0:02  
Lara: You know, I'm not ever going to be the person I want to be. I'm just me.

  0:11  
Tanya: That's heartbreaking.

  0:13  
L: And I've got to accept that.

  0:14  
Claudia: Hello and welcome to How Did We Get Here, the podcast where me, Claudia Winkleman, and Professor Tanya Byron, my great friend and clinical psychologist, address struggles faced by real life parents and their family members in a special counselling session. It's a conversation. In each episode I listened in from another room, of course, was Tan talks one on one with someone facing problems. Lara works in the school. She has a loving husband and three children. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder eight years ago and wants to know whether her eldest son Will, who is 14 has inherited it.

  0:53  
L: He does say the worst day of his life was when I went into hospital.

  0:57  
C: Lara's father had bouts of depression and she's been suffering with mental health issues since she was about 14. She believes that postnatal depression, which she experienced twice in short succession, many years on, escalated her condition. What you're about to hear are the key parts of a one-time unscripted session with a real person. In this episode, names have been changed to protect identities. We follow up with our guests after the recording, passing on useful links and contacts, which you will also find in the programme notes of this episode. So let's go and meet Lara.

  1:31  
C: Lara, thank you so much for coming in to see me and Tanya today.

  1:44  
L: Oh, no problem.

  1:44  
C: We're incredibly grateful. Tell me why you're here.

  1:49  
L: I was diagnosed bipolar eight years ago, 

  1:53  
C: Okay. 

  1:54  
L: And I've got three children and my eldest is, he's very sensitive. He's been having a lot of problems with school, concentration. And we sent him to have a few tests done and it's flagged up, but he's got a very low mood score. So...

  2:12  
L: Yeah. So, they were saying if that's what's affecting his concentration, and so I've flipped out and, 'you've got my condition'. It's the last thing I want to wish on my children, it's an absolutely miserable condition. I suppose. I'm now panicking, that he is mentally unwell. And I need to get some perspective on this. And I need to...

  2:12  
C: What does that mean? 

  2:35  
C: Know whether he's just being a normal 14 year old. 

  2:37  
L: Yes,because he's 14 and they have mood swings, don't they? Am I being a neurotic mother? If it is the case, and he does have mental health issues, then how do I deal with that and not put myself on him? You know, do you know what I mean?

  2:52  
C: Yes, I know exactly what you mean. Talk to me about what the condition means for you, for your day to day.

  2:57  
L: It can be really hard to get out of bed.

  2:59  
C: Yeah.

  3:00  
L: I score my day on whether I've managed to get in the shower. And then if I get in the shower, have I managed to wash my hair straight away? So, but if I've looked, I'm leaning against the tiles thinking, 'oh god, I can't do this day', then I know it's going to be a bad day. Although I have managed to get in the shower. Yeah, so if I wash my hair, it's a good day, and I managed to do, get the children to school. Then I get home and it's an empty house and do I motivate myself to do the washing? Do, you know, cook some supper, all those menial tasks that you need to do. On a good day, I can take the dog for a walk. I have made an amazing shepherd's pie. And I've read the children stories and I've cooked my husband dinner and poured him a glass of wine before he's walked through the door. But they don't happen very often. With bipolar, a lot of people think it's sort of the mania side of things, whereas I suffer with the depression end of things. So if you imagine a very straight line and everybody does wiggles along that straight line, unfortunately, mine is like a roller coaster. Whereas you, you go from super high and then you dip past the straight line, right to the bottom. 

  4:13  
C: And on the high moments, do you know the dip is coming, so does that take the edge off the high?

  4:18  
L: My highs aren't as bad as some people's. My highs can be, I will promise to have 20 children round for tea and I will cook dinner for 10 weeks ahead. And then I start to feel like the world is about to crash around me and I have one day. I think this is okay. This is normal. And then the next morning it's...

  4:39  
C: It comes really hard?

  4:40  
L: Game over, yeah.

  4:41  
C: Have you ever had to go into hospital?

  4:44  
L: Yes. So, when Will was 11 I became suicidal. And I was supposed to be going to New York with my sister. My dad had treated us to first class tickets to New York, yeah, to go and see my cousin who lives there. 

  4:59  
C: Lovely father!

  5:01  
L: Amazing. I. we'd been looking forward to it for years. And I woke up and I thought, all I could think about was when I get to New York, I'm going to go to the closest subway and I'm just going to go in front of the train. And then that will be okay. And everything will be...I said this to my husband and he...'you're not going'. 

  5:18  
C: No.

  5:18  
L: You're going into hospital. Yeah. So, I spent six weeks in hospital.

  5:22  
C: So Will was 11. And your daughters were?

  5:25  
L: My daughters were 10 and 3.

  5:27  
C: Goodness. 

  5:29  
L: Yeah. So that was, they'd come and see me.

  5:32  
C: But, so hard for you. 

