Ben Selkow's A Summer In The Cage

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“A Summer in the Cage” is a documentary filmed by Ben Selkow that shows his friend Sam battling with a manic-depressive illness known as bipolar disorder. The main theme of this film is the struggles the main character Sam goes through when battling bipolar disorder. Selkow firsts meets Sam while filming a documentary about street basketball. Ever since that day, they became close friends. Sam decided to help make the documentary with Selkow. Selkow begins to realize after spending so much time with Sam that he had something off about him. At this time, Sam was having is first manic episode. When Sam was eight years old, his father committed suicide due to battling the same disorder. Throughout this documentary, Sam tries to escape that same …show more content…

Within this definition are the three D’s. The three D’s are distress, dysfunction, and deviant. Distress is symptoms or experiences that are troubling, confusing, or out of the ordinary to ones self or others. While Ben, the filmmaker and Sam are filming the documentary on street basketball; Sam had his first manic episode. He became very elevated as a whole. Selkow talked about how Sam would call and leave multiple messages all throughout the night. This showed that Sam wasn’t getting the sleep he needed. A troubling symptom Sam had was when he had thoughts of suicide. This was brought on when Sam was at his depressed stage in his disorder. Towards the end of the documentary, he admits to Ben that he did have thoughts of suicide and at one of those times he almost went through with it. Sam’s dad committed suicide after struggling with bipolar disorder. Sam didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of his father, which may have given him the upper hand when having to deal with those thoughts. If Sam didn’t have this psychological disorder he wouldn’t have these troubling or confusing symptoms. Dysfunction is the inability to function as expected in social and occupational activities. When Sam was in his depressed state, he found it hard to hold a job. He would lose interest and was also fatigue. In Sam’s manic state, he found it hard to concentrate; something was always distracting him. He was also very goal oriented. Sam believed he was on a mission to get America back on track. He also wanted to get people to vote for Bill Bradley at the time. Also in Sam’s manic state, he would engage in pleasurable activities that had a high potential for painful consequences. He would end up hurt and in the hospital after engaging in such activities. If Sam didn’t have this psychological disorder, he would most likely

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