91Èȱ¬

NIKKI- Yeah, so I’m sorry I was a bit late today, Ems.

EMMA- What happened?

NIKKI- Oh, it was just one of those mornings. My lovely Libby, who you know, my PA, she has a tummy bug. She messaged me late last night, which I got this morning when I woke up. A lot of disabled people who are physically disabled, or no, who just need a bit of support to get up, whatever that may be, will know that it’s like argh, operation scramble, all the help you can from any area. So, luckily my lovely dad had not left for work, not that I like doing this, but my dad gave me a hand doing my boots and my splints and everything. And it was sort of team operation, getting Nikki sorted at home. At the same time I was messaging Corinne, who I’ve been training as a back-up PA anyway, and she happened to be free. I was like, thank you.

EMMA- That was an amazingly lucky thing.Ìý

NIKKI- Oh honestly.

EMMA- What would have happened if she wasn’t free?

NIKKI- I wouldn’t have been able to have come in, no. I would have had to have done it from home.Ìý

EMMA- So, Corinne has saved the podcast.

NIKKI- Corinne has saved the podcast. But the thing is my mum was also the hero of the hour because I had to change outfit, because I had a skin-tight denim boob tube style dress I was very excited to wear today, Em. I was going to audio describe it to you because I feel quite hot in it. But I thought I can’t wear that, it’s not fair on Corinne; it disables me even more. So, mum picked a very nice dress out that’s disabled friendly. And when I say that, I can get my legs in and out of the car easily, it’s not going to restrict me. It wouldn’t be fair for me to be like, ‘Hi, Corinne. It’s really love to see you. Thanks for saving the day. I can’t move. I can just move my head. Have a nice day’.

MUSIC- Theme music.

NIKKI- This is Access All. I’m Nikki Fox and as usual I’m in London.Ìý

EMMA- And I’m Emma Tracey and I’m in my little cupboard in Edinburgh.

NIKKI- We are the 91Èȱ¬â€™s disability and mental health podcast. But I think we’re so much more.

EMMA- We’re so much more. That sounds kind of dull, and we are far from dull.

NIKKI- Thank you, Ems. It’s Mental Health Awareness Week this week, and later we’ll be meeting Rosie who has bipolar and can experience mania. That’s exactly what happened after splitting with her boyfriend. She caused a mass evacuation at Stansted Airport before being hospitalised. She is a brilliant woman and I can’t wait to speak to her properly later on in the show.

EMMA- Now, new figures show that one in five of us feel anxious most or all of the time. We’re going to dig into what anxiety is, why so many of us live with high levels of it, and what we might be able to do to help us feel better.Ìý

NIKKI- And this is brilliant, because did you see the BAFTAs at the weekend, Ems?

EMMA- I did, I saw bits of it.Ìý

NIKKI- Disabled teenager, the actor Lenny Rush, only went and won one, didn’t he? 

EMMA- He did.Ìý

NIKKI- We love him from Am I Being Unreasonable. We are going to be chatting all about his BAFTA win later on in the show.Ìý

EMMA- The Access All podcast is here with you every single week. Please subscribe so that you don’t miss any future episodes and tell your friends to do the same.

NIKKI- It’s Mental Health Awareness Week, and this year the theme is anxiety. A report by the Mental Health Foundation has found nearly three-quarters of people felt anxious at least some time in the previous two weeks.Ìý

EMMA- It also found that 86% of young people had felt anxious in the previous two weeks. And for more than half of those it stopped them from undertaking day-to-day activities.Ìý

NIKKI- Other groups more likely to report feeling anxious were carers at 84%, and people with long-term physical health conditions at 82%. Emma, talking of anxiety, have you ever experienced anxiety? 

EMMA- Oh, I would say I’m in that one in five who feel anxious some or all of the time.Ìý

NIKKI- That’s why I ask you because I know when we have little chats sometimes I sense it a little bit that you’re feeling quite anxious.Ìý

EMMA- Yeah, I do. I live with a high level of anxiety I would say. I mean, I don’t know how anyone else feels, but I always feel it in my chest most of the time. I have neck and shoulders that make massage therapists weep. They basically say they need me there every week, but that’s not happening. I don’t currently take medication; I have in the past. I don’t have panic attacks. But I do feel exhausted all the time because anxiety is really, really exhausting, and it does make me feel I need to take more control over things, makes it difficult to make decisions, makes me irritable sometimes. Disability plays into it; I can’t separate that.Ìý

NIKKI- I was going to say that, is it partially because you’re blind, do you think, that you feel anxious? 