  5:34  
L: It was absolutely hideous. I sobbed most of the time. Most of the therapy I spent there talking about how I'd let my children down. I think I must have bored the pants off the other people.

  5:44  
C: Of course not. How is your partner? How does he deal with all of this, is he he's brilliantly supportive?

  5:49  
L: He's amazing. He just loves me for what I am. And, recently I've been put on a new drug. 

  5:57  
C: And how have you found...

  5:58  
L:  It made, so it's like 'oh my God, this is what people feel like every day'. I didn't realise that this was normality. 

  6:05  
C: Tanya Byron is gonna come in and talk to you. So thank you so much for coming and sharing your story.

  6:09  
L: Hi, lovely to meet you.

  6:09  
T: It's so nice to meet you too! Let's have a hug. Gosh, you said just a second ago, 'I'm bipolar', you said? I would say you are a woman, who has a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I would not define yourself. I think...

  6:20  
L: Yeah, that's interesting.

  6:21  
T: Yeah, I just would say that, because maybe the way that the definition sits with you sometimes is part of the problem you have with your son.

  6:44  
L: Yeah, that's probably true. And I'm only coming to terms with this, even after all this time, that I won't have the same life experiences as, say my husband, who's happy, skippy-go-lucky. And I think that's why I'm so concerned about Will, because I so can't bear the idea of him having my experience. 

  7:07  
T: Does he have friends?

  7:08  
L: Yeah, he does. He has really good friends.

  7:10  
T: And he has happy times with his friends? 

  7:13  
L: Yeah. So he is actually at boarding school, I should have said this.

  7:16  
T: Right. 

  7:16  
L: He had a bad experience at his school before.

  7:20  
T: Was he bullied, or?

  7:21  
L: Yeah, really badly bullied. 

  7:22  
T: That's not good.

  7:23  
L: No. And now he's so happy.

  7:25  
T: So he's happy at his school?

  7:26  
L: He loves it. 

  7:26  
T: And he's happy boarding? 

  7:28  
L: Loves it. 

  7:28  
T: Okay, so this is, this is good. But then you have these moments where he...

  7:32  
L: Then I get phone calls.

  7:33  
T: How often? 

  7:35  
L: The worst one was end of year exams, just before starting GCSEs.

  7:40  
T: Yeah?

  7:41  
L: The first kind of serious exams he's had to really take. And he didn't cope well at all, but that's with hindsight. But I would get phone calls absolutely sobbing. 'I hate myself. I just don't want to get up in the morning. I can't sleep'. 

  7:56  
T: And was he not sleeping? 

  7:57  
L: He wasn't sleeping, he was waking in the night.

  7:59  
T: And what was the school doing?

  8:00  
L: I had to say to him, you need to walk along to your house teacher's apartment and then pass her the phone, so I would talk to her on the phone. And she was amazing. She would basically, every night before bed, he would call me then he would go to see her. 

  8:15  
T: Right. 

  8:16  
L: And the exams were over and he was a lot calmer. He went for some educational psychology tests. I never know the technical term.

  8:23  
T: Yes. The psychometric tests?

  8:25  
L: Yes. And it flagged he suffered from dysgraphia.

  8:30  
T: So that's to do probably with fine motor skills, how he holds a pen. 

  8:34  
L: Yeah, exactly, yeah.

  8:35  
T: And, and his speed of handwriting and hopefully he'll be allowed to use a laptop?

  8:39  
L: Yes.

  8:39  
T: Right. 

  8:40  
L: Getting that sorted out.

  8:41  
T: Good. 

  8:41  
L: And also, it flagged his very low mood.

  8:44  
T: Yeah. He has had an ED psych report and educational psychology report. And presumably his IQ score was good?

  8:52  
L: Yeah, he's very intelligent. He just can't get it down on...

  8:54  
T: On paper. So the issue for him isn't understanding, comprehension, or information processing. His memory is fine. So, all the nuts and bolts of what you need to do well academically, it's all there. And it's good. 

  9:09  
L: Yeah. 

  9:09  
T: In exams when it's timed, that for him, he gets super anxious because what he knows and what he's thinking, he cannot write fast enough. 

  9:20  
L: Yeah, that's true. 

  9:20  
T: Right, now that is going to make anybody anxious. So he is saying, 'mum exams are a nightmare for me'. And we now know why. They've said he's got dysgraphia. They've also said they identify low mood. So the question from that is, is the low mood because the dysgraphia is just making academic work, particularly timed academic work and exams, difficult for him? 

  9:44  
L: Yeah.

