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Eleven years ago I was starring
in a new play
in this theatre in the West End
after just three performances
I walked out
In the early hours of the next morning
I came down from my flat
in Central London to this lane
I went into the garage
sealed the door with
a duvet I brought
and got into my car
sat there for at least I think
two hours in the car
my hands on the ignition key
You know it was a suicide attempt
not a cry for help
I drove to the south coast
and took a ferry to Europe
I just knew I couldn't be at home
couldn't be in London
couldn't be in England
I really believed that I would
never come back to England
Runaway Stephen Fry broke
the silence last night
to reveal the torture
he's been suffering
They're all are worried that I've
committed suicide
That's the awful thing
but after a week I secretly
returned to England to this hospital
and to a doctor telling me
that I was bipolar
I had never heard the word before
but for the first time at the
age of 37 I had a diagnosis
that explained my massive highs
and miserable lows
I lived with all my life
No doubt that I do have extremes
in moods that
are greater than just about
anybody else I know
The psychiatrist in the hospital
recommended I take a long break
I came here to America
and for months I saw a therapist
and walked up and down this beach
My mind was full of questions
Am I now mad?
How have I got this illness?
Could it been prevented?
Can I be cured of it?
Since then I have discovered
just how serious it is to have
bipolarity or manic
depression as it is also called
4 million others in the UK have it
and many of the seriously
ill end up killing themselves
So I have decided to speak
out about my mental illness
and it is a mental illness
I wanted to talk to others who have it
about what triggered it in them
and how it took over their lives
and I wanted to find out
answers to what still worries me
Was I diagnosed correctly?
and I am now getting better
or worse?
Let's start with a remark made
by a Hollywood producer to me
You do not have to be gay or
Jewish to get on here. just bipolar
He meant, of course, larger than Life
furiously energetic, endlessly creative
Manic types do well in Hollywood, in
all of show business for that matter
Euphoric heights and crickling
lows seem to go with the territory
and don't attract the stigma
found everywhere else
Since my own diagnosis, I kept
working and found ways to cope
But I also kept quiet about my condition
Now I want to speak out
and fight the stigma
and a to give a clearer picture of a mental
illness most people know little about
Visiting my old friend
Carrie Fischer
known to the world as
Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies
She is on the edge of sanity.
you know she's constantly...
not mad enough to be committed
but not sane enough to lead
much of a normal life
When you're galloping along
at a great speed
it is better than any drug
you can ever take
God, if you will
is saving your parking spots
Songs are being played on the radio
for you
You're just so enthusiastic
about everyone
and everyone must be enthusiastic
about you
and it is just come along, I have a
great idea I have this unbelievable idea
Let's go to India
Then you start going way to fast
You're faster than anyone that
you're around
It's not fun
You are on the phone far too long
You not getting any sleep
Nothing is going fast enough for you
Come on, keep up with me
you guys, come on
And even if it's not true that you're
more talented when you're manic
you feel like you are
Yes, what is half the battle
I am standing on rocks
flaming speeches to the world
You know, I have a lot to say
I have messages from deep space in fact
and I stayed awake for 6
days and I did lose my mind
A this friend of mine says to me
Does your doctor know
that you behave this way?
then we sort of have an argument
and I cry for four hours and
I am unable to stop
and I know there is
something wrong with that
I called the doctor
when I go in and I see her
you know we were talking
and I am laughing and
I am spinning around in chairs
and the doctor says
That is the diagnosis, that's
bipolar that is manic depression
Carrie had years of living with such
extreme moods and feelings
before she got that diagnosis
She has got it bad, you know
It is not a rock star or
film star's accessory
it is a real mental condition and
she has to live with
every single day of her life
She is on medication. You have to
picture what she be like if she weren't
A medical expert told me almost half
of those suffering from manic depression
aren't diagnosed at all
It frightens me to think of
people having symptoms like Carrie
and not knowing what's wrong with them
I'm told that it's an illness
that's surprisingly difficult to
pin down to achieve a diagnosis
now I am diagnosed bipolar and
bipolarity is a disease of the brain
So a brain scan will surely
reveal a sign of what I have
The research being carried out here
at Maudsly Hospital in south London
compares normal brains
with bipolar ones like mine
Here, we're at the beginning of the brains
- Oh my Goodness.
