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The most dangerous sporting activity for women
which turns up to be cheerleading apparently
Hello Stephen here I don't know what number
you're calling This is a dressing room
Yeah, all right
*** off
It's all the same old gang
Are you Manic Depressive, Stephen? - Yes Oh sorry, I did not know
No, that's all right No, that's all right
There's another me behind this public mask that one that is joshing
and being amusing and trying to entertain
and sometimes it is a very miserable and despairing one
because I'm thinking O God, when is this going to be over?
there're times when I'm doing when I so hate myself
and I'm actually kind off sobbing
and kind of tearing up the walls inside my own brain
while my mouth is you know, witching away
in some amusing fashion Hoho about whatever it is
I have always had voices in my head, saying what a useless *** I am
but the voice is my own
It is my own voice just telling me what worthless lump of *** I am
Are you surprised that I feel like that?
I no longer am, because I know that it is the result of my illness
I have a desease of the brain
that I share with four million others in the UK
It can be a serious condition
It led me to be expelled from school in prisoned for theft
and attempting suicide all by the age of seventeen
It's tormented all my life with deepest of depressions
while giving me the energy and creativity
that perhaps has made my career
It's called Bipolarity or Manic Depression
Until now, I've tried to cope with it lantely by ignoring it
I'm not so sure that that's been wise
I want to know how severe my condition is
so I've taken part in the world's largest study of bipolarity
which happens to be in Cardiff
The results shocked me
Zero on that scale is somebody who
has absolutely no features of being bipolar at all
From what you've told me, you would score probably about 70
You fit well into the realm of people who
have you know full blown manic episodes
It is clear that I have bipolarity more severely than I believed
So I decided to think again about possible treatments
investigate what's now available
and decide if I have to change my life dramatically
When you go on the Net to find treatments for manic depression
you'll quickly discover that there is no simple agreed approach
That's because people's symptoms vary widely
as does the severity of their condition
it is a complicated illness that's not even diagnosed
until a crisis point is reached
that was certainly true for me
I lived most of my life with it unaware of what I had
Then 11 years ago my crisis happened
My life fell apart after I suppose years of success
I'd just started a run in a new play in the West End
Reviews of my performance were critical
I suppose I was unhappy with my own performance. I'd clearly wrote
that I told a failure as an actor
I think I did but I didn't think that
one bad performance in a series of not very good reviews
which were never savage would be enough to make me
escape life or try to kill myself for that matter
so there obviously was something else
deeply amiss inside something terrible
a terrible feeling that this all had to stop
So did I give off any sign that I was in turmoil?
One person who might have noticed is an old friend
I went to his party just three days into the play's run
You don't remember what mood I was about then, do you?
I don't remember you actually being anything
but your usual dubbed as self at the party
I don't remember really that many reviews at the play to be honest
I don't know that it was entirely that
but I felt that I failed in absolutely everything
I felt I failed in my entire existence
It's odd that how one doesn't give off any signals of that
No, well I do not think you did - No
because all I remember at the party is that
people delighted to see you as always
because you had not seemed incredible out of sort
Have I ever come across as a troubled soul? - No
You are somebody who has a strong consciousness
for social obligations
- Yes Politeness, you're worried about
how the other person feels. You want to make sure
that they are engaged in conversations
John Cleese, who is of course famous for his interest in psychoanalysis
he did once say that my politeness would be you know the destroyer of me
Like so many manic depressives I may have looked happy
but inside I was hopelessly depressed
Within hours of Griff's party I decided to act
Very early in the morning I came down from my flat
in central London to where my car was, in the garage
Yeah, I went in there. Sat in the car with my hand over ignition
brought down a duvet which is one of those
preposterous details that always accompanies
something like a grand gesture or a grand attempt
to kill yourself you have to think about that
I thought if I have the duvet along now? To stop the air getting in
and this image of my parents staring right at me while I sat there
for at least I think two hours in the car my hands on the ignition key
then so I decided not to do it
I drove to the south coast to get a ferry
That was a suicide attempt It was not that I decided never do it again
I just delayed it
What weakly elephants crawling away to die they do not want to been seen
it's primal feeling of ending en severing all
connections with everything that you have been