  9:45  
T: However, we know that if you have a close relative who has a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, like, like you do, there's a 5 to 10% chance that you can inherit that condition. So we need to think, hold on a second, Lara's got a point here. So we need to think about that. But we also need to think about you. So, my advice would be, with Will, that it would be useful for him to see a child and adolescent psychiatrist, just, not to necessarily diagnose anything, but just to have a conversation that's slightly different around his mood, taking into account, the dysgraphia that's been diagnosed and really trying to work out, is it really, he gets his bouts of significant anxiety when he is facing a major challenge to him because of his dysgraphia? Or is it something more across the board, that we then need to think about, not necessarily that anything is done now, but there's just a sense of, we've got our eye on this. He's got a space he can go and talk, somebody who gets him, who can think about it clinically, and supportively. If it was thought that it would be good for him to see someone therapeutically, that can be thought about as well. And Will can be part of choosing who that person is, you know, it's about how we get that conversation going with the young person as well.

  11:11  
L: Yeah, that's true, because he sees absolutely no benefit in going to talk to somebody. 

  11:17  
T: What 14 year old boy would though, really? It's about going through a process where the young person, they have ownership of that process and they go, 'okay, I understand why this is being done. I have power and control here. I am also here to say what I think and feel. I can say when I don't want to answer ra question', you know, you just put them in a different place. 

  11:39  
L: Yeah. 

  11:39  
T: Otherwise it feels quite infantilizing for a 14 year old to be dragged along to this person and that person, unless they really understand why and they kind of want it. So I think that's probably what would be the most helpful for Will.

  11:53  
L: Okay, amazing,

  11:53  
T: But let's, let's talk about you, because one of the things I heard you say to Claude, which I found incredibly emotional, you said that Will has said to you the most heartbreaking day of his life was when you went into hospital.

  12:06  
L: Yeah. It's just awful. And he says to me regularly, 'how are you mum', or 'you're not going to hospital again, are you?'. And it breaks my heart every time. He says, 'promise me, you'll never go back there'. And I'm like, 'I can't make that promise. I would, all my heart would love to be able to say to you, I am cured, but I never will be cured. It's a managing issue'. And I've only just got my head around that. And you know, we're coming up to 10 years diagnosis and I'm still thinking, great, this medicine is going to make me like everybody else. And it's not you know, I'm not ever going to be the person I want to be. I'm just me.

  12:50  
T: That's heartbreaking.

  12:52  
L: And I've just got to accept that.

  12:53  
T: Do you think the problem is, is that you need to maybe shift your perception? Why would you want to be someone who isn't you?

  13:03  
L: I have a very good friend who is always out. And I think, 'I wish I could be like you'. But sometimes the fear of going even on the school run and having to face mothers at the school gate,

  13:19  
T: I used to find that terrifying.

  13:20  
L: It's overwhelming. 

  13:21  
T: Yeah.

  13:22  
L: I don't measure myself against her. I just think, 'I wish I could be like that'. And I'm, and I'm starting to accept that I will never be like that. As my psychologist said to me, 'you have three children, you work, you've done it. You know, you've...'

  13:22  
T: You're amazing.

  13:22  
L: Yeah, 'you've achieved something.' 

  13:28  
T: And you have this condition to manage. You're amazing.

  13:42  
L: And I think, oh, I don't feel it.

  13:44  
T: No, but I wonder whether part of enabling Will to be less anxious about how you are, is for him and the girls to see their mum grow her own confidence and her own self-belief, because my instinct is your confidence and self-belief have been blown apart. That's why he checks a lot, isn't it? 

  14:06  
L: Yeah. 

  14:06  
T: He's, he feels your fragility. 

  14:08  
L: Yeah. 

  14:09  
T: And that makes him more anxious. So you're worried about him and he's worried about you.

  14:14  
L: Yeah. I think another thing about it is that I, this, and this may seem a little bit vain, but I used to be teeny tiny, like a size zero. Bearing in mind, I was very poorly when I was, when I was that size. But these drugs, the side effect is weight gain. And so I put on about three stone in weight. And I'm so uncomfortable in my skin...

  14:37  
T: So even your body doesn't feel like yours?

  14:37  
L: My body doesn't feel like me. My brain doesn't feel like me. I don't really know actually, who "me" is. Sometimes. I feel cheated, that I never got this diagnosis when I was his age, because then my life would be so different. Well, that's how it feels. And so I guess that's where I start with him. I'm terrified. I don't want him to have that experience. 

  14:41  
T: Do you think if you were further on in your own process, if you were at a point where you were able to value yourself for who you are, regardless of what size your jeans are, and whether you're like your mate who can go here, there and everywhere. If you could be you and have a sense of contentment with yourself, do you think your way of looking at what Will is going through would be different?

  15:39  
L: Yeah, I do.

  15:40  
T: Tell me about that. 

  15:41  
L: I can see the sense of contentment on the horizon. 

  15:44  
T: Yeah.

  15:44  
L: With these new drugs, I can definitely see, I'm more accepting. I need to get to that contentment. Because then it's almost like letting go of something and letting him just find his way. He needs to find his way, but I worry so much about his way.

  16:01  
T: Sure, but my instinct is you cannot help him with his way, while you're still trying to navigate yours. Do you talk to anyone? Do you see somebody like me, a clinical psychologist? Do you have any support, just to process this extraordinarily gruelling mental health journey that you've been on?

