Excuses That Kill
You spent the whole night gambling with friends. Your wife asks you where you’ve been. You’re afraid she’ll find out about your gambling. What do you tell her? That you spent the night at a coffeeshop at Geylang?
Goodness. If Ris Low is bimbotic, then her apologists who tried to explain her widely publicised interview as an episode of bipolar disorder must be totally braindead. Every idiot knows that if your English is not up to standard, you can go for remedial classes (if you’re studying still) and make more ang moh boy … I mean… friends to improve yourself.
To claim that you can actually speak “perfect English” at another time and place and to explain that embarrassing episode as an attack of bipolar disorder is downright foolish. Do these folks know what that means? Bipolar disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis.
Bipolar disorder (also known as manic depression) causes serious shifts in mood, energy, thinking, and behavior–from the highs of mania on one extreme, to the lows of depression on the other. More than just a fleeting good or bad mood, the cycles of bipolar disorder last for days, weeks, or months. And unlike ordinary mood swings, the mood changes of bipolar disorder are so intense that they interfere with your ability to function.
During a manic episode, a person might impulsively quit a job, charge up huge amounts on credit cards, or feel rested after sleeping two hours. During a depressive episode, the same person might be too tired to get out of bed and full of self-loathing and hopelessness over being unemployed and in debt.
I guess it would be all right to claim mental illness if you’ve killed someone, but claiming mental illness for stealing credit cards and performing poorly at an interview? Hasn’t there been enough stupidity surrounding this saga? Please! Miss Ris Low has suffered enough from all that bad publicity (though I think she hadn’t been adequately punished for lingerie shopping with patients’ credit cards). These equally bimbotic supporters shouldn’t try to “help” her by sticking that bipolar disorder label on her.