I really believed that I never come back to England
I've in my head northern Germany or Denmark
and get a huge thick wide pullover and a pipe
and sit in a stone cottage
and offer to give English lessons and learn to mend nets
I do not know what is was A big sour fantasy
I found myself in Hamburg and I saw these rows of you know newspaper headlines
and "Fears for Fry.. ' type things
I stared at it in complete disbelief I mean I was absolutely staggered
They all are worried that I committed suicide
That's the awful thing, isn't it
I can't believe why people worry so much
When you feel you can't go on is not just a phrase
It is the reality I could not go on
I would have killed myself, when I didn't have the option of disappearing
I was away for a week. For my family my disappearance was especially worrying
At the time I don't know if I believe in
a great sense of family that nothing bad has happened
but it just didn't cross my mind and I'm talking
that you might have, Uh be gone and done it
And then you rang me. You sounded rather small and lost. Boyish
and I was absolutely terrified of saying he wrong thing to you to frighten you
about how quite enormous it had been back at home
In some ways more troubled than ever I quietly came back to London
and was taken into the Cromwell Hospital
I spent three weeks here
and at the age of 37 a psychiatrist for the first gave me a diagnosis
of Bipolar Disorder
I don't think that I'd heard the word Bipolar before
but I do have extremes in moods that are greater than just everybody else I know
and can occasionally go wild enough for it to be real trouble for me
So in that sense Bipolar fitted
A part of me resisted it part of me thought it looks like an excuse
another part of me was immensely grateful
and pleased to know that some of the extremes of my feelings and behaviour
had a cause
With the psychiatrists diagnosis came his advice for treatment
Like many other manic depressives I was told to reduce the stress in my life
take time off stop working so hard
I came here to Los Angeles walked this beach every day
got surprisingly fit and thought about his other cause of treatment
the drug Lithium
That's the standard medication 7 of the 10 of
those with manic depressives are advised to take
but it is an old fashioned drug discovered about 60 years ago
and feared for its power to take away feelings
All feelings, making you a kind of zombie
I refused this offer and have never taken it
I fact I have never been on any medication since that first diagnosis
Now with my condition appearing to be getting worse
I'm wondering if I'm wise
Until now I haven't wanted my moods stabilized but perhaps I'm wrong
perhaps I don't need to fear the medication
I want to know how someone else in my business has coped.
What choice they make
Now living in London Richard Dreyffus has
spent most of his life battleling Bipolarity
As with me it led him to all kind of scrapes
Like me he eased the pain of his mood swings with street drugs and alcohol
Unlike me, he was willing to take what the doctors prescribed
Was that been the right choice?
In any conversation sooner or later I get up like this
AND THEN WE DO THIS...
AND WE GO here... AND...
I recognized that at certain times my behaviour has been
capable of being offending[?] perhaps
Can tell you tell us what you take?
It is different things
Things having to deal with Manic Depression and
ADD and concentration and sleep and anxiety
and lithium Lithium was the very first thing I took
for many many years and now 20 years later
23 years later I am just about not taking lithium
I mean there are those who are very afraid of lithium because they think of it
as some kind of pharmaceutical zombie drug Did you find that when you took it?
With lithium..
I remember driving down Mulholland Drive one night
and all of a sudden I was aware after ten days of taken it
that I'd had letterboxed
I could feel this...
It was an absolutely non claustrophobic experience
that took the top and bottom and said: 'You can live here'
and I was very happy to do so I married with it
Had children by it
reclaimed a career if you want to put it that way
So we're talking about? - The late he 70s
Late 70's O gosh, right
I changed dramatically
I said to my doctor once I've become a person I admire
The last few years I have wept more I said I'm sorry more
I've succeeded in endeavours that were impossible
blah blah blah blah blah
I could not have done that without this courage
and he said to me that is not courage
it is the absence of anxiety
and that is as true a statement
Richard said yes to lithium and other mood stabilizers
and it has clearly helped him cope with severe manic depression
Perhaps I've been to hasty saying no to it
but I like to find out how medical science justifies dependence on drugs
because as Richard tells me once was on them he had to stay on them
That's what brings me to Aberdeen and
a psychiatrist with strong views about taking the medication
Here are your mood stabilisers for example Lithium
I mean Lithium was used for periodic mood disorder 2 centuries ago
but it was also used as a treatment for gout
and there it was believed to have health giving properties
It tastes salty but it is not a good idea to sprinkle it on your food
it's dangerous it's toxic - It's toxic?
