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Life after diagnosis

Author: Beth Morton
Published: 14 July 2010

For Beth, receiving a diagnosis of bipolar was a turning point for the better, and she now uses a wide variety of other tools and strategies to stay well, including the setting of achievable goals. Beth highlights the high standard of care she has received, and suggests that professionals are most effective when they get to know people as individuals and support appropriate risk-taking.

I first started suffering from mood swings as a teenager. It was difficult to know if there was actually a problem, or if it was normal teenage stuff. I was prescribed anti-depressants, and although they helped some of the time, I continued to experience mood swings. Periods of deep depression were followed by periods of elation, making life chaotic and difficult. Eventually I was hospitalised whilst studying in Glasgow.

In my early thirties, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was prescribed lithium to help stabilise my mood. Receiving a diagnosis was a relief and a turning point, marking a new period of increased stability.

This was partly due to the new medication, but also because of the excellent psychiatrist I was seeing at the time. He treated me like an individual, and didn’t relate everything about me to mental health. He definitely took a ‘Yes you can’ attitude and was not averse to sensible 'risk taking' - if there is such a thing!!

In the past, I think there has been a tendency to keep people safe by limiting what they are encouraged to do. Thankfully, this is really changing now and the commitment of staff to the recovery movement has been great - and very noticeable!

I feel that it’s vital that professionals are open to letting people take control, but I know that it’s hard to get it right. Ultimately, it’s about treating people as individuals. Yes – there may be times when professionals need to make decisions for people, but to get this right, you need to know the person.

Support from non-professionals, in particular from a close circle of friends, has also been important. When I’m feeling low, my friends tell me: ‘you’re not a nuisance, and if you want to sit quietly in the corner, then that’s ok – we still want you around’.

As well as support from others, I have lots of tools and strategies to help me stay well and enjoy life. These include self management tools, massage, meditation and creative pursuits, like writing poetry. I also found attending a stress management course extremely helpful, and would like to see courses like this becoming more widely available. I am an active volunteer, and have worked with a number of local organisations, including my local PTA, and a support service for people with mental health problems.

Two of my key coping strategies are using humour, and saying no. I find that I often tell jokes as a way of diffusing awkward situations. But sometimes I need to simply stay away - I remind myself that I’m not at everyone’s beck and call, and that if I rest today, then tomorrow and next week, I’ll probably be ok. I’m not afraid to tell people – ‘I will be back when I’m ready’.

I think the key message I would like to get across to everyone is that there is life after diagnosis, and having a mental health problem does not mean you are stupid! I am keen to do anything I can to reduce stigma, and feel that educating children is the real way forward for this. I am hopeful, over the course of a generation or two, that acclimatising kids to difference will help to get rid of stigma entirely.

My advice to others who are experiencing problems is to find out as much as you possibly can. You have to build your knowledge – you have to get to the point where you can speak to the professionals on equal terms. Sometimes there’s a barrier, and you have to be a little bit pushy to break through it.

I’ve focused on the things which have helped me in this story, but I’m not saying that things have been easy. There are still periods of time when I can be very unwell. I don't want to give anyone the idea that it’s easy to cope with these sorts of illnesses and all the medical, social and psychological problems they can bring in their wake.

One of the things I have found hardest to work with is the balance between having to justify yourself for benefits when you really are not able to work, and yet to justify that you are well enough to do volunteering and things like that. It would be good to be able to be a bit less fearful that benefits can be removed at the drop of a hat.

It is important to have goals, but it is important to keep your goals realistic and achievable for you. It’s not true that you can do ‘anything you set your mind to’ even if you don’t have mental health issues!!

But there is hope. Even though I have to take medication, I can function well most of the time, and that’s what recovery means to me. I’ll always have bipolar, and there may be times when I’m really ill, but I’m still in recovery – I still enjoy life.

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Story disclaimer

The stories presented here are for information only. They are meant to inspire hope and show that recovery can and does happen. The stories highlight various examples of recovery and we do not advocate any of these experiences as the ‘right’ way to recover. Recovery is an individual and unique process, each person must decide for himself or herself what will work for them. Please carefully consider any decisions you make about your own recovery and consult with someone you trust if you feel unsure.

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