hi i'm Alan i'm a technician in the Edric Theatre in Borough Road
i'm also a mental health first aider and a mental health champion and i live with bipolar disorder
so i had mental health issues i guess you could say from sort of my early teens
onwards and they sort of escalated when i got to about 17 18 i started having
quite constant panic attacks but as i got a little bit older sort of early twenties mid-twenties
i started to get really long prolonged bouts of quite extreme depression and then long incidences
of being really euphoric and happy which i later found out were manic episodes or mania it got to
the point sort of where it was quite hard to to live with it and quite hard to function properly
eventually i got referred to a psychiatrist and i did some talking therapy and when i eventually
went to the psychiatrist i was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and i was put on some
medication for that the first set of medication really didn't agree with me and they eventually
changed me onto a new medication which is the one i'm currently on and it was sort of a like
a silver bullet revelation for me really because i i think for the first time since maybe i was
nine or ten i felt like a normal person whatever normal is obviously but i felt quite grounded and
centred i'm maybe two three years into that sort of medication now and i'm really well managed and
my condition is is stable and i don't have those really high highs as much as i used to which if
i'm being totally honest i do miss to some degree but at least the highs i do have now are much more
controlled and the lows are never as low as they were when when they were at their worst
living with bipolar during the covert pandemic has been difficult but i guess it's been difficult for
everyone it's been really important for me to to have routine making sure i've i've been able
to do that has been really important but also keeping myself occupied and doing things that i
either enjoy or that you know take up my time when i've got free time and luckily for me my wife's an
occupational therapist so she's been making sure i have meaningful occupations we've moved into a
new house so i spend a lot of time doing that up and getting that ready and painting it and stuff
like that and we're also expecting our first child in July so planning for that i've sort
of sunk myself completely into that and that's been great it's given me a real focus as well
as obviously work as well and i've kept myself busy there and i've been learning new things and
i've been creating content online for students so it's just for me it's just been about keeping busy
if i had to give three pieces of advice for supporting colleague or friend or family member
with bipolar disorder it would be first talk talking is really important it's not for everybody
but for the most part talking helps and talking about things like what somebody's triggers might
be what some signs there might be that someone is either in a depressive or or a manic or hypomanic
state and everyone's are different and i think people who live with bipolar disorder have quite
a lot of insight into their own condition and they know what maybe not in the moment but they can
at least know retrospectively what signs there are and that they've been going through one of
either of the you know the episodes so talking to someone about that and being aware of those things
is really helpful because at least you can spot them when you see them the second thing i would
say which is probably more important than talk is to listen and it's to listen to what people
have to say about their conditions but also listen to how they feel about different situations i mean
everybody obviously regardless of whether you've got a mental illness or mental health condition
and has preferences and things that bother them and things that don't bother them and i think
those can be magnified for someone with bipolar disorder so listening to what helps somebody or
to what situations make them feel uncomfortable and all those things are really important
and just listening to you know their experiences because they're the ones who have lived through
this and you know are going through these things so listening to what they have to say is always
going to be more important and than than pretty much anything else and the third thing you can do
is just be a champion for it and so i think it's really important to make sure that the language we
use is you know inclusive and and it's not doesn't make someone feel ashamed of their condition in
the same way that you know trivialising things like obsessive compulsive disorder by saying
you know i like my things neat therefore i have OCD i think trivial like trivializing being in a
bad mood or having a mood swing as being a bit bipolar can uh i think feel like it diminishes
what is you know quite a serious and difficult condition to deal with so being a champion for
stuff like that is really cool and calling out language problematic language when you see it
you know for anything whether it's ableism racism sexism it's the same for mental health conditions
you know being able to point out hey that's maybe not the best way to uh to talk about
this particular thing or you know these these words and these this language is a little bit
problematic all that stuff's really important and because at the end of the day we're just
normal people and i think a really important thing to remember with bipolar is we're not
we're not ticking time bombs we're just regular normal people we just have happen to have this
condition that we live with so those are the three things i would say is to talk listen
and just be a champion for it because i think it's quite a misunderstood illness and condition
and the more people know about it the more people talk about it the more beneficial it
is for people with it and for everybody else because you know knowledge is power i guess.