EMMA- So, things that make me anxious some of them are related to not being able to see my kids and keep them safe. But then at the same time I would say that I am actually less anxious since I’ve had the kids. And one of the things that helps is distraction. That really helps having so much to do [laughs] kind of helps, and you’re so tired that you sleep and that kind of thing. But I definitely do say to people regularly it’s very hard being a blind control freak. And that’s to justify my checking. So, if the kids are in a soft play or something, where are they, how are they getting on, what’s happening. And it’s just part of my life; it’s like being blind.

NIKKI- To talk about this a bit more we are joined by Faris from Liverpool who has been diagnosed with anxiety himself, and Stephen Buckley who is the head of information at Mind, the mental health charity. Hello both, how are you? 

FARIS- Hello, I’m good, thank you very much.Ìý

NIKKI- Good. Are you all right, Stephen? 

STEPHEN- Yeah, thanks for having us. Nice to see you.Ìý

NIKKI- Oh, it’s lovely to have you both on. I’m going to start with Stephen, if that’s all right. Stephen, I know this might sound like an overly simplistic question because we use the term anxious quite a lot, don’t we, but what exactly is anxiety?

STEPHEN- That’s a great question. It’s one of those words that’s in common use, isn’t it? We all kind of know what it means. I think the first thing to say is that anxiety is a kind of perfectly natural human response to certain situations. It’s what we feel when we’re worried or we’re tense or we’re afraid, particularly about things that are about to happen or we’re worried that might happen. And I think we’ve just heard some examples of what those might be. And most people feel anxious most of the time. I was prepping for this chat, I was feeling a bit anxious, a bit stressy, I was fiddling with my paper, do I need the loo again. But I know once we’ve finished chatting those feelings will go away. But perhaps for people who experience anxiety in the long term it becomes more of a problem.Ìý

NIKKI- And there is a difference, isn’t there, between like you were saying normal day-to-day anxieties and debilitating anxiety?

STEPHEN- Yeah, I think so. There will be some people for whom a little bit of stress and a little bit of anxiety in their life they can find quite helpful. But for other people if anxiety is having an impact on how they want to live their life, if those feelings of anxiety are lasting for a long time, if those feelings of anxiety are perhaps out of proportion for the situation that someone’s facing, then that can be quite difficult for someone to overcome.Ìý

NIKKI- Now, Faris I just wondered, obviously you have been diagnosed with anxiety, how does it present itself for you? 

FARIS- Mainly for me sometimes it’s a kind of sinking feeling in my stomach where I’m constantly I feel on edge, I feel just very restless. I think the inability to just relax or just be seems to be taken away from me because every moment is spent worrying or just trying to prevent anything else from happening really.Ìý

EMMA- You have physical disabilities as well, Faris, don’t you? 

FARIS- Yes.

EMMA- How do they play into the anxiety and how do they relate to each other? 

FARIS- I find that with physical disability I tend to worry about not meeting my full potential, all the things I wanted to do, all the dreams I’ve had. And how anxiety plays in is you’re constantly wanting to overcompensate. So, in the morning rather than feeling useless I’ll start cleaning the house and I’ll do a never-ending list of tasks to just kind of keep myself constantly occupied to constantly keep myself from this anxious feeling.Ìý

NIKKI- I tell you what though, Faris, I have to say, I know you’re well into make-up and you look fabulous on the screen. I can see now.Ìý

FARIS- Thank you.Ìý

NIKKI- I’m loving the hat. I’m loving the shirt. And you’re obviously doing that and that’s helping you a lot actually, isn’t it? 

FARIS- Absolutely yeah. I find that colours for me, I don’t know why, but they tap into something very childlike almost, it makes me feel very safe. And I’ve been attached to that since I was a child I guess, so it’s very helpful for me.Ìý

EMMA- I talked about distraction, is it a good distraction from the anxiety the make-up?

FARIS- Absolutely. I think the make-up itself was born out of a need to distract myself, because with both my chronic pain and the anxiety I found that not much can distract me. TV, movies I cannot focus. But with make-up if you want to get the best results you have to almost completely dedicate yourself to it, and in the process I forget about pain, I forget about anxiety, and it’s just almost a lucky coincidence.Ìý

NIKKI- Going back to the report that we mentioned at the top of this item, it found that the cost of living crisis is having an impact on people’s anxieties. Not being able to afford to pay bills was the most commonly reported cause of anxiety. Does that reflect what you’ve heard, Stephen?