I just grab the front of
the nose and then scroll back
That's my face actually
You see your chubby cheeks, there
- My little chubby cheeks
but by looking at a sample of
slices from a brain
you can't tell or can you,
whether someone is bipolar
When it comes to bipolar looking
at a single subjects structural scan
would not give you that diagnostic
information at this stage
Is there anything you see in my brain that
leads you to the view that I am bipolar?
No. I think there is a
very short answer to that
Thus yet no brain test
that can diagnose bipolarity
but I have being hearing talk
of a bipolar gene
To find out more I have come to
have my let my DNA tested as part
of the world's largest research
bipolarity at the University of Cardiff
They have 2000 participants already
and now 2001
Do I get my wollypop now?
This is your DNA
- My DNA, thank you so much
O, it is so attractive. I knew
it would be Beautiful, isn't it?
So which way now?
- Ok, we go up to look at the Sequenom
You know is must be good just
from the name It's fantastic
Welcome to the Sequenom, Mr. Bond
What we have found is that if you simply
compared people with bipolar disorder
against people without, controls. We
don't actually see any overall difference
Unfortunately the press
as you know, they'll publish reports
saying "The bipolar gene"
or whatever
That is completely incorrect
There will be many genes that
are involved in bipolarity
So at the moment there is no clear-cut
test to show if someone is bipolar
How them do you tell?
How was I diagnosed all those years ago?
Well a psychiatrist simply asked a lot of
questions about my behaviour and my feelings
Here in Cardiff Nick uses the same
process but involving 200 questions
that carefully build up a picture of a
persons life history of manic depression
We developed a scale
When I find out information from you
I'll tell you
where you score on our scale
Looking back times when
you think perhaps
it was something a bit
out of the ordinary
unusual, caused a problem
or you needed treatment
Well, I suppose the first time I
needed treatment I think I was 14
In hindsight my symptoms
really surfaced here
The problem was for almost everyone was
that they looked like bad behaviour
I was nearly expelled from my
prepschool I was expelled from here
It is very strange revisiting a place
where one was so intensively alive
as to be almost in a constant
state of edginess
and I suppose what man call
mania now
because I cut games. I was so
often alone.
Wandering around on the roofs
I think I used to crawl all over
the roofs for a mixture of risk
and power when you're looking
down on people
The effect of my behaviour was cause to
make me unbearable really
a show-off
a loudmouth
completely impossible to handle
disruptive
See, thin, I may never been
a good looking boy
but I was once thin!!
Meeting my old housemaster
and his wife
insures an uncomfortable reminder
of past crimes
like given permission to go to
London and then not returning
We went to see films
We went just to the cinema
One of which was the Clockwork Orange
That's right
Your father thought
O my God,of all films that he
might have seen
I was consumed and gripped by it
You should have been back
- a lot earlier
I had the Metropolitan Police
out looking for you
I didn't realize that
I've never realized that
Stephen has been a problem
This is a letter from Gerald Holme
- The psychiatrist
Suggesting various things
Adolescent Depression
mild depressive illness rather than
just unhappiness
Behavioury
He can be quite infantile
I think Mr. Fry, your father
may have mentioned
that the advice given to him by
doctors in London
suggest that he might have
some brain damage
to account for this
That a crude way of putting it
Good Lord
We were not aware of any drug
taking or *** offenses however
We didn't know much then, did we
And then the awful thing
Which is the stealing
That gripped me
You didn't need money. You didn't need to steal
- No, so odd
So you didn't know it was I who
was the thief
I wouldn't suspected it at all
Stephen. No
You laid a trap in Matern's room
We did. Which Elisabeth
- That was you. You were hiding in Matern's room
I was in her bathroom
It was a terrible shock to see you
Strange emotional turmoil I was in
Stealing things I couldn't
possible want
As well as stealing money must
be said what I did want I suppose
Did I feel shame when I
stole things? I suppose I did
But..