Yes - Oh yes, for the kidneys and
various other things, isn't it? is it not particular healthy
That's the reason why when folks are taking Lithium
they have to have regular blood tests
So those who say Oh Lithium is a zombie pill
it's a kind of chemical pharmaceutical lobotomy
This kind of idea to you is nonsense
Many patients report cognitive dulling with many medicines in psychiatry
and that is particular true when folks being treated for bipolar disorder
and that some of that dulling of cognitive performance
might not be due to the medicine at all
but may be a property of the illness
and by not taking medication you might make that worse
The danger is that folks and we know this is the case
that many patients with Bipolar disorder just don't take the medicine
Colleagues in Edinburgh looked at what happened
when folks gave up the lithium
they showed that not only did patients relapse
as you might expect someone to do
but some of them relapsed a lot faster than
the pattern of their illness before they started lithium
With for example If someone stops and starts with lithium
you will have more episodes of mania
than you would have had had you never taken it at all
If you discontinue your lithium in first year off lithium
the number of reported suicidal acts increases
beyond the level that was there before
Because it means, once you start you really have to stay on it, for good
or for the longer term
I clearly looked preoccupied coming away from seeing Professor Reed
It isn't because I'm worrying about his message
Take medication and stay on it
it's but because for the last few days I'm been feeling increasingly depressed
where's a sort of black stage at the moment
Would love to be somewhere else other than here, frankly
I am fully aware I'm a very awful person to be with
Difficult to meet people's eyes and I find it very difficult to connect to people
I find it very... I just want to be alone, frankly
I just pray in a little parts basically
It's *** irritating and I hate myself for it
I'd have never thought that I hear voices but I do
I do have a voice telling I'm a complete *** all the time in my head
Usually when I feel like this, I hide away I can't this time
For me that numbing kind of depression comes three to four times a year
and last a week to ten days
I spent the time in the house staring at the ceiling
still afraid to take anti-depressants or mood stabilizers like lithium
So as you can see I am still very much in the grip mood swings
but also still more afraid of the medication then the illness
Surprising as it might seem this is a common reaction among manic depressives
A couple of years ago I read a newspaper article by the parents
of a 27 year old girl called Zoe Schwartz
I wanted to talk to them about what was in Zoe's mind during her last depression
It was 7 o'clock and she had not come I said: Let's ring the police after supper
a quarter to eight the police came
In a flash I knew what had happened
She went up to the end of the platform and she jumped very high
The train driver then said that Zoė hit me at face level
She had it all planned
Zoe was 27 when she killed herself
She was beautiful, articulate, very bright with a
masters degree from the London School Economics
but she'd also spent almost 10 years trying
to hide the symptoms of an illness
that already led to suicide attempts
Looking back on it now, what I know I do realize she was going up and down
but she hid she hid it from everyone
She would never accept it She would never admit it to herself
Had she admitted it maybe she could have been helped
This issue of people refusing to accept that they have it, is a particular difficult one
Did she imagine.. Was it pride in a way?
That's what her best friend said
the week after she died when we came all together
She said her pride killed her
and she was writing in her diaries All of which we found after her death
about these panic attacks and about these terrible fear she had
She just hid, from presumably herself
to some extent because she never talks in diaries
about big man[?] clearer She talked about fear
She hid it from everyone
Despite the fronts Zoe put up a breakdown eventually led to a diagnosis
She was presented with drugs to stabilize her moods
She resisted
She used in her diaries the phrase
I do not want to be one of the lithium-generation
It's a very modern phenomenon Zoe was cut out to be a success
Her friends were successful
She had some very close friends from school they're all successful in their way
and she was desperate to be a success
and the idea that she would be a basket case for all her life
that she would be taking lithium to bring her down, to sedate her
she could not accept that
went to the hospital for a few days and then she walked out
She hated it She hated the people on lithium
with a lot of gowned people with lithium shuffling around a hospital
and she would naturally think
I'm not supposed to be here This is not my life
That tread seems to have propelled Zoe to her death
We talked to the psychiatrist who came to see her
every week or every two weeks
and she told him she wanted to kill herself
She died on Tuesday at twenty minutes past twelve
He rang us up on Wednesday at nine o'clock and
he said "I think she did that yesterday"
because she did not want to come in hospital and take lithium
She was really frightened of lithium She was really frightened of hospital
and she felt that there's a terrible stigma
That stigma is very very important
and I really do hope that you, Stephen
would be able to do something about that in this program
because this is so harmful
It's revealing that Zoe saw going into hospital
and taking drugs to calm her
not as stages on the way to helping her recover
but as a treatment she could not bear to undergo
And yet to my surprise, when I was in Los Angeles recently, I learned
that ECT Electro Convulsive Therapy is actually still used
in the treatment of Manic Depression
Andy Behrman is become a celebrity in the US
as a result of a green to ECT to curb the wildness of his bipolarity
I've never met someone who's been given electric shocks
nineteen courses of convulsion
It's an extraordinary thing and I just love to know
what that's like and whether it worked for him
So the next day I was in the hospital at 6 AM
I was laying on a gurney, wheeled into a room
They connected the electrodes put the bite block in my mouth
So, I woke up in recovery and I had no idea where I was
except I knew I felt great - Oh, you did?