STEPHEN- Yeah, it really does. If we just step back a little bit we know that one of the contributing factors to people experiencing anxiety is their current life situation. So, if people for example are, I don’t know, they’re going through a relationship breakup or they’ve lost their job, or they’ve got a chronic or long-term issue or a disability, then that can contribute to people’s feelings of anxiety. The fact that a lot of people are struggling with finances at the minute it’s no surprise that people are feeling anxious as a result. And Mind has done its own survey on this issue over the last few weeks and we found round about 48% of people in England and Wales have been negatively impacted in their mental health by the cost of living crisis. And we found that that increased to about 75% when people already had a mental health problem. So, I think it’s really clear that people in the cost of living crisis worrying about their finances, worrying about being able to keep a roof over their head or food on the table or look after their kids and themselves, this will play into people’s feelings of anxiety.Ìý

I think what we also found, that was quite concerning for Mind, is that at the same time people felt less able or less willing to seek help for those difficult feelings that they were experiencing. And I think that’s a really important message to get across is that it doesn’t matter what the situation is, if you feel that you need help and need support with your mental health problem you should get it, you should ask for it, you should seek it. Don’t minimise what you’re experiencing because you think other people are in the same situation as you. If you feel you need support it’s always okay to ask for help.Ìý

NIKKI- And Faris, do you mind me asking, how are you coping at the moment with everything, prices going through the roof and all the issues that we’re having? 

FARIS- if I’m completely honest this probably has been the most stressful year in my life financially. Because I’d never worried about money, I just didn’t, it wasn’t something I thought about or kind of pursued. But not being able to look after yourself, just the most basic needs, has been crushing because, again, part of disability is this lack of control. I find myself asking if you were able and had a nine-to-five job would you be in this much of a position. And deniability to pull myself out of it has put me in a pretty tough time. But luckily I have a lot of friends and people who can help me through with donations etc to keep me going. But it has been a very difficult year, and I can only imagine how others have been coping with it.

NIKKI- Stephen, how can people alleviate the symptoms of anxiety? Obviously we’ve spoken about making sure you talk, talk to somebody.Ìý

STEPHEN- I think Faris talked about it with make-up. Other things people have tried and say they find useful are things like yoga perhaps or meditation, spending some time outside. There are things people can do to help them relax and distract themselves. People might want to try some deep breathing exercises or other kind of more formal relaxation exercises. And there are some great examples of those if people look at the Mind website. We’ve all got a responsibility I guess to try and look after our mental health and our physical health. But also some of the things that are driving people’s levels of anxiety at the minute are external factors. And while there are things that we can do to try and help us cope in the moment, I think it’s really important that those external factors are addressed as well. We heard Faris talk about the worries that are faced by people who aren’t able to afford life’s necessaries, heat, paying the water bill, buying food. And we know that for people with significant and long-term mental health problems and for people with disabilities and people who are already facing poverty the pressures have just been mounting up and mounting up over the last 12, 18 months. Doing meditation isn’t going to make those problems go away. It needs a different kind of solution which can alleviate the very real pressures and situations that people are under.Ìý

I think sometimes there’s perhaps an expectation that we expect people to be so resilient that some meditation can make all the problems in the world go away. And unfortunately that’s just not true. Sometimes people do need more support with things like their benefits and getting the money that they’re entitled to, or perhaps support if they’re going through a difficult time in their life and they need to hold down their job. These are the things that need to be looked at as well. Yes, we all have a responsibility to look after our own mental and physical health, but structural problems do need to be addressed as well, because at the minute a lot of anxiety is being driven by those structural problems.Ìý

NIKKI- Honestly, thank you both so much for coming on. It’s been such an interesting chat, it really has.Ìý

FARIS- Pleasure.Ìý

NIKKI- I really do appreciate it.Ìý

STEPHEN- No worries.Ìý

NIKKI- Now, if you want more information on anxiety and how to cope with it visit the 91Èȱ¬ Action Line pages where there are lots of charities and support lines listed. That link is bbc.co.uk/actionline.Ìý

[Clip]

MUM- Wait.

OLLIE- No.

MUM- Wait.

OLLIE- No, I’ll be late.

MUM- If they ask you why you were late what are you going to say?