there is something very extraordinary
about going through a room
where you're not supposed
to be looking for things
It's like when you watch it
in a movie
when the hero is burgling
somebody's flat or something
very nerve-racking
Your heart is in your throat
and it is a real buzz
Considering I didn't do any sports
or anything else
that gave me any kind of adrenaline rush
what sport is supposed to do
maybe that is what it was
whether it was part of a disorder
that can be given a name, I do not know
but it was bad enough for me to
have to go to a psychiatrist anyway
that didn't lead to a diagnosis of
manic depression, probably because
like the school authorities
like my parents
and to be fair
like me at the time
why would you have thought
it is anything other than
bad behaviour
So, I was expelled and just stumbled
on continuing to steal as I went
By this time I had progressed
a credit card
stolen from the jackets of my
parents friends
This led to my next big
manic episode
when I used the money in the
most grandiose way
When I was about 17 going around
London on the stolen credit card
It was a sort of fantastic
reinvention of myself on attempt
I bought ridiculous suits
with stiff collars
and silk ties from the 1920's and
we go to the Savoy and The
Ritz and drink cocktails
The morality of it never
crossed my mind at all
I think it is more that when you're
in a sort of grip of a manic fantasy
You don't really believe other people
exist You are the centre of your universe
I wanted to be in there. I
am Stephen Fry sitting there
And the white coats, are so
appropriate, aren't they, the barmen
As they are nurses in a
wonderful mental hospital
It did not of course last after months
of travelling the country
using my stolen credit card
I was arrested I was sent
to Pucklechurch remand centre
In my day would have been a long
sterile corridor with cell doors
It is so different now
I have spent the last 10 years
of my life actually
at boarding schools of
one kind or an other
So this, for me it was
nothing. Really, to be honest
is was just instead of being
called Prefects or Schoolmasters
they were called Prison Officers
or Screws
The only thing that really
twisted my guts was
my mother coming to visit, on
the first day that she visited
I used to be very keen on doing
crypto-crosswords in the Times
and all the time I have been away
she'd cut out the Times crossword
Every single day
A sort of simple demonstration of love
and being there for me and
thinking of me
was a, you know
really stuck in my throat
How many times in your life would
you've had an episode like that?
I would think 4 or 5 of that extremity
If I'm to take my past history,
then I sort of believe maybe
it is perhaps every 5 years
a huge storm will come
I don't know
but that so often the way it is
When would the first time have
been that you had a depression?
I would think it was about
6 months before that manic experience
When you are depressed like that
what's your self-esteem like?
O, absolutely ZERO
Stand up from the sofa and walk to the
fridge is an act of unbelievable effort
Everything that happens
is because you are a ***
because I'm complete wanco
that's because I'm an arshole
You can have moments having a
Tourettes view of yourself
You think of death all the time. and
even when you're not getting suicidal
you are constantly aware
of death and
the way you are in death
and how welcome it would be
That's when I tried to kill myself
- So you've been...
- Seventeen
Tablets was it
Yes, I took as many as I could
and as many variations as I could
in order to make it as toxic as possible.
Unfortunately, this made me
projectile vomit
I'm sure it was a suicide attempt
not a cry for help
Looking back through your live
just roughly
how many episodes of depression
like that
do you think you've experienced
just roughly?
I should say five or six
I think Nick Craddock is
getting the picture but so am I
Adding up all that extreme behaviour
is making me
a little concerned about
what my eventual score will be
What always bothers me is
whether I could have avoided
some of these harrowing moments
if I was diagnosed earlier
that is actually now
a controversial issue
because in America psychiatrists seem
only to happy to diagnose children
as a result Suzy Jensen who lives
outside of San Francisco
has known for 5 years,
that both her young teenage sons
are bipolar.
Is there a thing you can say
"You know your child is bipolar when... "
You know your kid is bipolar when
they're putting their feet
through a plate glass window
in a rage after they have been
raging for 3 hours
about something you even
can't remember what triggered
and certainly risky and dangerous
behaviour
We had a A-line roof and he went up
and was trying to walk the narrowest
point of the A-line
you know, with his eyes closed
You know your kid is bipolar
when their behaviour is so extreme
that I had a neuro-psych evaluation
done on him
When I went to get
the results of the testing
The psychiatrist,
he met me in the lobby
He said
In all the years I've been doing this
I haven't been this concerned
about the results
and he went on to tell me a
story, Ian had told him about
he was walking into a room with bare feet
and could feel a sensation under his feet
that he couldn't recognize. All
of a sudden he looked and realized
that is was my dismembered
body all over the floor
that he was trotting over
You don't want to hear that really, do you?