I was confused my memory was under shod
The short term memory losses are supposed to be the in
Yes, if doctors tell you that it’s not real they are lying
Mine was pretty long term - But you felt better
I felt that the concrete in my brain
had been kind of liquefied and just shot through
Then my doctor said, you know what? We need to do maintenance therapy
Ok, how many treatments do I need?
He said: Hé, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, however many you need
I'm interested in how Andy ended up been given such extreme treatment
His background was respectable middle class Jewish family
but by his late teens and twenties he was living out a truly manic existence
You were cute and you have blue eyes and you say you had a job as a dancer
a male dancer
Stripper, ***, hustler, *** I have done all
That kind of all ended and then
because you have to understand how the mind works, the manic mind
Ok, what am I going to do next?
Wait, maybe I should go to law school maybe I should go to medical school
No, that doesn't work My sister is interested in Public Relations
Let's go into business together We're making 3 or 4 million dollars
Out of control
So, I wrote this article for the New York Times called "Electro Boy"
because a nurse had called me Electro Boy in the hospital
and it was just a story, a 820 words story about my experience with ECT
and then I'd have to say from that point on in my life, nothing went wrong
Andy's article became a bestselling book that was then optioned for a film
Suddenly the whole world knew Electro Boy
electro boy. com: Fighting depression and Bipolar Disorder
All my friends have read your book and love it
since they understand me slightly better now
I am 22 now and still suffering in bliss and agony
Bliss and agony concept to the phrase
20 percent of people with Bipolar Personality kill themselves
40 percent never will be able function well enough
and end up living with their families
Another 20 percent don't function at the level
that they were ever going to be able to function
and work as a clerks or cashiers or things like that
and 20 percent somehow stabilize recover and you know
just go on to lead extremely productive lives
So, do you think it is Andy Behrmann, who beat bipolar
or the doctors who form the cocktails
No, it's me who beat bipolar in tandem with a doctor that I saw for 10 years
I think I came around because after 19 rounds of Electroshock therapy
and 37 different medications
She said, "You're on your own, you can do it"
You're gonna read your daddies book one day and you're gonna wonder
She has a Electro Baby T-shirt
For Andy the treatment worked, but I still can't imagine, feeling so bad
that I will agree to electrodes being attached to my temples
but I was genuinely surprised to learn
when I was talking to a British psychiatrist that ECT
is still used on about 5 percent of patients
and for those with severe depression it works better than any existing drug
It's only the terrifying images of when it was used
in the early days without anaesthetics
and muscle relaxants, that ensure the stigma around ECT remains
The same stigma surrounds mental hospitals and
psychiatric wards in the treatment of manic depression
About 7 out of 10 of manic depressives will have to enter hospital
when they have a severe episode
They'll go either voluntarily or under what's called a Sectioning Order
Sectioning sounds to me just as dark and controlling as ECT
So I went to a psychiatric ward in East London
to see if my fear was justified
It sounds silly, but I think this is one of the most powerful
pieces of paper on the country
I'm not joking. That's a Section This is a section paper
This is a Section
You know that phrase "You should be certified?"
you know "He's certifiable"
That is the process of certification
In modern day language basically
I am licensed under section 12 of the 1983 Mental Health Act to detain someone
for the protection of their health, their safety
and increasing, in this risk crazy world of ours
the safety of others That's all important
and two doctors and a social worker can complete this form.
And this form will forbid someone
inheriting a will leaving the country
apply for a passport instructing a solicitor
Voting I'm not joking, you are not a citizen
Technically in the eyes of the law once you're on the list
This one says "Assessment"
Now, this is a kind of "Getting to know you" kind of section
This section, Section 2 notice that nothing about treatment
You can treat if you need to but the essence of this is assessment
No words, you have 28 days to get to know them
To ques why they've came to you?
What their pilots go willing to like?