  16:19  
L: Yeah. Well, I went and saw a therapist. It just became exhausting, saying the same thing over and over and feeling like I was getting nowhere. So maybe I'm saying the wrong person.

  16:29  
T: So the question is, what didn't work about that? I wonder whether it would be useful for you to see somebody therapeutically who has more of a clinical understanding in the sense of the clinical issues that you are facing on a day to day basis, as well. My instinct is you have a lot of regret, possibly quite a lot of anger, that people missed things and things weren't dealt with as well as they could have been. And a huge amount of fear. You're not happy in your own skin, you're, I think you're just exhausted. And I feel like you need a space with somebody who can just help you really look at that stuff and think, what do I need to do to process it and move on.

  17:12  
L: Yeah.

  17:13  
T: So that you're not, 'I'm bipolar'. But you're, 'I'm a woman, who is a mother, and a daughter, and a sister and a wife and a friend. And I also have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder that I am managing'.

  17:29  
C: Okay, it's me, Claude. I think this is an opportune moment, if you don't mind, could you just explain to us the difference between, because there were lots of medical professions that were mentioned there, what is the difference between a psychiatrist and I think you used a psychologist, and a therapist?

  17:53  
T: Psychiatrists are medically trained, so they go through medical training for a number of years and they then specialise in mental health, in psychiatry. So fundamentally, they look at the biological basis of mental health conditions, which is why they would diagnose and prescribe medication. I'm a clinical psychologist, so I go through a number of years of training, and I have a clinical training so I understand mental health conditions. But my instinct isn't to diagnose, it's to understand what's the story, and how can somebody be empowered to really manage the situation they find themselves in and move forward in a way that's positive for them in the quality of their life. I often work with psychiatrists because some people, the intervention is both psychological therapy and medication. But sometimes medication and diagnoses are offered too quickly and actually people just need a space to talk. 

  18:47  
C: I wanted to ask, because Lara, you really love her psychiatrist, but you said it might actually help for her to see a clinical psychologist. That's someone else.

  18:53  
T: Yeah, just to have the space to talk through the issues that are kind of blocking her from moving on.

  19:00  
C: Brilliant. Let's return to the session.

  19:03  
T: As we talk, I can see heartbreak. 

  19:15  
L: Yeah.

  19:16  
T: But you, you push it away. 

  19:18  
L: Yeah. I'm...I'm not good at cracking. 

  19:20  
T: It's not that you need to crack. I think there's something you're worried, that if you start to become emotional, it's going to kick off a, maybe, a more manic process or it's going to tank your mood. I think you're worried to be emotional, because you're confused about what's emotion and what's the depression?

  19:41  
L: Yeah. It does remind me of having awful postnatal depression and not being able to not cry. 

  19:46  
T: Yeah, that's depression.

  19:48  
L: Yeah.

  19:48  
T: Depression, you can't feel anything.

  19:50  
L: No. 

  19:50  
T: It is very common that people who have mental health challenges in their lives, get terribly confused and very nervous about regular emotion. Because, 'is it my symptoms coming back? Is it going to trigger more of my symptoms? I can't afford to have emotion'. But the emotion is coming out in a different way. And it's sort of landing around Will, isn't it? How can we see that clearly, if the picture is so blurred by your anxiety?

  20:27  
L: Yeah, it's all a big jumbled mess.

  20:31  
T: So what needs to happen to help you with that?

  20:34  
L: It's a graphic description, but it feels like a really bad spot that needs squeezing, like I really need to cry. But I can't do it.

  20:43  
T: Cry for the woman you thought you would be? Grieved, do you think? Grieved for?

  20:49  
L: Yeah, grieved is a good word. 

  20:50  
T: Tell me about the grief. What would it be?

  20:53  
L: My husband is a super intelligent, like straight A person. And I know that I could have been that person. That's how far back I'm grieving. That I, I should have gone to an amazing university, I should have gone and done amazing things. And it's too late now, and I'm gutted. And I think it's, I'm saying it because this medication has given me such clarity. It's given me the space to see, rather than have this continual fog around me, which is what I had before - this fog of being depressed. And it never clearing. I'm just gutted, just so...so you're right, it is grief. I am grieving. I work in a special needs school as an administrator. And I absolutely love the kids. I sit there writing letters and I just think, 'I've got a degree, what am I doing?'. I do actually really like the job, but it's the fact that I'm still grieving that I'm not the people doing the teaching, I'm the person writing the letters. I don't necessarily want to be the teacher. I just want to have, want to have had the chance.

  22:12  
T: The chance, yeah. 

  22:13  
L: I just feel a bit robbed. 

  22:16  
T: I see that.

  22:17  
L: The feeling very alone really zaps you of any...completely cut, couldn't read a book. I haven't read a book for 10 years and then picked one up yesterday and I'm halfway through it and the joy...