How old is he?
- Six
Six years old?.
Do you ever enjoy your mania
or do you find it a real touch?
No, I mean I don't like it
When you do something bad like
throwing something
In a bad mood or in a fight or
something?
Yeah, do you feel it is you and that
you are right to be in a bad mood
and the rest of the world is ***?
Yeah, I do
Diagnosed at 11, Ian is now 16, by that
age I'd already been expelled from school
so listening to him reminds me
of my own attitude
It's actually a drive
it is like it's feeding some a need
that he has. You can see it
Yes, it is a kind of a drive
something I need, something that happens
Ian's brother Todd is 13.
He was diagnosed when only 8
His behaviour even at the special schools
Suzy has managed to get both boys into
is causing problems.
While I am with her
she is called to the school
Normally I'm not here until 2:30, but
I got a call from the administrators
saying that Todd a difficult morning
He had actually unfortunately thrown
a chair at a staff member and hit him.
Was there a reason or
were you just cross?
I just wanted to take a walk because
I was kind of feeling pumped and angry
and they wouldn't let me do that
So I just kind of got mad
Frustrated
Yeah and hurled
the chair at the guy
I was about eight or nine.
There was a nurse at my school
I was turn do my laces up and
she told me to do double laces.
and I did not know what that meant.
and I actually slapped her
right across in the face.
I've never known anything like
that absolute rage inside me
and it was such a stupid thing, because
she told me how to do my laces up
After a blow, especially a major one
very often he'll shut down like this
I mean, I know that he is suspended
for three days
He is been suspended
for three days?
I know Todd's school sees it
as bad behaviour
but I have to say
I feel a twinge of sympathy
I recognize the rage
being in the grip of powerful feelings
and the shame that comes afterwards.
but Todd and Ian are different from
me in one key respect
at the same age
they know they have an illness
On the other hand, I know from speaking
to psychiatrists in Britain
that they don't agree with labelling
children at such a young age
The norm in Britain is 19
So I wanted to speak to the
consultant, who diagnosed Ian and Todd
Kiki Chang is well placed
to talk about this
Not only does he run a research project
at the prestigious Stanford University
just outside San Francisco but
also he has a 2 year old child
and knows that some of his colleagues
would diagnose as young as that
Once you get down to say age 2 or 3
it is very normal to have complete
discontrol over your mood
tantrums and crying one minute
and laughing the next minute
but I suddenly have colleagues
who are clear
that they see it in
3 year olds even
certainly I have seen children
who I think
were 4,5 who fit the
bipolar criteria
they're having wild mood shifts
and they're having unsafe behaviour
they're not functioning
enough developing correctly
but losing a lot of time
in their normal development
Everyone remembers the rise
of ADHD over the 80's and 90's
and indeed the cynics will always say
Well, this is a new fashionable label
to put on a bad kid a disrupted kid
I would be careful to say that. I
don't think we are over diagnosing
I think that by increasing the
diagnosis you're catching more people.
It's good because it then leads
them to a Bipolar diagnosis and
they realize that there is
something going on
that is maybe treatable
and is not their fault
Ian, come take your meds
For Kiki Chang diagnoses is good news
For Ian and Todd it means medication
Ian showed me how much he takes every day
Welcome to our pharmacy
- We're proud of it
So you go Prozac, Lamictal, Pederol
Klonapin, is like a tranquilizer type?
I can tell they help me
behave when I have a hard time
This is Ambien that I take..
- It's a sleeping pill, isn't it?
and Concerta I take in the morning.
Concerta is a like a Ritalin kind of
It takes me the better part of an hour
to stand an fill both of their medication
All of that to take the edge of
a 16 year old wilder behaviour
what I think, I'm not sure
I know British psychiatrists
are concerned about
the harm strong drugs might do
to young brains
especially when they are not a
100% sure the diagnosis is correct
If the drugs help Ian and Todd
to avoid wrecking their lives
and their mothers then surely
that is a good conclusion
Would I've wanted diagnoses at 16 if
it meant being on medication since then?
I feel that in some ways I've
been helped by my manic depression
and that complicates my view Would
I have had success without it?
