More on Mel Gibson... Bipolar?

I was reading an on-line discussion about Mel Gibson's outburst and followed a link to this piece about him from March 17, 2004.

What interested me and the person who pointed out the article, was the first sentence of the last paragraph: "He has made it known that from an early age he suffered from being manic depressive, but through his strong faith and appropriate medicines he has been able to overcome these shortcomings to attain the heights of stardom."

If it is true that he suffers bipolar disorder, then that gives him an obvious 'out' for some of his behaviour. This makes me wonder why it hasn't been brought up, or if this article was inaccurate. (Or, of course, I may have missed mention of it. But when I google I don't come up with anything official).

It wouldn't excuse what he said and did but it would make it more, I don't know, more likely he wasn't himself? Whoever himself is. (One of the problems with mental illness is working out what is the real person and what is the fruit of their illness, and I think, whether that is a meaningful distinction to try to make? And indeed, one of the problems with reacting to someone's behaviour when drunk, is whether to see it as part of that person or whether it makes them act atypically/changes their personality?)

Alcohol can cause a relapse in bipolar disorder and certainly exacerbates the problem.

"Researchers at Duke University have refined Kraepelin’s four classes of mania to include hypomania (featuring mainly euphoria), severe mania (including euphoria, grandiosity, high levels of sexual drive, irritability, volatility, psychosis, paranoia, and aggression), extreme mania (most of the displeasures, hardly any of the pleasures) also known as dysphoric mania, and two forms of mixed mania (where depressive and manic symptoms collide).[8]
Symptoms of psychosis include hallucinations (hearing, seeing, or otherwise sensing the presence of stimuli that are not there) and delusions (false personal beliefs that are not subject to reason or contradictory evidence and are not explained by a person's cultural concepts). Feelings of paranoia, during which the patient believes he or she is being persecuted or monitored by the government or a hostile force. Intense and unusual religious beliefs may also be present, such as a patients' strong insistence that they have a God-given role to play in the world, a great and historic mission to accomplish, or even that they possess supernatural powers. Delusions may or may not be mood congruent." (Wiki)

The part about intense & unusual religious beliefs is interesting, (for his particular form of Catholicism certainly fits that description), especially when allied with the fact that there is a genetic component to bipolar disorder. I have in mind his dad as a candidate. :D

Of course this is pure speculation and I am not saying that he must be mentally ill to hold those beliefs; it's just an aside really. A possibility.