I am the poster girl!

Ruby Wax has almost made a career out of mental health. She has done tours and even television shows all about her own experiences of depression, the treatment she has had and her subsequent studies into mindfulness. She also calls herself the original 'poster girl' for mental health. She likes to regale the time she stepped onto the underground and was surrounded by posters telling the world that she has a mental health problem.

    Now I am no-where near as funny as Ruby but today I do find myself in a similar situation albeit in the digital world. Today is the second annual brilliant Time to Talk day where the campaign I work for, Time to Change, is urging everyone around the country to have a conversation about mental health. The idea is the more we talk about something the less it is stigmatised and the happier those of us with mental health problems can be about sharing our experiences.
    I had taken part in a photo a couple of weeks ago telling the world three things about me. Namely that I am a mum, I like to meditate and that I live with bi-polar. I knew the picture would be used for this big day but had no idea it would be used predominantly on Facebook. It was quite a shock to see my face staring back at me this morning!
    I needn't have worried though I have had such lovely reactions from friends and acquaintances. Lots of emails, texts and Facebook messages of support. I hope that my openness will also encourage others to 'out' themselves. I'm sure there are still people who may not want to employ me or who quietly defriend me as a result of my revelation, after all that is why there is still such a need for Time to Change but on the whole times are a changing!

The great creation debate

I have just been listening to a phone in show about the commons vote later to decide whether to allow the creation of babies using DNA from three people. A lot of the people calling in or emailing seemed to have bypassed the issue at hand and were calling on a ban for IVF altogether. Arguments for this seemed to be centred on 'natural selection' or that there are too many unwanted children in this world, people who can't have babies should adopt rather than trying to create their own.
  I have to admit that this was partly my opinion before I became unable to have children myself. I am not in the least bit religious but thought that infertility happened 'for a reason' and that you shouldn't mess around with what nature intended. Even when my own infertility started to become an issue, I still thought I would adopt rather that go through such an unnatural process.
  Of course this opinion changed and when I look at my beautiful daughter who was conceived not on a romantic break but in a lab, it is hard to see anything but an amazing child, with how she was created being completely irrelevant. Of course we will tell her one day when she is old enough to understand and I hope that it makes her feel very special that she was wanted to much rather than strange in any way. 
  Which brings me to my conclusion that really it is all about personal choice and that if things are possible such as ensuring that children are not born with incurable diseases then surely this should be made available and it should be up to individuals to make that choice. I for one am over the moon that the issue has moved on so far that IVF is almost without stigma.  

To medicate or not...

I am a huge fan of modern medicine. Sure I have dipped my toes into the world of alternative medicine, acupuncture to help me get pregnant, homoeopathic medicine for my baby's cough and reiki and reflexology just to keep me (almost!) sane. But when I go to the doctor I generally comply with whatever they tell me to do. But what if the medicine is worse than the cure?
 
   So why do we take drugs at all? A colleague put it brilliantly recently at an event we were running for a long running medical drama in Birmingham. He was asked if he took medication for his bipolar (there was a lot of bipolar in that room as far as I know 3 out of 4 of us running the workshop). He replied that he took his pills but in the same way that he kept fit and healthy or undertook talking therapies. In other words he took a very holistic approach to his self care.

    This is the same for me. I know that regular running, a healthy diet and someone listening to me are all factors in keeping well but I also know that medication plays a huge part. This is something I learned to my cost last year. I was feeling really well and had been stable for a couple of years. The things that were bothering me were actually the side effects of the mood stabilisers I take. A foggy brain in the morning, a lack of creativity, ridiculous weight gain. I began to question if these downsides were worth it so I did what every doctor will warn you not to do. I came off them...

     The result was a period of a few weeks where I was ill, unable to leave the house and suicidal. Luckily I got support in the form of home visits, I was moved to a higher dose of my meds and with the help of friends and family things began to slowly get better. But with my 'well' self the issues with the medication still stood.

      So I am now on the cusp of starting a new medication. I was told by my psychiatrist to go away and read about it before I make any decisions. The list of side affects is of course many lines long but it may address the issues I have. How do I feel about replacing one set of very powerful drugs with another? Not great, I read with horror about the likelihood of developing terrible physical illnesses, indeed some people with severe mental illnesses can expect to live a full ten years less than everyone else. But the alternative is just too hard to even contemplate. Unfortunately I need pharmaceutical help with my illness, just like my colleague although I guess I need to work on the rest of that wellbeing a little more and one day you never know I will be able to say goodbye to that prescription pad for good.