Would you know me if I wasn't
driven by its energy to be creative?
Oh stop it, thank you thank you
How kind
I am delighted
honoured and
let's not be coy about these things
financially rewarded
This is a stressful time, because
out for everyone else
you make an ars of yourself
intentionally in front of
people you admire
Stress is often a key factor
that people say
pushing them into the manic depression
and certainly when I was diagnosed
the psychiatrist told me
not to work so hard
Relax avoid stressful situations
and as you can see
I took his advice seriously
Enjoyable some people might
imagine This kind of thing is
they're the same kind fun that is enjoyable
perhaps someone stops
cigarettes out on your nipples
in certain dark clubs and I could
believe are called torture gardens
in the leakier areas of the West End
Come in!
and for the week leading up to it
I had the most appalling anxiety dreams
in which I dropped out of my clothes or
pee myself in the rows of
the front of the stage
I do not know if I stress is what puts
me into a cycle of mania or depression
I can't think of time in my life
when I haven't been subject to stress
Happy?
Happy, ha. I remember that. Seven
years old, ice cream, holidays.
That was happy Not since then really
Stress is something
I can't live without
on the other hand
it is a dangerous thing
No disasters so far, but it is hot work
I can't *** wait until it's
over, frankly
Oh God, here we go again
I am delighted, honoured
and let's not be too coy
about these things
financially rewarded
to welcome you to this most prestigious...
Well the real thing seems
to go off ok for another year
I do manage to function despite
my manic depression
and I'm sure it does help me to succeed
and that's the problem
with connecting stress
to the onset of manic depression
My stress is
your easy day at the office
One person coped, the other goes mad
I've come to Cornwall to see
how manic depression wrecked
the career
the marriage
and almost took the life of a man
who once was Lieutenant Commander
on the Royal Yacht Britannia
Here we are Princess Margaret one side
Lieutenant Commander Harvey there
and Majesty the Queen there
22 years ago
You were a well bunny then
weren't you? Oh yes, I was well
Four years on the Royal yacht
led to a senior posting in NATO
Under huge pressure working
in a nuclear bunker
Rod became so deeply
depressed he had a breakdown
My self confidence seemed to be
just seeping away and my self-esteem
and could not sleep
awful sort of feeling, desperation
Eventually invalid out of the Navy
he still became
secretary of the Royal Yacht Club
in Plymouth
that lasted until at
a prise giving ceremony
Rod now manic
awarded it to the wrong person
The real winner wouldn't accept
Rod's apology
And through in the end I just lost
it and in front of all spectators
I just shouted, excuse my French, *** Off!
and marched off into the night
I actually hallucinated by
seeing the devil
burning black coals of these
eyes of the devil
that is what I saw that was frightening
I believed that I was Jesus at that time
you know
though I couldn't tell people that
because then I wouldn't be Jesus
Rod was brought back to England
and sectioned at this psychiatric hospital
in Plymouth
He was now overwhelmed with depression
I was experiencing pain in my head.
I've been given a touch of hell
I was meant to find out what
hell feels like
So I contrived to escape from the hospital
They let me leave the unit
to go upstairs to
turn right to
the occupational therapy unit
Unescorted
So I did turn right
I kept walking through the main doors
to the dual carriageway
walked a bit down away from the roundabout
so that vehicles can pick up speed
waited for a lorry to come along
and then walked in front of it
I had actually compound fractures of
both legs and every bone in my legs
I have to lower my trousers to
actually see the full extend really
I have seen many naval officers
in this condition don't worry
I'm not like this
Oh my Goodness no, oh God
That is really extraordinary
Please give a twirl at this
That is indicative of what must
have been a savage injury
That all happened over ten years ago
and with medication, Rod says
his condition is now stabilized
But twice a year
in the spring and in the autumn
he starts to feel the mania
build again
and despite what's happened to him
he is reluctant to take extra
medication to control it
I believe there is another world
running in parallel to the normal
inverted comma's boring, which
I find boring, world
that there is another world
and that the curtain gets
lifted, the vale gets lifted
when I'm psychoticly manic
and then I enter into the parallel world
and then I see things in a
totally different way
I will go into pubs and
I will see angels
I know that they know
who I am
and I know who they are
and we have a tremendous sort
of bond between us
because of a shared knowledge
Do you regret the fact that you
are born with this strange disorder
that is called
bipolar or manic depression?
