Peter Butler

Mental illness is a cause that is close to my heart - and my head. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (the illness formerly known as manic depression) in early 2000 after manic episodes got me admitted to the psych ward for a couple of weeks each in late 1998 and again in late 1999. Looking back, there was another one in 1997 but it didn't quite get out of control enough to get me a short holiday. Even further back, there was one in 1985 as well, which I didn't realise until much later. There may have been other signs, I don't really know, maybe other people are better able to judge. I didn't have a traumatic childhood, the worst thing you could say about it is that parts of it were rather dull. I don't think anything caused my bipolar, I think I was born with it. Looking back, there were times when I was quite young that I had periods which were probably depression. Once I got treatment in 2000, things settled down a bit, until my marriage broke down in 2008 and I ended up back in the psych ward for a couple of weeks. Since then, I've been on a pretty good track. Although I've had over 25 years of living with bipolar, I have been in continuous, full time employment since I finished school in 1979 and I completed a science degree in July 2000. There are a lot of us out here with mental illnesses, you probably know more of us than you realise - sadly there is a stigma with admitting it, so people aren't always open about it, though it is a lot better than it used to be. People don't choose mental illness, people don't cause their own mental illness, though trauma can be a factor. And no, we can't just "cheer up" or "focus on the good things in our lives". If it was that simple, a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists would be learning a new trade. People can have diabetes or cancer or an illness/condition with any other organ in their body and it's just accepted sympathetically, but when it's the brain that has a problem, it makes people uncomfortable. Mental illness is NOT an attitude problem. We don't choose to be like this and we do our best to control it, not always successfully. Someone once described bipolar as waking up and wondering if you're going to be Eeyore or Tigger today. Luckily, there are shades of grey between those extremes and I spend most of my time in the middle somewhere. Someone else said "People don't pretend to have mental illnesses, they pretend not to". Just be kind, you really don't know what's going on in other people's heads. I am participating in the Black Dog Institute One Foot Forward program by planning to walk 30km in October, any support that you can offer would be welcome.