OLLIE- My leg hurts.

MUM- Yes! You’re legs hurt, brilliant. And what else was I going to say? Oh yes, I love you, I love you.Ìý

OLLIE- Whatever.Ìý

[End of clip]

NIKKI- Oh, that is the brilliant Lenny Rush, playing alongside the super talented Daisy May Cooper in the 91Èȱ¬ comedy thriller, Am I Being Unreasonable? Which, I don’t know about you Emma, but I watched it myself, then I watched it again with my sister, then I watched it again with my parents. It is so good. And he is such a brilliant actor. Now, the reason why we’re playing it is because Lenny, who plays Daisy May Cooper’s son Ollie, own a BAFTA at the weekend.Ìý

[Clip]

PRESENTER- The BAFTA goes to: Lenny Rush! [Cheering and applause]

LENNY- What? [Laughter] I just want to say I’m so happy. I can’t believe I won among so many other great nominees. Thank you. Argh! [Laughter]

CROWD- Go Lenny!

LENNY- Thank you. [Cheering and applause]

[End of clip]

NIKKI- Oh, he was brilliant. I watched that speech, Ems. And first of all it took him quite a long time to get to the podium because he was being congratulated by everyone. Everyone was going wild.

EMMA- That’s so interesting because I was thinking ooh, it must be taking him a long time to get on the stage, have they done the ramp right.Ìý

NIKKI- It’s always disability related, I’ll bet you any money.Ìý

EMMA- I did [laughs].Ìý

NIKKI- Ooh, have they got it right, have they got the ramp up.Ìý

EMMA- Yes, that was it. I was anxiously sitting there going oh my goodness, what’s happening, why is he not on the stage yet, why is he taking so long.Ìý

NIKKI- No, he was on his little Segway mobility scooter, which is very cool. I would go flying off it. Well, not a scooter actually; it was a Segway.Ìý

EMMA- Are you going to go scooter geek again on me?

NIKKI- [Laughs] I was a little bit jeal. I was like, oh my goodness. It wasn’t the BAFTA, it was the Segway. It was like I would love to be able to use one of those but I wouldn’t be able to. Yeah, he bombed it up there, but he was just a little bit delayed. It wasn’t the ramp; there was a ramp down.Ìý

EMMA- Good.Ìý

NIKKI- I know there have been years where there has been no ramp. But this year there was a ramp.Ìý

EMMA- Yes, Ruth Madeley said that she’d been carried on a few years ago, and this year when she went to present an award there was a ramp.Ìý

NIKKI- And it was so nice to see Ruth there as well, looking absolutely stunning, presenting an award. I know Sophie Morgan went as well. I think she presented an award too.

EMMA- She did. They must have been trialling out their new ramp. They must have been right, we’re going to use as many disabled people as possible to make sure this ramp works properly. It’s really exciting, and the way has been paved for so many more disabled people to win BAFTAs. And I love to see young disabled people winning stuff who’ve got years left to be brilliant and disabled and all over everything and winning stuff. What a joy.Ìý

NIKKI- Now, I should mention that the award that he won was for best male performance in a comedy programme, so it was a biggie.Ìý

EMMA- It was one of the top awards. Where’s he going to go from here?

NIKKI- Oh up, he’s going up.Ìý

EMMA- He’s definitely going up.Ìý

NIKKI- Here’s a bit from an interview he did with 91Èȱ¬ Essex, which is his local radio station, earlier this week.Ìý

[Clip]

LENNY- Yeah, I had spinal surgery, so I think the idea of going to the BAFTAs it sort of kept me going. So, I’m really happy I got to go, because I used my Segway, which is like the little mobility vehicle that I used to get up onto the stage. Even trying to get used to that to go to the BAFTAs. But I’m so happy I went. It was such a good night.Ìý

SONIA- You are smashing it frankly. You were able to do it. What’s next then? What have you got lined up?

LENNY- I’ve got a little project for this summer. I’ve got a couple of things I think going out this year. I’ve got a horror film.

SONIA- Oh! [Laughs]

LENNY- The Queen Mary, that will be good. Obviously I’ve never done a horror before so it’s a bit different. Like, it was, because I think it was a film first of all, and because of the horror I actually enjoyed getting my make-up done [laughter] because you’ve got all the prosthetics behind you and all the blood. You’ve got random arms and legs on the floor [laughter].Ìý

[End of clip]

NIKKI- Oh, I can’t tell you how much I love him. Please can we get him on the podcast? 