That's a very easy question
there is a very easy answer
No - You don't regret
it - No, not for a second
Because when you walked with angels
all the pain and suffering
is well worthwhile
You'll be pleased to know
I don't see angels
or the devil or
think I am Jesus
on the other hand
I agree with Rod
we manic depressives
do love our manic periods
and I know that doesn't help diagnosis
when we are UP
we are not ill, don't be silly
we're fine
no need for a doctor
But that doesn't disguise the fact,
that Rod so nearly killed himself
and that he really wanted to
when he was in the grip
from the other
side of this illness
The legacy of any suicide for the family
left behind, is extremely painful
but when the cause is manic depression
suicide also leaves fear
The fear that the same thing
might happen again
with another member of the family
because manic depression is an illness
that always handed down in families
and that is what brought me further down
the coast in Cornwall to see an old friend
who's had to life with
that thought since he was 18
that's when he found out
that his father was bipolar
and this is where you would
come every summer holiday?
Yes, we were. There are great
memories to me as a child, I must say.
We used to sit out on that deckchairs
on that slate bit down there
With lashings and lashings of lemonade
It is very
'Famous Five', isn't it?
Just imagine having every
summer holiday here
So, I mean, slightly mixed emotions
that you coming back here, I suppose
Yes, because my father
actually killed himself
Over there actually so it
is not the best place for me
One of the heartbreaking things
about his suicide is that he actually
went out with his sister
your aunt
and threw himself of that cliff
in front of her
He dived off, you know so I
mean he wasn't messing about
I'm afraid they've all broken up a bit
Let's try to find a decent
picture of him
There he is
- That's your father
The idea of having
a loony father is just
very a sort of embarrassing
and shameful really
I was 18, I was so keen to a sort
of hide the whole business really
You just want to be normal
at that age, you know
I just became morbidly sort of
aware of it and very very depressed
and you get this panic attacks
My way of coping with it was to to sort
of like almost pretend it haven't happened
Shortly after he died I went away to
Australia, America and Mexico for two years
just running away from it really
Rick returned and build
a huge success story
just miles from where
his father died
but he also spent his life wondering
if he'd inherit the condition
that made his father kill himself
I was always so worried
then about ending up like him
The thing is that he thought
I was particularly like him
and I think he was incredibly
troubled by that
My father didn't show signs of
it until his mid-forties really
I am well over it now then
I think about my sons too
My sons are still in their
mid-twenties so there is plenty of time
Do you see a psychotherapist?
- I do I do
And that is helpful?
Yes, it is I do believe
The only problem with
seeing a psychotherapist
really what happened to you as a child
is indelibly printed on your brain
They *** you up, your mom and dad
What the research shows is that
if you have manic depression
someone in your family
would have had it before you
It could be a grandparent, aunt
or uncle as well as a parent
often they might not have been diagnosed
So there appears to be no
warning, but there will be somebody
On the other hand as
Rick's experience shows
just because your father has it doesn't
mean that you'll necessarily get it
but the worry remains for bipolar
parents "Will I pass it on?"
And now for bipolar mothers researchers
have made another devastating discovery
Pregnancy itself and the act of
childbirth are now proved
to be enormously dangerous
to mental health
of women who are already bipolar
When I saw you, Gaynor,
I said that in my opinion
the risk that you had
of becoming unwell again
in pregnancy or certainly following
the delivery were very high
I think probably 60 percent or more
is the kind of rate of risk
you need to think about
Gaynor Thomas lives
in Wales and is part of
the same research study
that I'm involved in
She is trying to decide whether
she dare risk getting pregnant again
knowing that her manic depression
has already led to unusual behaviour
I had delusions of grandeur
Did you believe you were richer
then you were or better born
or some believe they're princesses or
Mine were quite religious in nature
One of the episodes
I thought that I was
one of God's chosen people
for want of a better word
I thought that I was able
to heal people
I thought I had special powers
and I thought that I
kind of sent to
gather together a group of people
to change the world in some way
I was seeing a psychotherapist
at the time and
she identified that my ideas were
becoming very strange
and called in what would have been
the equivalent of
the Community Mental Health Team
who treated me at home
- With medication?