Their eating, their sleeping their thinking, their feeling
What's been happening in the last few months How did it all come to this?
Welcome to Q ward This is the uncued adult open ward
There are no locks on the doors here People can come and go
Depending on what their legal bits of course. This is pretty much it
It is a mixed ward, 16 beds, every single patient has a room of their own
This is the modern equivalent of a Victorian asylum
It's like a students, you know kind of JCR type things
Got a bar, football and television and institutionalised sofa's
What is waps[?] unlike a student dorm? All these kind of stuff is going on inhere
You wouldn't believe it but these walls have seen more
then their fair share of freaking and despair
in their time then the most of us do
I've never been inside a psychiatric ward before
so that was rather reassuring
but it must still be a harrowing moment
for the family and friends of a manic depressive
when they feel they have to put a loved one inside
An old friend spent years as a psychiatric nurse watching that struggle
Did you regarded it as a very serious step to section people
O, I think it's a hugely serious step to section people
Obviously the vast majority of people
who are hyper manic or in a manic faze of bipolar illness
What they don't have is insight into their illness and behaviour
and that's obviously why sections were originally invented, you know
to be able to keep someone safe when their natural instinct
because of their illness would not be to do it themselves
So the vast majority of people you talk to who have been sectioned
will say to you: I've absolutely no idea why
I was sectioned. I was perfectly all right, you know
And then you find out that there was sort of
hanging out of a window by one hand naked
We had one year a woman brought in once
What'd she done She'd gone to a multi-storey car park
and she jumped from the roof of one car to another
She completely totalled about 70 or 80 cars
and she'd loved it As you would wouldn't you?
and there she was. She was as high as a kite
She was laughing in this kind of manic gothic way
but trailing along were her poor quiet a sort of elderly parents
What the hell do we do? You know
a lot of the time in those particular manic phases
it's the families you feel sorry for
because they're the ones that have to cope with the fallout
all the damage emotional and physical that their relative does
The mach[?] thing is that we contained it
I don't call it daft, but I think this is a heroic place
it's is a cue in sense of being a sanctuary
the old fashion meaning of the word asylum
a place to go when you have a really really really bad time
We take people in like who've doused themselves with petrol
or tried jumping of a flat or taken a vast amount of paracetamol
who do not want to live anymore
We bring those people in and I'd say that 9,5 out 10
compes[?] leave here healthy and well
if that is not a result I know not what is
Pessimism has always dominated our thinking about mental illness
just like the ghost of stigma re-inventing itself
of despair in this particular case
The idea that there's nothing you can do That's complete nonsense.
Both Jo and Marc Salter Nurse and doctor
believe that sectioning can help manic depressives
but I also want a patient's view
Bedlam Psychiatric Hospital in London gave the world the word bedlam
The place for lunatics
Liz Miller knows this place well She was sectioned here twice
when her mania went out of control
Does she think being locked up with other mentally ill people
helped her to recover
The first time I was sectioned I was in my flat
with a couple of friends cooking supper
Inside of my mania was driven by a kind of fear and anger
and there was a knock on the door and it's was just like the KGB calling
There was a policeman social worker and a GP
and they come to get me
it's the paranoid world I was living in
I knew they come and get me and they did
Did you resist physically? - Yes, I did
So you got a quick injection presumably?
Well at that point it is the police and basically
they overpower you and handcuff you
So does this bring back memories? That's your loony wing there
It does actually Cold shudder
And was it very secure and all locked? - Yes, we all had our own room
So you can't make a phone call. You can't tell anyone where you are
You have no money I was a week before I had a toothbrush
They inject forcibly for the first time - With anti psychotics?
anti psychotics and lithium as well - Right
And did they help? - Yes, I think they did
In a acute psychosis they sedate you sufficiently
so that the brain can begin to put things back together normally
All told, Liz Miller was sectioned 3 times an spent a year in psychiatric wards
Looking back, she feels sectioning was a turning point
She now lives and works without taking medication and feels strongly that
she's found another way to treat her manic depression
The psychiatric model it says: You've got this condition and you got it for life
and keep coming back keep taking your tablets
and there isn't a way to help people actually back to normal
So many people I've spoken to already
who sufferfrom bipolar disorder manic depression
whatever one wants to call it
they believe be anywhere without their medication
Medication is like the training wheels on a bicycle
They're there to kind of help you get on that middle path
but when you've learned what it is like to lead a relatively normal sane life
then you shouldn't or don't necessarily need those training wheels
So you generally believe that diet has a big part to play in mental health
It's the foundation - The foundation?
