Lights, Planets, People!

by Melanie Anspacher

Lights, Planets, People! is a graphic novel based on the author Molly Naylor’s stage play of the same name and illustrated by Lizzy Stewart.  The story follows an astronomer named Maggie Hill who suffers from bipolar disorder and is experiencing severe anxiety.  Maggie reluctantly seeks counseling from a therapist as she prepares to deliver a guest lecture that is intended to inspire young women, a task she finds quite daunting.  Weaving through the present and past as the conversation with her therapist unfolds, she recalls navigating a romantic relationship while pursuing her life’s work to discover exoplanets, all the while trying to manage and hide her illness.

Maggie has successfully managed a professional career while hiding her mental illness, despite admittedly being resistant to therapy. Her relationship with her girlfriend Jane pushes her to seek help because she recognizes she is unable to return Jane’s simple gestures of affection or even say the words “I miss you”.  Maggie is laser-focused on the upcoming lecture as the source of panic attacks, while her therapist tries desperately to dig deeper and get to the true roots of her worries and relationship failures. Maggie rationalizes her inability to relate to others: “a lot of science people are weird” (unpaginated).

The illustrator varies the color schemes of the panels to represent the different times in Maggie’s life as well as capture her different moods.  When Maggie is anticipating her telescope launch, the culmination of her life’s work, she becomes overwhelmed with the activity and attention and falls into a deep depression.  All color is drained away from the panels, leaving her in shades of gray.  We see her drowning underwater desperately trying to break to the surface, or on her bed floating in a room filled with water as papers and furniture bob around her. Light breaks through a crack in the curtains, but she still can’t get herself out of the bed.

As the pendulum of her illness swings from depression to mania, Maggie’s energy returns, along with color to the panels. She becomes distracted, sleepless, has trouble thinking clearly, and develops ideas of grandiosity (such as believing attending a shuttle launch herself will be the perfect gift for her girlfriend).  Deep in her manic episode, she is drawn larger than life, sitting on a hillside looming calmy over her town below.  Later, when she is finally able to envision herself as being “amazing” at inspiring women with her lecture, she is again a giant, holding the therapist in the palm of her hand, showing how her manic episodes are what make her feel confident and capable. The most vibrantly colorful illustrations emerge particularly during moments when Maggie seems truly happy being either with her girlfriend Jane or at the end when she has found some acceptance of herself.

The story highlights the severe stigma faced by people with mental illness and specifically bipolar disorder.  Afraid of disclosing her diagnosis, Maggie forces herself into a self-fulfilling cycle of failed relationships that end in solitude.  She fears abandonment if she is honest, yet by not disclosing her illness, those close to her can’t understand her actions or respond with empathy. She experiences shame about “really bad things” she has done to others and guilt for being dishonest with those she cares about.

The volley between the therapist’s probing and Maggie’s deflections continue unabated, but breakthroughs do occur.  Maggie ultimately confronts the truths of her space mission after succumbing to unrelenting questions from a woman attending her lectures, as well as her failed relationship with Jane and the role her illness has played in how she has coped with these events in her life. Maggie’s therapist, having patiently worked to break through her defensive exterior, suggests that Jane couldn’t have rejected her for her bipolar disorder because Jane simply didn’t know.  She explains that Maggie can’t control that she has a mental illness, but she can control “the things we tell people”.  This clearly resonates with Maggie, as evidenced by following illustrations of a shuttle launching in explosion of color, representing clarity and acceptance.

The “therapy session” likely is meant to represent many sessions over time, given the concluding epiphany, acceptance and understanding that would more likely happen over a long commitment to therapy.  In addition, the author chooses not to touch at all on medication management or psychiatric support, leaving it more mysterious how Maggie has managed to function so well professionally without treatment.  Overall though it is a powerful and insightfully illustrated work and provides an important contribution to understanding the experiences of a person with mental illness.

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Melanie Anspacher is a pediatrician in Washington, DC, with interests in graphic medicine and medical humanities.