  22:31  
L: Yeah, I mean, it's such little pleasures, but...

  22:31  
T: That's amazing.

  22:34  
T: It's huge! 

  22:35  
L: I, for him, I don't want him, I don't want him to be that far down the line. And it just breaks my heart to think that he would be. 

  22:46  
T: But, it's not a fait accompli, is it?

  22:48  
L: No, and that's what I have to remind myself.

  22:51  
T: Yeah.

  22:51  
T: With me now in this room, you're getting in touch with those sad feelings. 

  23:08  
L: Yeah. 

  23:08  
T: And you're not becoming manic. And I don't sense an impending depression. And you're not anxious.

  23:19  
L: No, no I'm not. 

  23:21  
T: You're talking openly about the hidden disability, because can't see the mental health issues, that you now recognise, as you look back, has had a profound impact on your life choices. 

  23:33  
L: Yeah.

  23:34  
T: The question is, what needs to happen to help you with those feelings of sadness? Because my sense is, that's all in the mix with your panic about your son?

  23:44  
L: Yeah. You know how people have bucket lists? My bucket list is really, I'd quite like to go and do a masters. 

  23:55  
T: What's stopping you? 

  23:57  
L: I'm 44, it's too late. 

  23:59  
T: Why? 

  24:00  
L: I sit in my my lunch break at work and I look at London University master's degrees. And I think, 'I'd love to do that.'

  24:08  
T: What's stopping you? I ask again.

  24:10  
L: I don't know. Fear, I think.

  24:12  
T: Confidence and fear. 

  24:13  
L: Yeah. I'm scared that I'd fail, I guess.

  24:16  
T: And as the mother of three amazing kids who are going to be amazing adults, do you want to role model fear as a reason to not do something?

  24:23  
L: No.

  24:23  
T: Okay, so where does that take you in your decision making?

  24:28  
L: Nothing's stopping me. I'm stopping me. 

  24:31  
T: Yeah, why? 

  24:32  
L: It isn't the bipolar, it's actually I'm stupid.

  24:35  
T: All right, on my sort of limited time with you, but as someone who spends a lot of time with a lot of people and knows how to assess intelligence, I can say to you, that's absolutely stupid of you to even say that!

  24:49  
L: I know. I just, I'm terrified.

  24:54  
T: Yeah, just like he is, before his exams. 

  24:57  
L: Yeah.

  24:58  
T: Maybe you need to grieve for the time that, you now see, was caught up with a condition that wasn't understood properly until now, in order to free yourself to now live as the woman that you really are. Not the size zero, the this one or that one, the woman you are now. Isn't that what you want your children to be able to do?

  25:22  
L: Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

  25:24  
T: So I suppose, and it's a pretty blunt question, what's going to help your son more - your circular anxiety that leads you and him checking in on each other all the time and sustaining this feeling of anxiety for each other, or something that is pragmatic and you do for yourself, which enables your son to recognise that the chances of you going back into hospital have diminished because mum is now moving forward in her life and doing something that she really wants to do, that's challenging her and she's being super brave and super amazing.

  26:05  
L: I will be super amazing.

  26:08  
T: I think you already are, you just don't see it.

  26:10  
L: No, I don't. But I'm trying to, I am feeling like the fog is clearing.

  26:15  
T: But it's more than that, because the fog is clearing and interestingly, what you're feeling is both joy that the fog is clearing, but now you're seeing more clearly, you're seeing things that also make you feel sad? 

  26:32  
L: Yeah. 

  26:32  
T: So that that bit has to be addressed. 

  26:35  
L: Yeah. 

  26:35  
T: For you. We're going to take a break. What do you think would be really useful for us to focus on for the second half of our time together?

  26:46  
L: It's gonna sound really selfish, but I guess taking it away from Will and then, kind of, working out more me

  26:56  
T: I don't think that's selfish. It feels really smart to me.

  26:59  
L: Yeah.

  27:01  
T: Okay, so if that's what you would like me to help you do, give me some idea of where you think we need to spend our time looking.

  27:12  
L: It's a really massive area, but just staying with being sad, or something like that?

  27:18  
T: Yeah. You've got it. 

  27:20  
C: For the rest of us what what is bipolar? What, what has she been through?

  27:38  
T: It's a mixture of depressive episodes and also periods of what are called mania, which isn't just being, you know, fairly busy and on it, but you know, sleep is totally impaired, up all night, cleaning, baking, doing things, just go go, go go go all the time. And it's very confusing. It's very confusing for people to live with, but it's incredibly confusing to be somebody who is struggling it. She would have definitely had more than one depressive episode in her life. And she would have had either manic episodes or mixed episodes of sort of depression and then periods of mania. It's incredibly debilitating. And just her view now that she's found clarity, you can see, as she looks back, she's like, I could have done so much more. It's so disabling for her, but it's so badly understood.

