guys. Mickey says he loves him. We all died. But I died when Ian said “What the hell does that even mean.” He doesn’t know anymore. The feeling has changed. He expresses the teary declaration that “I’m me!” He wants to still be seen as himself. The Ian who is embraced by Mickey and the Gallagher family, nothing wrong at all. He wants to be embraced like that, but feels like that’s over, and to some degree, it is.

This whole season, the whole time, I’ve been chanting “There is no ‘old Ian’. Stop doing that to him.” I still stand by that. He’s the real Ian. As in, the same guy. That said, things are still problematic.

Ian’s journey with the illness hasn’t been addressed full-on from his family in a compassionate manner. One support beam down. Remember when I said his behaviors while manic would hit him hard after stabilization? Bricks falling. The feelings of letting Mickey down, being a broken up person Mickey doesn’t and shouldn’t, want? Beams down.

So what’s left is him kind of teetering on the remains of the scaffolding. Here comes Monica with her experiences, padded with compliments and what I think she feels as sincere love, acceptance and support. He’s in a fragile spot and wants to believe in something. He wants to be himself. He grabs onto it, feels that flawed empowerment, and tells himself somehow that he’ll do it right. He’ll do it better. “Just like Monica.” No.

“What the fuck’s wrong with you?’



“TOO MUCH! That’s the problem, isn’t it?”



He doesn’t know what to do. He just knows he doesn’t want to feel any of this anymore. He just wants to be a person, just a regular person, not the sick person he thinks Mickey still sees. He pushes Mickey away because he doesn’t see a way beyond it. Mickey won’t see him as a real person. He won’t be able to sustain the “southside trash (he) feel for” and a breakup is inevitable, so why not now? Why not when the anger is so fresh and the flawed certainty of his future seems crystal clear?



“I’m not broken! I don’t need to be fixed, okay? I’m me!”

The whole scene is so heartbreaking. Mickey is heartbroken. But Ian is too. He doesn’t know who he is. He can’t be the person he thought he was going to be. He can’t be the person he wanted to be, not anymore. But he is who he is, now. He wants to fight for himself, for that person. For all his posturing, though. He has no idea who that is and what he’s supposed to do now.

More than anything, he just wants to not feel broken, not be seen as broken. Not have to deal with any of this. But he has to. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t know how to. He can’t snap his fingers and be in that circle to deal with what he needs to do.

He’s right when he says Mickey can’t fix him. He can’t.

What’s hard is that Ian cannot see what Mickey is trying to say.



In ep 12, Ian is not manic. Ian is not depressed. He is an (unmedicated) but otherwise typical teenager. He has no idea what he’s doing. He’s in a grey space where he has no idea what his life is going to be like. His life was ROTC and school and military dreams and Mickey, and now he’s med refusals and looking forward to a life of second-guessing and shell feelings. It’s a crushing sort of feeling, one that’s filled with lots of sadness and lots of anger. Hoops full of fire to protect yourself from beautiful things like real love, the urge to bite and kick help and care away. Why do people go off medication? Because when it’s okay, when you’re “okay”, you feel like you are okay. Like you can handle it. The complete need to feel in control of your own life is overwhelming.



He feels like he’s fighting for whatever life he still feels like he has in him. There is no control, he’s so far from who he’s been. He wants to keep himself. He’s willing to do anything to feel like he’s still in there.



There’s this thing I learned about gossip when I was younger, and it’s proven to be a good lesson when the desire to speak with strong emotion hits. Before saying anything, ask yourself three questions. 1) Is it true? 2) Is it kind? and 3) Is it important? I think Ian feels the answer to all three is yes. It feels like a yes, and each one is no, and until he steps up and into that circle it will keep feeling like yes, over and over.

I had a huge problem with how that conversation was abruptly cut off. I feel like more was going to be said. But with the two of them on this show, what the fuck else is new.

But Mickey, poor Mickey. Mickey loves him, really really loves him, and expresses it so sweetly and directly. He’s the only one who has stayed, who helped, who believed, and he has been shoved off in what is (to me) a twisted, flawed and heartbreaking coping mechanism. Again, Ian’s behavior is not because he is bipolar. I believe, absolutely and truly, that Ian loves Mickey with everything he has. The breakup is not because he doesn’t love him. The breakup is because he thinks Mickey will be hurt by him, again and again, and try to fix him, again and again, and at the end, he will still let Mickey down. He is pushing him very hard with his words. Pushing hard enough to be cruel. There is nothing sensitive about it, nothing apologetic about it. But there are still tears in his eyes, still a dejected look that says it’s too much. “TOO MUCH! That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

Ian’s mental illness has been a huge part of the show for half of season 4, and then the whole season 5, and we still end with an unmedicated teenager with little support from family. Now he’s shoved away Mickey. Even through the pain of all the painful pressure points the show hit on me again and again, I felt it was for something. It was for something would lead to those tentative rebuildings that are so needed, so sacred, so precious. I had really high hopes for him. Too high. I’ve had problems with this episode not because of the breakup, but because it’s helping perpetuate things like those with mental illness don’t care what we do or who we hurt. We can’t be in relationships. We are selfish for doing things, selfish for not doing things. We are not healthy enough, we are healthy but not healthy enough. We can’t pass as normal people. Not forever. There will always be another shoe that drops. Someone else to be mean to. Someone else’s life to wreck.

For a network who promised sensitive but realistic portrayals, I’m really raising eyebrows today.

“..you can never make those people happy. Like, it breaks their heart just to look at you.”



Unfortunately, it sometimes feels true. Even worse, sometimes it is exactly that.



6:20 pm • 6 April 2015 • 405 notes