EMMA- Oh, please Lenny.Ìý

NIKKI- Do you think he’ll come? Now, moving on from Lenny, whom we adore, I think he can probably tell if he’s listening, back to the show that we did a couple of weeks ago, Ems. Do you remember?

EMMA- Yeah.

NIKKI- Angela emailed us after hearing our episode with the Australian wheelchair user who I keep talking about, I haven’t stopped talking about since the episode, Melanie and sex worker Chase. I’m going to remind our listeners what it was all about. Here’s a quick clip:

[Clip]

MELANIE- It was for both male, female and trans escorts this website. And I had a look at a few of the male ones in Perth. Chase listed that he did disabled clients, and I really liked his smile, and his rates were more reasonable than some of the others.Ìý

[End of clip]

NIKKI- It was such a great interview. It really stayed with me. Did it you, Em?

EMMA- Really enlightening. It really did stay with me, just the joy in her.Ìý

NIKKI- And I got a lot of tweets personally as well saying that that interview particularly it either helped someone or they found it very enlightening and all that, so great. Now, Angela got in touch with us and she wants to know what the legal situation is like in the UK. Now, we touched on this in our interview because we were looking at it from the Australian point of view. But what is the situation in the UK if you want to pay for sex workers, Em?

EMMA- Well, the exchange of sexual services for money is legal in the UK, apart from in Northern Ireland where it’s illegal to pay for sex. But it is illegal, it is against the law to pay someone who’s being forced to be a sex worker. It’s illegal to solicit clients in a public place or on the street or whatever. And it’s illegal to be in charge of a brothel as well. if you’ve listened to the Melanie and Chase podcast and think you might want to follow suit then we want to hear from you.Ìý

NIKKI- Oh yeah, please, please get in touch. You can get in touch with us, tell us your stories and what you’re interested in, anything you’d like us to look into. Our article on the 91Èȱ¬ News website about Melanie and Chase, as we mentioned, got over 1.5 million hits, so we know that interests you quite a lot. Hey, that’s funny, isn’t it, what interests our listeners? 

EMMA- Sex. What interests us? 

BOTH- Sex.Ìý

NIKKI- [Laughs] You can message us: 0330 123 9480. You can send it via the written word or your voice, whatever you like. Email accessall@bbc.co.uk, or you can tweet us @91Èȱ¬AccessAll.Ìý

EMMA- Do pigeons take messages to people? 

NIKKI- Oh, carrier pigeon?

EMMA- Yeah.

NIKKI- Yeah, I sent one off for you earlier on today.Ìý

EMMA- Did you? 

NIKKI- Yeah.Ìý

EMMA- Is that what was cooing at my window at 7 o’clock this morning?

NIKKI- Saying you look really nice, yeah.Ìý

EMMA- Oh, pity I couldn’t read it.Ìý

NIKKI- [Laughs] oh yeah, I didn’t think about braille.Ìý

MUSIC- Access All with Nikki Fox.

NIKKI- We are now joined by Rosie Viva. Now, Rosie is a 27 year old who has just made a film for Channel 4’s Shot by You series, which dropped online a few days ago. And in it Rosie talks all about having bipolar. Now, although she had an undiagnosed mental health problem beforehand, four years ago a serious psychotic episode was triggered when she split from her boyfriend. And she’s joining now. Hello Rosie. Now, I have seen the film, Rosie, and you are so honest in it. Was that difficult for you? 

ROSIE- I think at first it definitely didn’t come naturally because these are moments which I deal with on my own. And then actually I just got such a sense of freedom when I shared it because I thought okay, wow, I’ve never seen anything online like this with people with bipolar; it’s always when we’re most composed in an interview talking about it. Whereas that kind of selfie video that was me in the moment.Ìý

[Clip]

Hi, mamma, I can’t wait to see you tomorrow. Yeah, it was an amazing day. I laughed so hard that I nearly threw up my lunch. Things are happening for a reason, and I really believe that our family is just going to have strengths and strengths and strengths and strengths and strengths and strengths. That is the aim is happiness! 

[End of clip]

  It almost felt like talking to a therapist or a friend. But even when you speak to a therapist or a friend you’re, again, composed, so it was nice to break the wall there and actually in real time share what it’s like.Ìý

NIKKI- Can you explain that moment of mania that you had those years ago?

