Bipolar Disorder and the Tooth Fairy

This week is mental health awareness week from May 13th to 19th. It is also the World Health Organisations European Public Health Week from May 13th to the 17th. There is no health without mental health.

I believe that hearing other peoples lived experience can be helpful in raising awareness and removing stigma. For this reason I have chosen to share my story with you.

Looking back, the first clue was the crayons. It perhaps should have been the volatile behaviour or the self medication. But for me, the defining evidence that my mother lived with bipolar disorder was the crayons.

Every time I lost a tooth, I would dutifully put my tooth under the pillow for the tooth fairy.

Each time I did so I hoped for a coin.

what I received instead was was a giant crayon .

This would make my mother giggle herself silly.

You see fairies are very small. And the crayons were humorously large.

My mother lived with bipolar disorder.

Possibly this makes her sound like a fun mum.

And if you ignore the disappointment at not receiving any actual cash in return for the teeth, these moments could be seen as the fun mum times.

Conversely, though she would have furious agitation, and massive depression.

I was exposed to her flights of rage, so one of my earliest memories is the size of her fists and of her picking me up and throwing me into the road so I thought I was to be run over. And I also experienced her sitting on the floor in the local high street as she sat and sobbed while being comforted by shop staff.

It wasn't until she was in her 40s that she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

At that stage, she was offered medication. She was given lithium. However, these robbed her of the mania that she so enjoyed. It is evident that the manic stage is a fun episode. Mum would play loud music and headbang around the house. She would go on shopping sprees for things that she would never wear or use and which ultimately upon her death I would give to charity, unused, still labelled, still tagged, still priced. Tons and tons of unused goods that were not even in her size and not something she could make use of. All this while having difficulty holding down a job and so very little income. My lunchboxes were as likely to be filled with cheap novelties as with food.

Mum preferred not to take her lithium. The thing about a manic episode is that a person can achieve a great deal in that state. Mum worked full-time and took an open university degree part time. She took the train to work for three hours a day and she ran the students association in the evening. She ran the house, refusing any help or support with those household chores, and largely failing in them too. Her husband was disabled. She campaigned politically and ran for office. She found time for leisure activities of swimming and hiking and for her religious activities as a Quaker. She taught me to play the piano and to cook. She wrote children’s books and recipe books and relentlessly sent off her manuscripts to potential publishers. Mum chose to express her creative side in spare time that it seems impossible for her to have had. Yet she enjoyed embroidery and baking and writing and painting. The painting was largely on the walls, and our home was decorated in a wild expression of the chaos in her mind.

Obviously, I could never have anyone around.

I was a grown-up out by the time she was diagnosed and my growing-up experience formed me into a person who takes on responsibility.

There is a great deal more awareness today. This is one of the successes of mental health awareness week. The equality act of 2010 came too late for mum, but now bipolar disorder can be considered a disability. It can require an employer to provide reasonable adjustments.

As an employer, you will need to create opportunity for an employee to discuss their needs with you. My personal experience is that an educated, trained, aware and empathetic line manager or colleague is more useful to an employee living with a mental illness then an outside contractor such as an employee assistance program.

I would encourage employers to provide mental health awareness to your staff and to your management teams, even to your board. This allows for dialogue and for early intervention. You may not realise it but by supporting an employee living with a mental illness you might be providing great improvement in the quality of life of not just them, but also their families.

One starting point for business owners, managers, leaders and directors might find helpful is the bipolar UK website.https://www.bipolaruk.org/faqs/leaflet-employers-guide-to-bipolar. This website offers advice to both employers and employees.

Mind also have an excellent website https://www.mind.org.uk

This week they are running their No mind left behind campaign. They encourage you to raise awareness through social media.