Robert has had Bipolar Disorder since he was nineteen. His family desperately tried to help - but shame and embarrassment about mental illness always made talking difficult. He had depression for over a decade. And despairing of a normal existence, he nearly ended his life.
I'm a graduate of 52 and my career was ended fifteen years ago when I suffered an acute psychotic episode. I was hospitalised for six months, had six treatments of Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) and found starting all over again one of the hardest things I have ever been faced with. It was like doing a jig-saw puzzle with no picture to follow and some of the pieces missing. The greatest obstacle to my recovery was my severe loss of confidence. Working to retrieve my confidence was a challenge but I got there in time.
If you asked me to tell you what I got for Christmas last year; I wouldn't have a clue. Having said that; I can remember the day I was first sectioned fairly clearly, and that was nearly 20 years ago. I was naked; talking to a light bulb; believing that I would be beamed up too heaven at any moment. My father, my sister, my sister's husband and his friend all witnessed this breakdown. I was told later that I had been acting weird for weeks. I had lost a lot of weight very rapidly; I was not sleeping, and I would continually go missing.
In this sometimes chaotic, fast moving world we all live in, I hear so many times from people, many of who I mix with, that 1in 4 people suffer sometime in their lives with mental health problems. I am 57 year old woman and just one of the many women that have mental health problems. I live independently alone, not necessarily lonely. My home is a flat within a building of five flats. My neighbours see me as I see them: as a friend, I can talk and listen, chat and laugh, help one another in any way which we need to.