ROSIE- That psychotic episode and that manic experience came when I actually reached breaking point. My boyfriend at the time broke up with me because I was just so…I couldn't relate to the person I was when he’d met me. I had no confidence, I didn’t find anything enjoyable. And actually when he broke up with me, instead of being completely distraught and broken at the end of a tough year, the next day I turned to my friends and said, ‘Guys, it's so weird, I feel so much better. Maybe he was the reason I’ve been unwell, and maybe he’s the reason I’ve been anxious and depressed’. And yeah, the first few days after the breakup were really weird; I was so positive but still quite myself, just a self I hadn’t seen in a long time. And then the second week after the breakup my language and my thoughts turned super spiritual and religious. And that was when I eventually went into a psychotic episode, having stopped sleeping out of this kind of energy change and shift and just inability to sit still or want to go to sleep.Ìý

[Clip]

Hello, hello, hello. It’s Amy from Amy from Mars, Amy from Mars, Mars.Ìý

This is me, two weeks after being hospitalised. I hallucinated for about a month and barely recognised my own family.Ìý

Hello Victor. Bring over a light.Ìý

The mania lasted for three months and was followed by six months of severe depression.Ìý

Rockets, spaceman, you, monkey, now I’m dead [laughs].Ìý

[End of clip]

NIKKI- And then that moment happened, didn’t it, at the airport? Can you tell me about that? 

ROSIE- Do you know what, I remember it so well. And I honestly think about that day at moments every day of my life because I can’t really put into English how it felt to experience time at a different pace. And that was when I honestly just thought okay, this isn’t real life, because I would hear my heart beat and it sounded like the end of a concert: I couldn’t get back to the normal pace of life. So, that psychosis state was just my senses being so heightened and my eyesight being much clearer and my hearing, everything that day was completely delusional because I hadn’t slept. And that moment at Stansted, I mean I don’t know how I actually made it there because the whole morning I was hallucinating around London on my own, just walking around, speaking to strangers, stealing from shops, going to MacDonalds buying everyone breakfast. It was a whole kind of morning of a very high state. And then in Stansted I think I just reached breaking point, because I picked up the phone to my mum and it kind of shattered the illusion and I realised that it was real life. And I just felt such a sense of panic. And I think that was my way of calling for help. I just did the thing which sprang to mind which would create the most attention. And I think it was a cry for help after a year of being undiagnosed and not knowing what to do [laughs].Ìý

NIKKI- You were there, weren’t you, to catch a flight to go and see your family. But actually what happened? Tell us about what happened.Ìý

ROSIE- I saw it was an oversized baggage drop-off, and I’ve actually been to Stansted Airport quite a few times since so it’s weird to see it again. But I saw the baggage drop-off and actually my ex-boyfriend was a musician and he had a music video idea to jump through it and do this whole story. And I think that was in my subconscious. So, I jumped through the baggage drop-off, and then there was a fire alarm on the left-hand side and I just remember hitting that with my hand. And all I remember is hearing alarms go off and seeing policemen running towards me. And I just remember that moment as a weird moment of relief that I was getting help. And that’s kind of the feeling which came over me. I just knew I needed help; I didn’t understand what type of help. But that was the beginning of being taken seriously that I was just unable to function I guess.Ìý

NIKKI- Were you sectioned? 

ROSIE- So, first of all I was taken to A&E. I think that was quite a difficult time. My elder sister was in the country and she came and was with me. I was having moments where I understood what was going on, but then I would say things like, ‘Oh is it okay if I go on holiday tomorrow?’. And the staff were being so nice saying, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’re just going to check you over and then you can go tomorrow’. So, then I was sectioned in Ealing Hospital for two and a half months, discharged after three, and in an inpatient unit. So, it was quite a mixture of feelings. I kind of have moments where I remember bits of it. But from then on I just basically didn’t sleep for another two months. So, that level of psychosis was just bizarre because I really didn’t recognise my parents for about two weeks. I just remember that first night I got there being pinned down because they have to give you medication to make you sleep. So, I didn’t know what was going on. I was just quite distressed, because they’re doing it out of the love of wanting me to get better and get on medication as soon as possible, but at the same time you are being pinned down and you just know that something is really frightening about it.Ìý

NIKKI- And throughout that journey, Rosie, who was it that diagnosed you? Do you remember that feeling when you did get that label, what was that like? 