Absolutely, I think if somebody is not physically healthy
and the brain is a physical organ then you can't expect to be healthy?
You have a theory about Omega 3
which are more present in oily fish is, aren't they?
You actually need to have Omega 3 molecules
in order to get good membranes for brain cells in order to function properly
and supplements are as good? - Yes, I think they are. Yes
So cod liver oil and that sort of thing?
Yes, cod liver oil, flax seed oil hemp seed oil
and you take a lot of these things? - Yes, I do, oily fish whenever I can
Whenever it is on the menu and I take every day 3 grams of cod liver oil
and you're pretty sure that your decision not to go on medication
but to do others things we talked about like such as slowing you life down
and this kind of attention to things as Omega 3's
part of you're being able to cope? - Absolutely, yes
What makes Liz's view even more interesting is that she's a doctor
She left university as the best young neurosurgeon in Britain
It was 6 months after that she was first sectioned
Despite sectioning Liz was never struck off
She returned and works as a GP
but just part-time to help her control the stress
I want to know if it was or indeed still is difficult to get work
It's difficult
We have a long way until mental health is just accepted
as part of every day in a British tapestry of life
Certainly a few years ago I would have said Definitely that one wouldn't get a job
Have you ever actually held back details on your past?
I have. Certainly in the early days I lied unscrupulously
and I recommended other people to lie
The situation is changed in the last 5-6 years
because of the Disability Discrimination Act
The Disability Discrimination Act actually makes it unfair
to discriminate against someone on the grounds of mental health problems
And the practice, I was working in General Practice
is almost like I am their token loon
I am their proof that they have a modern approach to medical care
They have got one of their own
As both doctor and patient Liz is convincing
But Liz says when she talks to psychiatrists about how she has a job and manages
her manic depression, no medication, special diet, less stress
they're reluctant to believe her Wait and see. You'll have another episode
But for 15 years she hasn't
I on the other hand as you know, do I have episodes. Not breakdowns as in 1995
but sufficient to worry those around me
My sister Jo helps look after my work schedule
Admittedly one that would horrify Liz Miller
but I can't seem to live life part time I have to work hard
even at the cost of my family
Then prepare to scream Probably the heaviest 15th, 16th and 17th
- Bloody hell - I know
Manic depressives are notorious for just going with their moods
and treating their illness seriously enough until it is too late
Elaine Oakes was a director of finance at B & Q, a high flyer
but also Manic depression accept she wouldn't admit it
not to for anyone not even herself
As a result, Elaine took no medication Her symptoms got worse
and eventually she lost her job her marriage
and nearly her children
I want to see her because of her individual way she's turned her life around
With an accountants eye for spreadsheets she began to keep a mood diary
When I first did this graph I was surprised it looked like this
I usual gonna take each one as it comes and do not you think about it
You rate from naught to three
your mania from naught to minus three No, depressions
Zero is as it was a stable mood
and the highest it goes to is two, I notice the peaks are two
Three you would regard as unmanageable? That's dangerous?
Complete dangerous, I think I'm dangerous towards myself, yes
And happiness of the family and peace and everything else
What Elaine means is when high she loves to spent and spent
forgets what she's left burning on the cooker
sleeps four hours a night for eight weeks
and has the energy to update her new company website at three in the morning
but when she's down she can't get out of bed
a lot of sleep so we getting up to 17 hours a day
and I just have to. I can't do anything about it
Yeah, it's pretty bad - A cat would be proud of that
No wonder partner Paul takes a close interest
in how her moods are developing
and when she is being creative and it bubbles just
into the 1 out of 3 of that scale
then it's manageable
if it starts going above that then we intervene
With drugs, with medication? - Yes, with medication
or initially we'll stay ranking Stop, start stepping back
start relaxing, start working less hours and sometimes it works
sometimes you can actually take the illness
and work with it so it doesn't get any higher
Is she sometimes resistant, she's enjoying the mania so much she doesn't want to?
Yes and sometimes the:
"I need you to take that tablet just so it doesn't go to high"
can be a threat "I don't want to take it"
and then you have to have the argument
When we think of mental health, we think of you know, men in white coats
Did it ever come close to that?