  28:28  
C: It is badly understood. As somebody sitting opposite you, I'm embarrassed to say I don't understand it. Because, she's beautiful, clever, brilliant, her husband's obviously wonderful, her children and wonderful and I'm mortified to say that when she sat opposite her GP who said slightly count your blessings, I'm like, 'yeah, go off go and run the world do a masters'. But that's not fair. Is it?

  28:54  
T: Everyone can see in Lara what she is struggling to see in herself. And I can understand that that's the way people would respond. People have a right to be heard when they're saying this sucks. And she's only had six weeks where the fog, I think she said, has cleared and she's saying, 'this sucks and I'm terrified that my son might be facing what I have been through for all these years'. And for me, that is unbelievably heartbreaking. And I understand the urge to say, 'but this is great and you have that and you look fabulous in your dress'. Look, if she's not going to hear it...

  29:34  
C: No, it's useless.

  29:35  
T: She's not going to hear it.

  29:36  
C: The most extraordinary moment, because obviously you can't see or hear me, but I am next door and listening and this made me...it winded me, right at the end when she said, and you're so brilliant because you asking her to say back to you, just to make sure that she'd heard...what happens if Will has inherited? What happens if, you know, and you were laying out how you were going to look after him? And she said, 'well, if he does, he does'.

  30:04  
T: Because we would know what to do. 

  30:07  
C: Yeah.

  30:08  
T: Her unbelievable resilience. 

  30:10  
C: Yeah.

  30:11  
T: Extraordinary resilience to have got to where she is, as the mother of three kids and working, and all the other things she does. That is the part of her that will enable her son to have a very different experience. 

  30:23  
C: Yeah. 

  30:24  
T: But if she doesn't feel resilient, and she doesn't respect herself, and she doesn't have her own sense of self, and a lack, and she has a real lack of self confidence, that will get in the way and that's what he's picking up on. 'Are you okay, mum? Is everything okay, mum?' Because he's terrified. So the best way we can empower our children is to look...

  30:45  
C: Empower ourselves. 

  30:46  
T: Exactly. 

  30:46  
C: And I so want her to do a masters.

  30:49  
T: Me too. 

  30:50  
C: So what next for Lara? When she comes back in here, because now I'm slightly obsessed that she will leave feeling much better, what will...how will we do that?

  30:59  
T: Yeah, but that's you Claude, and that's why I love you, because you want people to feel good straightaway and...

  31:05  
C: Sometimes it doesn't work? 

  31:06  
T: No, it does, but that's why I know you weep, because you listen.

  31:09  
C: I do. 

  31:10  
T: I know you do. And I love you for that. And I think things have already shifted for her because as you say, she's got a perspective. The question she said it to me, is 'how can I engage with feeling sad?'. And I think that sits around a very common challenge for people who have had significant mental health challenges, which is difficult emotion that has to be experienced is terrifying. 

  31:33  
C: Terrifying.

  31:33  
T: Because, is that going to trigger my condition?

  31:35  
C: And also, she must only equate sad with...

  31:39  
T: Depression.

  31:39  
C: Depression, right, and being hospitalised or feeling...

  31:42  
T: So she's terrified.

  31:43  
C: Suicodal. So she, yeah, I feel terrible for her. 

  31:45  
T: So it's to help her give herself permission to grieve for the young woman that she wanted to be and now feels she hasn't been able to be and grieving frees us up, to enable us to move forward and live a better life for ourself with a level of self respect. And that's, I think, what I really want for her.

  32:07  
C: Shall we get it back her?

  32:08  
T: Yeah.

  32:08  
T: I asked you in our break to focus on your resilience, how have you managed to get this far and achieve so much?

  32:20  
L: I'm driven by the...what I want my children to experience. They've been the reason I get out of bed and just keep going.

  32:24  
T: So they saved you.

  32:30  
L: Yeah. You know, I had days when I didn't do it. But they don't remember when I had my first breakdown.

  32:39  
T: You do though, and you feel...

  32:40  
L: Oh god, I remember so well. 

  32:42  
T: Do you feel guilty about it? 

  32:44  
L: I feel guilty that I sat them in bed next to me. And they kept, stayed in their pyjamas. And I didn't feed them lunch. They watched Fireman Sam on repeat. That's enough to torture anyone. You know, it's just, I neglected them for...let's say they wake up at seven, til half past two when I called my in-laws, until five o'clock when they got there. And I see, I can still remember the exact times. 

  33:13  
T: And that was one day, it happened.

  33:15  
L: And that was one day. 

  33:16  
T: Alrighty. So how damaged are they by that one day? 

  33:20  
L: They don't remember a thing?

  33:21  
T: Yeah. And how damaged did they appear in terms of who they are now?

  33:24  
L: I think they're quite laid back. 

  33:28  
T: So they're okay. 

  33:29  
L: I think they're apart from Will saying 'it's the worst day of my life', which literally kind of may as well be branded on me, they're okay.