ROSIE- I think it would have been within the first three or four days. I think first of all they just had to make sure it’s not a reaction to drugs psychosis, and it’s not just a one-off episode that some people have out of stress. The bipolar is definitely most obvious from the spiritual language you’re using. But I would have been told by a nurse or a doctor at that point, but I don’t remember those conversations because I was so gone in terms of my eyesight and my hallucinations taking over where I actually was. I think I first came to terms with the diagnosis very close to the end of hospital where I’d been on antipsychotics for a few months, and I was starting to sleep normal hours, I was starting to ask my parents, ‘Where am I? what’s happened?’ But if I’m honest that was probably about two months after that point. It definitely got worse before it got better; that psychosis, for someone with bipolar you can’t really speed that up. Like any antidepressant or medication it can take six weeks to kick in, so in that time you just have to be in a safe environment and reassured by nurses. So, yeah, it was definitely a delayed reaction.Ìý

NIKKI- Is it always an external thing that triggers these kinds of episodes? 

ROSIE- I now have ups and downs, and that’s just what I’ve accepted as part of my life. I’d say when I was younger I wasn’t on any medication, and I honestly take my medication religiously, and I’ve come to accept that is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Because now any up and down I can relate to something. I think before my diagnosis it was really difficult because I do have an extreme reaction, so even if something really small upset me to have three weeks of depression just doesn’t add up; that’s just not manageable. Whereas now if something upsets me and I go into a low, I wouldn’t say my medication cures the depression, it just makes me slightly more rational. So, whereas before I didn’t know what was going on and I had such horrible thoughts to myself, being like why are you this sensitive, why are you so upset about this, why can’t you go to work because a boy has ghosted you. Now I have a rational response where I think okay, you’ve got bipolar, be kind to yourself. And the way I deal with it is so much better having a diagnosis because I know that it’s a reaction outside of my control.Ìý

[Clip]

It’s not a happy place for me right now, and I just want to move on and just draw a curtain over it. Even after a few years I just feel like I just don’t know what’s going to get me out of this. [Crying]

When I’m low I just get scared for the next day to happen. I’m utterly alone on those days, and it’s frightening to realise just how little others understand the illness.Ìý

[End of clip]

EMMA- How do you manage your condition alongside medication? 

ROSIE- It has kind of become second nature. I would say though that when I was discharged from hospital I was given three-year support through the NHS. And I took that support and I actually extended it another six months. So, I figured out how to manage with the help of nurses and psychiatrists. And I know that the people in my life now, even on my worst day, if I see them I am so affected by their energy and how I feel comfortable around them, I’d say my social life and my friends and family are actually the biggest factor for me. Then I would go to diet. I think I really thrive if I eat well and regularly, and make sure I sleep well. And running has got to be up there; it’s my happy place [laughs].Ìý

NIKKI- Aw.Ìý

ROSIE- Living on my own has been such a breakthrough, because for me when no one knows about it I deal with it in my own time; I don’t feel in a rush and I don’t feel like I’m being a burden. But the reality is on the days I’m low I still am such a normal 27 year old who thinks, how do I deal with this on top of everything else.Ìý

NIKKI- Yeah.Ìý

ROSIE- So, it is really difficult if it’s just admitting it’s really hard still. It doesn’t get easier; it’s just your mindset towards it gets much kinder.Ìý

NIKKI- Well, your film is just, honestly, it’s so powerful, Rosie. And you really get a great understanding of what it’s like to live with bipolar.Ìý

EMMA- It’s really raw, isn’t it? 

NIKKI- It is. But you really do explain it well, the highs, the lows, all of it. Honestly Rosie, it’s been so lovely speaking to you.Ìý

ROSIE- Thank you so much.Ìý

NIKKI- Just to remind everyone, the film is called Modelling, Mania and Me, and it’s part of the Shot by Your series on Channel 4. And that’s online and you can go and watch it now, and I’d highly recommend it.Ìý

Wasn’t Rosie brilliant, Ems?

EMMA- Absolutely fantastic. It’s so interesting to hear how she manages her condition day to day.Ìý

NIKKI- Yeah, I feel like I really know more about bipolar now, which is great. I hope our listeners enjoyed it as much as we did, making this little thing we call the podcast: Access All, 91Èȱ¬ Sounds. For now we will leave you. But contact us in all the usual ways, send us a story, tell us anything going on in your life, whatever you like. Email us accessall@bbc.co.uk.Ìý

EMMA- Goodbye.

NIKKI- Bye everyone.Ìý

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