We had a situation where we had to accept that we couldn't cope at home
and Elaine had to go into hospital
There was no chance of her getting well on her own
without support and specialist support
so at that stage she'd to go to hospital
and that was at that stage for ten weeks
Wow, how long ago was that? That was two years
Two years ago, so the children were all you know, aware that mom was ill
Yes - And how did you explain it to them?
Mom is ill. She has to go into hospital The children would say Why?
It's difficult being a mammy sometimes because you feel guilty about it
You should be normal be sensible and responsible
Sleep eight hours a day
And you are normally
I can't imagine you without it
How many moms do you see drawing pictures, painting, beat making
jumping up and down running around making jokes?
When I'm in those times I might have ideas and want to do things
They don't get fed up with it
It's like someone's got a special voice That's a gift
This is just like a special voice but better
All personalities are balanced out by something
and Mom's happens to be that her creativity is balanced out by her going to sleep
Does it touch you that they think that you have got a gift?
I can't describe what that feels like
It is. It is really touching - It is isn't it?
Elaine's mood diary is clearly let her see the big picture of her condition
I am impressed at how open she is
with her family about her moods and behaviour
I never mapped my own moods week by week, year by year
Perhaps that allows me to avoid seeing just how frequently they occur
and how strongly they shape my life
An obvious manic sign for me as it is for Elaine
is excessive shopping and spending
Psychiatrists encourage manic depressives to notice wild behaviour
and then hold it in cheque
To that end they not only offer drug regimes but more and more psychotherapy
One talking therapy that they say proves useful
is called CBT Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
It emphasises changing how we think about what we're doing
I've never tried it but I've often worried about how I shop when I'm manic
So I've asked Jan Scott an expert in CBT
to come and try help me keep things under control
I probably got about nine digital cameras
How many pictures do I take? None. Absolutely none
You see now, here we've got satnav's I've about 5 satnav's
Digital DVD Projector That's an interesting thing to have, don't you think?
What people always tell us is that it is driven
It is almost like an addiction that they don't feel able to stop it
You know I've 12 computers. I must have something to import in the 20 iPods
A fair numbers of people are in for toys for the boys
but they don't have 14 iPods
They don't have 13 computers
I'll tell you what it is
What you discovered is that I'm insane I'm actually mad
Good to see you I'm really well. How are you?
O, have you got the new Mac Mini?
You would like your hands on it - Yes, I'll love to. That's fantastic
People do it and they feel more stimulated more excited about it
and it feeds in this desperate vicious cycle
One of the things we try and do with people is to recognize it
absolutely right at the start of when they become hyper manic
I do not want to be a killjoy here Do you really want this?
This is really practical and sensible believe me
Do you only have 12 at home?
Yes, but, I know what you mean See, I begin to sweat now
Could you stop yourself? - Probably wouldn't
I mean in the mid-eighties I had eleven motor cars
This is my treat and I'm aware that even if it were irrational
the fact is I work so *** hard
that this is the few moments of pleasure I get
Supposing somebody turned around said
Look, this is gonna cause trouble if you do this
if you go home with this today
There is gonna be bit of a fight home
I would stab them in the throat with a pencil
You didn't stop me, did you?
Unlike in analysis where you might be trying to
look at the subconscious processes
you're actually try to look at the thoughts that people have
that are very prominent in their mind
and you can use that to look at how that influences their mood and their behaviours
You'd want to help people identify the risks of when they become a bit disinhibited
and how they could handle that
Can you reduce risks in a behaviour way? Can you change people's behaviour?
Jan, tries hard with me but I've had years of practice
Will I undergo a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy? Not yet
I like giving my manic side full rain at times
although I recognize I'm lucky I can afford my excesses
but I'm interested in how Cognitive Therapy can be used with Manic Depression
When Jan tells me about a young girl in north London
who she once helped because the depressive side
of her bipolarity is making her feel suicidal. I want to meet her
Cordelia? How nice to meet you. I am Stephen
Theresa, you are Cordelia's mother, yes?
