Bipolar UK - Let's talk suicidal thinking

I was recently asked to contribute to a series of webinars organised by Bipolar UK around the relationship between Bipolar and Suicidal thinking, particularly in the LGBT community.

The Webinar took place on Tuesday 17 September 2024 and has now been published on Youtube. My contribution starts from 7:20 to 20:00 and then I return for the Q&A at the end from 52:36.

Transcript

So, I've got a bit of a confession to make. The long and the short of is that whilst I have lived experience of both being bipolar and gay, I'm very fortunate that my experience has not included thoughts of suicide. So after enthusiastically agreeing to contribute to this session, I wasn't entirely sure what I was actually going to say.  But when I saw some of the statistics ahead of today's session, I had a realisation.

It appears that I'm part of the lucky 10% of those affected by bipolar to not have experienced suicidal thinking. Not only that, I'm also part of the 55% of the LGBT community to not have experienced suicidal thinking either. And that itself, I thought was very interesting.

So it got me thinking - why is that? What's different about me, my life and my experience of these things that have kept me safe? Is it in my biology, my the way I think, or is it external factors? Maybe it's just down to luck? Am I just lucky?

If it's down to the way I think or external factors, are these things that we actually have control over? Can we influence our thinking and our environment to make it safer so that we are able to avoid these terrible thoughts when we're unwell? And maybe there are things here that we can all learn from and apply to our own lives.

So, first of all, my credentials, as such.

I was first diagnosed with bipolar in 2003 at the age of 19 when I was held in hospital for over a month. I've had a number of other serious relapses over the last twenty years which have also involved hospital stays, and on one occasion I was there for three months.  In between all of those there have been occasional blips which haven't needed hospital treatment. But I've also had some very long periods of staying well.

Now, I'm saying all this because I feel it's important for my story that you realise I'm not using the term "bipolar" in any light weight "trendy" way that it's sometimes thrown around in celebrity culture - such that it wouldn't be surprising that I hadn't experienced suicidal thinking.  I have a serious case of this condition and it has affected my life profoundly. I have experienced very deep depressions and I really probably should have experienced suicidal thinking at some point - but I haven't.

My most recent serious relapse was in 2020. As usual my mood went high and I entered in to a manic phase. I was admitted to hospital in the middle of the covid crisis.  When I got discharged back home, I knew what to expect. I was getting myself ready for an extreme drop in mood - as the depressive phase of this condition took hold.  But this time, things could be different. I wondered: would be possible to recover without dropping in to a depression. The conditions were good.

• The weather was fantastic - I was sent home at the start of July in the middle of what would turn out to be one of the best summers in recent memory.
• I still had a job and was receiving sick pay - so the bills were paid.
• But most importantly, I had form. I'd been ill with this before, and I'd recovered.

So I set out to have a great summer. And I achieved the goal. I managed to recover from a major bipolar episode without a depression. This is how I did it.

1. Psychology: I knew that I had recovered from this before. I knew, with certainty, that I would be able to do it again. When things got difficult, I would say to myself "I've had this before, I've recovered before, and I'll do it again". It became my mantra.
2. I didn't allow feelings of guilt or blame. There's  few things here: 
   1. I did not waste time dwelling on the embarrassing or unkind things I did or said during my manic phase. I let go of the past and I forgave myself. After all, it was the illness, it was not me.
   2. I did not blame others. Although it felt like certain individuals contributed to me getting ill, forgave them. I did this, not because I felt their behaviour was OK, but to allow myself to move on.
   3. I did not blame myself. It's an illness. In the same way it's not our fault when we get a cold, it's not our fault when we get ill with bipolar. 
3. I have a very supportive partner: Jason deserves not only a shout out, but a medal - for sticking with me through it all.
4. Friends: I've got some great friends. One friend invited me away camping later that summer. He just treated me like he normally would: we were able to laugh and joke as though I wasn't in the middle of mental health recovery. And he enabled me to forget about it. It got me  got me out of my comfort zone and doing things I wouldn't normally do - and it helped me get my confidence back.
5. Exercise: I got out on my bike nearly every day. I'd go out for hours and hours and I discovered a huge expanse of nature reserve and parkland very close to where I live. At that point, cycling became, and still is, what I consider to be my happy place. We all need to work out what it is that we can do that allows us to "recharge" our wellbeing. For me, it became cycling.
6. Learning: I started a reading habit, learning about Bipolar, wellbeing and learning other people stories.  I also joined Prime and Netflix for what would routinely become "documentary" afternoon. There's a lot of stuff on there about wellbeing and mental health.
7. Next was learning about me: I started writing journals every few days. It helped me get thoughts out of my head but also to understand myself better. I was learning who I really was.
8. Time: I allowed myself the time it took to get better, I felt no rush to get back to things. What was important was my wellbeing and getting better.
9. Opening up: I started sharing my story anonymously by writing blogs for the Mary Frances Trust, and started to do more of this over the years.

And in remarkably quick time - compared to before - I got better and felt like I was back to normal.

This episode made me realise that were things I needed to learn about myself to help me reduce my risk of getting ill. I realised that by taking responsibility for my condition I do hold a lot of power for preventing a relapse, reducing the seriousness of it if it occurs and recovering more quickly. There were some things I had to do.

• Learning to read my body. Knowing the early warning signs and knowing what to do when I spot them. 
• Dealing with shame and self stigma. It has been tough, but I learned that most of the stigma was from within. What I discovered that when I opened up and told people, was that they were understanding and appreciative of my honesty. Not only that, they often then shared that either they, or someone close to them, had been affected by mental health in some way.
• But mainly, it was about accepting who I am, and owning it. I went public with my diagnosis two years ago through my involvement with End Stigma Surrey. I then started a blog and posting on social media. Since then I've had a number of media appearances. Now this was a big decision that I took a lot of time over, but it has done nothing other than grow my confidence. And in fact, none of the fears I held about going public have come to pass.

So, that's how it's been for me. There's a mix of elements there that have been key to my success for recovery and have helped me avoid suicidal thinking. Some are indeed probably down to luck, but I think we can influence many of the factors. 

Fundamentally it's about having to accept that whether we like it or not, we're stuck with this thing and we need to make the best of it. And that can be hard, really hard, and takes some time.
We've gotta take that responsibility for ourselves and make changes to our lives that reduce our likelihood of illness and increase both our probability and speed of recovery when it does. It's about finding the right support, knowing ourselves better and making protective lifestyle changes.
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Now everyone is here to learn more about the bipolar in the context of LGBT, and how it affects others. Next is to learn more about yourself. I want to know what's your story? What if you were asked to speak in this presentation, what would you say? And what's holding you back from doing so? If its feelings of shame and stigma, what could you do to overcome them? 

So that's all I wanted to say really.  Stay strong and know that bipolar does not need to define us. We can, and should, live full and enjoyable lives. So, don't let anyone stop you; particularly - you.​