Heston

I’ve just watched the second part of the Heston Blumenthal BBC doc on biplolar.  What a brave man he is. There is a scene where he is asking his son how the condition affected those around him. His son shoots from the hip. You talked over everyone else. You were in your own world most of the time. It was a difficult watch. I could sense his son’s anger and feel Heston’s pain. I think I might have said to the BBC, for God’s sake don’t show that.
    It made me wonder what I’d done to my own family. When my kids banned me from being Mr three-jokes-a-minute at the dinner table, I didn’t see it from their point of view. (Why are you trying to emasculate me? Because you’re doing our heads in, Dad.)
    In the next part of the film Heston talks to a woman whose bipolar daughter committed suicide because, while begging for support from the NHS, she failed to get any. That is shocking. There are a million people in the UK with bipolar,  yet the level of support available, while varying from region to region, is grossly inadequate.
    People with bipolar, on average, live for 10-15 years less than those in the general population. (Because of the proportion of us who choose to bow out prematurely.)  My psychiatric consultant said she would seek more support for me as I try to come off medication. Five weeks later I’ve had a call from someone to offer me an appointment.