Very nice to see you all Come in, I mean, that's what you say
The photo's on the wall tell the early part of Cordelia's story
Clever girl at school a photographic memory for learning
and the creative urge to write a novel at 14
Then Oxford But that's where the symptoms began
A third of each month she'd be depressed, the rest manic
By the time of her finals her memory had gone
After university her condition worsened and she was eventually hospitalised
If you want to look to the mood scale it's in the kitchen. - O, I love to
8. Inflated self-esteem, rapid thoughts and speech,
counterproductive simultanious tasks
Yes, I recognize that
That's about where I was when I was in hospital. About 8
No, I think you were at 9
I was not I was not lost contact with reality
I was not paranoid and vindictive
Cordelia's manic side frightens her mother
Every time I go to the station to meet her
I remember the night she didn't come home
I met every train, every hour
Just hoping and hoping that she'd be walking down the steps and she wasn't
She'd just allowed herself to get picked up by somebody in her bar or she picked him up
and she just gone back with a stranger for the night
Cordelia seems to be drawn to people
who I wouldn't expect her to be drawn to, let's say
When I think she's getting a bit dangerous
I just don't let her out or I go out with her
It's gonna get worse This is the thing, Stephen
I am not going to be a lawyer or a doctor or something with my illness
I can barely, I'm working part time as an assistant at a litary agency
I've been assistant for four years and
I'm doing a part time MA I can't work full time
She dependents on us for absolutely everything
So as you think then she can't cope without you?
I know that they can't
When we left with Norman on his own the story does not work for me
I just found it quite depressing and I was wondering if just I do not get it
Cordelia's fears about her future depress her
But even worse is the effect her depression has on the one activity she loves
Her writing
That's what she desperate hopes Jan Scott can help her with
You have this terrible problem that
as soon as you slip a little bit below a normal mood state, you're depressed
your creativity disappears
I suppose what I've had thought is that when I was depressed
I would be able to write about being depressed
but I actually can't. I can't even write about being depressed when I'm depressed
I can't really write about anything
For about first five or six years of having my illness
I wouldn't ever be depressed more than a couple of weeks
Literally, the last times and the time before towards the end
when I've been depressed for sort of 9 or 10 weeks
I just thought, I've never been depressed for this long before
You know, this could be the one that I never come out of
I'm never gonna be able to write again
I'm never gonna be able to go out on socialize game
I'm never gonna be able to really do anything again
What does it say about you if you can't write?
What's going through your mind?
Can you say it?
She's upset. She's picked up her bag She wants to walk out now
I find watching later, Jan, talking Cordelia through her feelings, very moving
It is fascinating to see how Jan uses Cognitive therapy
to unpack the deeper emotions within Cordelia
but the most important thing I felt here
was that she was identifying something so fundamental her view of herself
and there's a point on which she can't even say the words about
how she feels about it
This issue of she'd grown up being seen as exceptional
and she felt it the illness has taken this away from her
I don't mind a little bit of weakness in other people
if it is a sexy sort of weakness
but I hate weakness in myself
I think of myself as very strong and glittery and shiny and funny
The writing is something that I am good at
So if you can't do that, that's the final straw - Yes
Her self-esteem is partly tied up in her ability to be a writer
and she has a lot of positive feedback about that in her past
and we got to actually address that in terms of her believes
because this vicious cycle becomes very dangerous
because she potentially could become quite hopeless
And that makes people very vulnerable
Generally thinking about suicide and death is not good for me at all
So I do not want to
With the stigma that still surrounds mental illnesses like manic depression
I thought Cordelia was very brave allowing me to witness such a private moment
Like the others I've met she was prepared to be seen and heard
so that all of you know better about the illness we suffer
Just like me, Cordelia has come to accept that she has a chronic condition
that will be with her for the rest of her life
That's a painful realisation, but she also learned
from Jan Scott that it's like having asthma
and while it is always going to be there
the key for most people is in finding ways
to reduce attacks and to make them less severe
that's where treatment comes in Cordelia who has accepted
but what about me?
After everything I've seen and heard I'm still unsure
I feel reluctant to embrace a life on medication
but I do fear the intensity of my moods and where they can lead
I decide I wouldn't kill myself but I wouldn't mind dying
It's a terrible thing to say and I hear myself and
I think: O my God, my mother is going to hear me say that
How awful, Stephen what do you mean?
You wouldn't mind dying? What a terrible thing to say
and all those who love me would say What an awful thing to say
but a lot of them would say I know that feeling too
and yet as with all bipolars there is this other side
I love my condition too It's infuriating, I know
but I do get a huge buzz out of the manic side
I rely on it to give my life a sense of adventure
and I think most of the good about me has developed
as a result of my mood swings
In this journey I asked many of my fellow manic depressives
how they balanced this contradiction
I asked them if they could press a button to release them of their bipolarity
Would they do so?
Most despite traumatic moments in their live said no
After all this What should I do?
I wouldn't press the button and live a normal life
not for all the tea in China
British subtitles (transcript): BABL