- With medication, yes
And then came a very dramatic
thing
a very wonderful thing for most
people, which is pregnancy
and you did had a manic episode while
pregnant. How did that show itself?
that the more religious side
came in after I have had Thomas
All I just thought was that
he was not just a special baby
but a VERY special baby
Like a Messiah
- Almost. Almost to that degree, yes
and that I kind of been ad chosen
to give birth to him
and together we were going to
change the world
It is such a small step
and yet it's such a huge one
in terms of embarrassment if
you would say it at a party
There is a way of saying
My child is the centre of my universe
then saying
My child is the centre of the universe
Initially it was postnatal euphoria,
but it became postnatal mania
I could not sleep, was so excited
I called the psychiatrist and
said I think need to see somebody
because things are kind of
getting out of control
Gaynor was a sectioned in in a
psychiatric hospital for a month
The drugs the hospital put
her on calmed her down but
now she is frightened that it might
happen all over again if she gets pregnant
Ian Jones told me
Gaynor is right to be scared
Women with bipolar disorder
have very high risk
of having much more severe
episode of illness
in relationship to childbirth
often with psychotic symptoms
like hallucinations or delusions
These episodes can be some
of the most severe episodes
of illness that we see in
psychiatric practice
Really? In all psychiatric practice?
The last two confidential enquiries
on maternal death have showed us that
suicide is now the leading cause of death
to women around childbirth in this country
Gaynor wants Thomas to have
a brother or sister
but Ian Jones' information
is hard to ignore
It made me just re-think the
whole idea of having a baby
you know I am sad but I won't
be able to have another child
Perhaps for Thomas his sake
but I got to accept that the risks
are probably too high
As you say you don't know what
might have happened
No, precisely
I love the heels of his shoes
Manic depression's capacity to destroy
the lives of people
makes it all the more important
to be diagnosed early, but
often it goes undetected
because what most sufferers do to help
them cope with the mood swings
they cover up their symptoms
Certainly I did for almost twenty years
It is called self-medication or
as you would quite properly call it
the taking of excessive amounts
of drink and drugs
*** and *** in my case
The effect of it is that coke is a stimulant
and alcohol is a sedative, supposedly
and I am naturally often
so manic and energetic
that I often took coke to calm me down
I found it very hard to go to
any kind of party without knowing
there were a couple of grams in my
wallet I just had to have them there
I find it slightly embarrassed by
using a phrase like self-medication
because it sounds like you know
you're sort of excusing yourself or
saying you're doing it for noble reasons
I did find and this is the point
that it stopped one from feeling
in a strange kind of way
You're no longer sort of
depressed or manic
you're just going. You're just 'on'
That's what I was doing all
during my successful 80's and 90's
My friends
if they thought about it at all
would have said heavy user
not manic depressive
They did mistaken the symptoms
for the cause
and that happens a lot
I did it with someone
I went to university with
worked on the stage and TV
with and even made a film with
The first time it really manifested
itself was at the time
when I was doing this film
Peter's Friends
I was having a gloriously happy time
I was in employment and I had money
All my personal life was happy
So, on paper there was absolutely no
reason for me to be suddenly plunged.
Into this sort of pit of
abnormal psychology, this low mood
I wasn't drinking excessively then
I wasn't taking any kind of
psychotropic substance
either prescribed or proscribed
and it came out of the blue
You know if you're down and you can
see a reason why you should be down
then that brings with it
a certain clarity
But if there is no reason
you tend to think
Why on earth am I feeling
like this? I don't understand
If left to your own devices, you
can often try and stop the cycle of
ups and downs through self-medication
Indigestion of alcohol and
narcotics, *** in particular
but with me the depression
came before the substance abuse
Everyone thinks that depression
is being a very low desponded mood
but there is agitated depression
there is psychomotor agitation
where you endlessly pacing and you
can't sleep and you're short tempered
I rented a huge warehouse by
the river Thames
and just stayed in there on my
own and I didn't open any mail
or answered any phone calls
for months and months and months
and in this pool of rapid
cycling despair and mania
three full bar optics of ***
to try to get you to sleep when
you haven't been to sleep for 3 days
spending time howling at the moon and
throwing your furniture in the Thames
which's what I did
- Really?
