WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.014


00:00:00.014 --> 00:00:01.430
-I always knew
there was something

00:00:01.430 --> 00:00:03.230
different about my mum.

00:00:03.230 --> 00:00:07.660
I didn't realise it at the
time, but you never do.

00:00:07.660 --> 00:00:12.160
I believe that my mother
was a manic depressive.

00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:16.309
I feel that society says that
until something is diagnosed,

00:00:16.309 --> 00:00:17.730
it's not real.

00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:20.480
And I'm not a doctor.

00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:23.870
However, having
lived with it, if you

00:00:23.870 --> 00:00:27.030
have an illness
like this, you don't

00:00:27.030 --> 00:00:30.250
have to be a doctor to see it.

00:00:30.250 --> 00:00:34.480
I asked her if she was suicidal,
because she had been once

00:00:34.480 --> 00:00:35.710
before.

00:00:35.710 --> 00:00:37.186
And she'd only told me.

00:00:37.186 --> 00:00:39.685
I was the only person that she'd
told, and we got through it

00:00:39.685 --> 00:00:40.670
and got over it.

00:00:40.670 --> 00:00:42.682
That was a few
years prior to this.

00:00:42.682 --> 00:00:45.280


00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:49.060
She said that she wasn't,
and then she confided in me

00:00:49.060 --> 00:00:53.490
a few days later that she
was contemplating suicide

00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:56.510
and begged me, absolutely
begged me, not to tell anyone.

00:00:56.510 --> 00:00:59.820
So I said to her, if-- I
said OK, I won't tell anyone.

00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:02.010
Because I thought if we
kept it our little secret,

00:01:02.010 --> 00:01:04.209
we could work through
it and no one need know.

00:01:04.209 --> 00:01:06.540
I said, but you have
to do something for me,

00:01:06.540 --> 00:01:09.430
you have to let me
take you to our doctor.

00:01:09.430 --> 00:01:10.980
And that's what I did.

00:01:10.980 --> 00:01:14.180
We went to see our GP together.

00:01:14.180 --> 00:01:18.930
And two days later she was dead.

00:01:18.930 --> 00:01:23.960
I had a very happy childhood,
lots of things around me,

00:01:23.960 --> 00:01:28.830
lots of friends, happy
family living at home with my

00:01:28.830 --> 00:01:30.280
both my parents.

00:01:30.280 --> 00:01:34.540
Before she met my
father, she was

00:01:34.540 --> 00:01:37.330
recovering from being
a victim of suicide

00:01:37.330 --> 00:01:42.565
to her first husband, David,
who was schizophrenic.

00:01:42.565 --> 00:01:46.160
But in the 70s schizophrenia
wasn't recognised,

00:01:46.160 --> 00:01:47.930
so he wasn't medicated for it.

00:01:47.930 --> 00:01:51.410
She nursed her mum through
cancer when she was only 16.

00:01:51.410 --> 00:01:56.280
When her marriage failed with
my father and when I was three,

00:01:56.280 --> 00:01:59.230
I had a bad accident in a fire.

00:01:59.230 --> 00:02:04.280
I mean this is a woman that
just had hit after hit after hit

00:02:04.280 --> 00:02:09.229
of life throwing things at her.

00:02:09.229 --> 00:02:12.570
I obviously, as a teenager,
went completely off the rails.

00:02:12.570 --> 00:02:14.260
I dabbled in drugs.

00:02:14.260 --> 00:02:17.170
I lost a hell of
a lot of weight,

00:02:17.170 --> 00:02:20.020
and I was really
quite ill, I suppose.

00:02:20.020 --> 00:02:21.290
And I was rebelling.

00:02:21.290 --> 00:02:24.060
I gave my mum such a tough time,
so her relationship with me

00:02:24.060 --> 00:02:26.100
became harder.

00:02:26.100 --> 00:02:27.780
In actual fact, her
relationship with me

00:02:27.780 --> 00:02:29.820
completely broke
down at one point,

00:02:29.820 --> 00:02:32.460
because I pushed
her out of my life.

00:02:32.460 --> 00:02:36.950
Because looking back, I
suppose psychologically, I

00:02:36.950 --> 00:02:40.330
was scared that if I got
close to her, she'd die too,

00:02:40.330 --> 00:02:42.870
which is ironic, you know.

00:02:42.870 --> 00:02:46.046
It is a constant worry
that a condition like this

00:02:46.046 --> 00:02:47.420
is hereditary,
because it doesn't

00:02:47.420 --> 00:02:50.400
matter how much
research you do, there

00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:53.730
isn't a great deal
of scientific fact

00:02:53.730 --> 00:02:56.760
when it comes to mental health.

00:02:56.760 --> 00:02:58.915
Having known someone that
was married to someone

00:02:58.915 --> 00:03:02.510
that committed suicide,
and then years and years,

00:03:02.510 --> 00:03:05.795
30 odd years later committed
suicide themselves, it

00:03:05.795 --> 00:03:10.395
is a constant worry that
one day, when you're 50,

00:03:10.395 --> 00:03:11.895
you're going to
wake up so depressed

00:03:11.895 --> 00:03:14.840
that you might want to
commit suicide yourself.

00:03:14.840 --> 00:03:19.080
All of these stigmas
attached to mental health

00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:21.890
are, in fact, not important.

00:03:21.890 --> 00:03:25.980
What's important is recognising
that someone can be dying

00:03:25.980 --> 00:03:29.690
inside regardless
of class or colour.

00:03:29.690 --> 00:03:32.270
And that's really important.

00:03:32.270 --> 00:03:33.184