  33:42  
T: So let's put you back on that day. And maybe on that day, unbeknownst to you, you had hit the sort of major symptom of a physical health problem. Would you be beating yourself up in the same way?

  33:56  
L: No, don't think it would

  33:59  
T: What's the difference?

  34:00  
L: I'm not sure, but it feels very surrounded with guilt. I feel like I carry it around in buckets. 

  34:09  
T: Why? Because you think...

  34:10  
L: Because I think that I should be Wonder Woman.

  34:13  
T: You should have done better. 

  34:14  
L: Yeah.

  34:15  
T: So you have you still haven't quite understood the challenges of the mental health issues that you are dealing with, do you?

  34:23  
L: No. Oh dear.

  34:28  
T: Not at all idea. I just think you are beating yourself...

  34:31  
L: I'm still accepting what I've got. 

  34:34  
T: I mean, you've lived it. But you look back at a moment in your life where things came to a head. You were so significantly unwell. You collapsed. You did the right thing. You called for help. Help came, you didn't make this shit up. Right? I really feel like that's where we need to begin. This guilt is an additional burden you're giving yourself and it has actually, when we look at it, no logic whatsoever in terms of the reality of what you live with.

  35:09  
L: No, I mean, I tell my sister guilt is a wasted emotion. 

  35:14  
T: Yeah, but you are...

  35:16  
L: But I am...

  35:17  
T: The queen?

  35:18  
L: yeah.

  35:19  
T: How have you done this? It is extraordinary. I don't know if I could have lived with what you've lived with.

  35:29  
L: It feels like I've just put one foot in front of the other slowly. It's the only way I could do it. Sometimes I haven't done it sometimes...we were on a walking holiday in France and I wanted to just take a step the wrong way and fall down. That was painful.

  35:48  
T: But you kept going. 

  35:51  
L: You just keep going. 

  35:52  
T: No, no. YOU kept going. 

  35:54  
L: Yeah.

  35:55  
T: YOU kept going. How have you done that? What does this tell us about you?

  36:02  
L: I really don't know. I just, just did it. 

  36:06  
T: Yeah.

  36:07  
L: Because I had no choice. 

  36:09  
T: You had plenty of choice. Unfortunately, people with the same condition that you have, are 20 times more likely to take their own life.

  36:18  
L: Suicide is not about dying. It's about escaping. 

  36:22  
T: It's about an ending. 

  36:23  
L: Yeah, exactly. It's about an ending. And you, if you take that choice, there is no ending because you're just passing it on to the people you leave behind. And that's not a criticism of people that commit suicide. That is just how I saw it.

  36:37  
T: That's right. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because you use the phrase 'commit suicide', which is what people generally use, and I would say, 'take one's own life', because actually 'commit' comes from back in the day when it was a crime. 

  36:52  
L: Yeah, that's true. 

  36:53  
T: So there's also all that other stuff, you know, it's language, the way, you know, also language about mental health. You read these awful headlines in newspapers that say such and such celebrity, such and such whoever, admits to mental health issues. "Confesses".

  37:14  
L:  Yeah. That's horrible.

  37:16  
T:  I mean, all the language around mental health is so stigmatising.

  37:20  
L: Yeah.

  37:20  
T:  Given that you do that, and you've done that, I think we can take and say, done. How are you now going to look at yourself and really admire yourself. The life you live would be impossible for many people to be able to manage.

  37:38  
L: I feel like I am coming out of, like I said before, this sort of fog, because when you're depressed, everything feels very dark. And now I feel like I'm looking up a lot more and I can see the blue sky instead of the grey pavements and the grave roads and everything's grey. It's like a chink in the clouds. And I think I will be able to achieve in accepting of myself, but I think I'm still in the beginning of the process.

  38:06  
T: You're right, you're at the beginning of the process. And you would need some space on that. And my advice would be that you have some sessions with a psychologist, a clinical psychologist, who can do some cognitive behaviour therapy just to help you with these intrusive negative thoughts that you get. But then also have, within those sessions, space to do some of the more emotional stuff, the grieving for what could have been, and you have permission to talk about what it feels like to live with the condition that you have.

  38:35  
L: Yeah. That would be amazing.

  38:37  
T: Well, I can help you think about where to find that, and we can talk about that. But is there anything else about yourself, about Will, anything else that you wanted to ask before we finish?

  38:49  
L: I just feel like I've got a space in my head where I can stop panicking about that little corner of life.

  38:58  
T: And what do you think, from today, have you taken away as the best way to support your son?

  39:04  
L: Lead by example?

  39:05  
T: Immense. And any thoughts what that could look like?

  39:11  
L: See, I wrote on my clipboard, I've written acceptance under me and him. And so I think that's my homework. 

  39:19  
T: Excellent.

  39:21  
C: How do you feel? 

  39:27  
L: Yeah, good. I feel really good.

  39:29  
C: When you phone your husband, what are you going to say?