Yes. threw my electrical equipment
in the Thames
a long time ago this was
with the river police going up and down
with their megaphone saying
"Tony stop throwing things in the Thames"
- Did they know who you were?
- They did they did
- That is that Tony Slatterly
- That is that Tony Slatterly of the TV
Yes, that was thankfully was a
long time ago that was a dark hour
So, I suppose where I'm
leading to is this question
Here is a button and
if I'd have to press that button
you would take away every aspect of
your bipolarity / cyclothymiacs
and still not caused you the greatest
happiness over the years
but maybe it has something to do with
who you are Do you want that button?
No, I keep it
At the moment because I'm in a equable
state I choose
not to press the button but
I'd like to have the option
Everybody I've spoken said that
It says something about manic depression
despite being the greatest killer
of all psychiatric illnesses
many of those suffering from it
if given a chance,
don't want to get rid of it
If I'm honest, I don't
but I came across one woman who
absolutely would press the button
Connie Perris lives in Birmingham
and it is just in her forties
Her symptoms are so severe that she divides
her life into before bipolarity and after
One of the difficulties is coming
in here and feeling a bit paranoid
I see what I think is all looking at me.
Why is he looking at me?
Why is he watching me?
She is following me.
And then I think
he is giving me funny looks
Then it clicks in, the thinking
I am getting paranoid again
He's giving me funny looks
because I give them funny looks
Before she was a lawyer,
Captain in the Territorial Army
a black belt in Aikido
and active in the community
now Connie can hardly get to the shops
When I'm very depressed, I slow
down and slow down and slow down
and it gets to the point
which I'm not moving at all
In my head, I can see I can hear
but somehow I just don't have the
energy or the oomph to move forward
and it can be a bit embarrassing
when I'm at the shops
and just get stuck there
not moving
Could we before we before we do that
can I just pace up and down
the corridor slightly
because I'm getting quite shaky
- Of course you can, I'm sorry
I feel the shake is getting slightly worse
- Yes, have a pace
Oh wow, that is a quite a serious
slab of medication, isn't it
Two different ones that try to
stop me going too high and too low
One slows down the swings
and one stops going to high
The stuff for my thyroid because
that also slows mood swings down
Something to help me
sleep and
something to do with paranoia and
other psychotic thinking
and then there is the
mineral supplements
try to stop my hair falling out
from the mood stabilizers
Golly wolly, every day?
- Every day
in your depressions have you considered
you know
the worst side of depression
what is suicide?
In a period of four days
I took an overdose I stepped
right in front of an oncoming train
I tried to drill a hole in
my head with an electric drill
and I cut my wrists
dig a hole in your head with an
electric drill that's is extreme
I was just so utterly despair I
didn't think I could take anymore
How do you see the future?
I do not see it
I try to take it a minute at a time
because at the moment
I don't see it
I'd like to. I really wish I could,
but at the moment I don't
I so very much bitterly
resent having manic depression
I wish I could say otherwise but
that is how I feel I resent it deeply
It's perhaps a hard fact but
one we should face
that of those people who have
severe bipolarity
and aren't receiving
treatment, half attempts suicide
and 20 percent succeed
Having met Connie
I realized I was lucky
originally to be diagnosed at
the mild end of the bipolar scale
But that was 11 years ago
now I'm concerned to know how my way
of dealing with it
will affect my rating
on Professor Craddock's scale for mania
A zero on that scale is someone who
has absolutely no features of being
bipolar at all
Between 1 and 39 that is somebody who
has what we call subclinical episodes of mania
40 to 59 on our scale is people who
only get hypo manias
That's the milder episodes
and then 60 and above is the range
where people experience full manias
From what you've told me, you
would score probably about 70
To be honest, I wonder
if you've got close to
having grandiose delusions
in that first episode
If you did on our scale that
would actually put you above 80
Well it's good to know
I'm not wasting your time
and that my little genes may
be of some help in your research
I didn't expect that. It's worrying
that I seem to be getting worse
Clearly I must now consider treatment
I haven't been on any medication
since my original diagnosis
Should I be?
I think my life needs to change
dramatically
British subtitles (transcript):
BABL