  39:31  
L: So this morning, I was so nervous about coming in. He was like, 'come on, you're going to do this'. I mean, he is literally my cheerleader. And I feel like I should buy him pompoms. But I'm going to say to him about Will, and how excited I am about, you know, how, what amazing things we're going to be able to help him achieve. And I'm not going to say to him 'oh, I wish he was like you and not me', because now I kind of think...not so bad!

  39:55  
C: How brilliant for him to be like you!

  40:00  
L:  Exactly! What's wrong with being like me? I suddenly feel a bit like, 'I'm not so bad'.

  40:06  
C: No, we think you're magnificent. 

  40:08  
L: Thank you. 

  40:09  
C: For people who don't understand, when we're on the outside we can go, 'but you're obviously fantastic'. 

  40:15  
L: I know. It's really hard to see.

  40:17  
L: You know, it was really interesting, my psychiatrist said to me, 'it's really interesting, because imagine you're a surfer. And some days the waves are really good. And you're surfing and you're not falling off your surfboard. And other days, the waves are coming over your head and you keep falling off. And you're going to have days like that. But we're aiming for most of the days when you're having a really nice time on your surfboard'. 

  40:17  
C: But if you don't feel it!

  40:18  
C: Let's not actually surfe though, that's hard work.

  40:39  
C: Who wants to go to Cornwall?

  40:40  
C: Who wants to go to Cornwall?

  40:43  
L: No, it's too cold. 

  40:44  
C: I am making your husband pompoms though. Thank you for coming in. 

  40:48  
L: Thank you for having me.

  40:49  
C: And give all our love to Will, won't you?

  40:51  
L: I will.

  40:51  
C: I thought I'd decided what I felt about Lara. Then I did it, well I did a full 360. As you saw. 180?

  41:02  
T: 180, yeah. 

  41:03  
C: I did a full 180, thank goodness this isn't about math. 

  41:07  
T: What are you now seeing differently and why?

  41:10  
C: The difference in her from the moment she arrived till the moment she left and it was only when I came in at the end and she looked physically different. That is going to sound weird on a podcast, but she looked lighter, that I realised how heavy, I'm not talking about her physicality, she felt at the beginning. That's A. B, I mean, she's just incredibly brave. You can't believe that she's got through it. And then at the end, when she said to me, it made me emotional, as you saw when she said about her son, because when she came in, she was so full of fear. 'I don't want him to have what I have. I want him to be like his dad. I just don't want him to have that, I don't, it's horrible, it's horrible'. And then at the end, she went, 'what if he is like me?!'. It felt...revelatory.

  41:56  
T: And brings tears to your eyes.

  41:58  
C: It does. It makes me really...cause I just think, she's 44. She had this at 14 or she's been dealing with it. And not, I feel a bit sad. Not, I've got to unload the dishwasher. Not, I'm slightly overwhelmed because my three kids are going to three different parties. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a woman who had to be put in a hospital for six weeks away from her children. It's different language.

  42:28  
T: And this is I think, partly why we want to do this. It's a mental health conversation that there is so much more that has to be spoken about. So you know, the judgement that people with mental health challenges live with every day. And remember, sort of worldwide, this is the fourth most common mental health condition after depression, anxiety and schizophrenia and it isn't enough to say to a woman like Lara that you're so bright and you look so lovely, and you've got these three amazing children and you've got this wonderful marriage.

  43:02  
C: No, it's just noise.

  43:04  
T: Yeah, I mean, would we say that to someone who was dealing with cancer?

  43:08  
C: No.

  43:08  
T: There we go. And also, I see the impact it has on you and I can see the journey you've gone on. I think today, this has been the best use of our time. 

  43:20  
C: Yeah. I'm so pleased she came.

  43:22  
T: Yeah, me too. Absolutely. 

  43:24  
C: I want to stay in touch with her. 

  43:25  
T: I know, are you gonna start stalking her? 

  43:27  
C: A little bit.

  43:28  
T: Okay. We'll ,ale another thing to add to her daily challenges.

  43:31  
C: Correct.

  43:32  
T: Claudia Winkleman at her front door every day. 

  43:40  
JC: ust a quick heads up. If you haven't already, please click on the subscribe button, and you'll see free episodes literally the minute they're ready. Please do rate and comment if you like it, if you don't like it, feel free to totally ignore that whole comment area

  43:56  
T: Next time, Donia.

  43:59  
Donia: I just overcompensated because I thought 'oh my god, if anything happens to me, my baby's gonna be without a mum'. So I just thought let me just do the best thing I can.

  44:10  
C: If you're interested in taking part in future episodes of How Did We Get Here, please email parenting@somethinelse.com, that's parenting@somethin(without a G)else.com. This podcast was possible with the help of the following people at Somethin Else. The sound and mix engineer is Josh Gibbs, the Assistant producer is Hannah Talbot, the producer is Selina Ream and the executive producer is Chris Skinner, with special thanks to Steve Ackerman. Thank you so much for listening.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai