‘A broken mind is not always obvious’: Former Leigh Park nurse reveals battle with bipolar affective disorder

But for one Leigh Park woman her illness caused her to experience extreme mood swings from ‘rock bottom depression to normality and elation.’

Stephanie Chaplen has lived with bipolar affective disorder for more than 45 years and only now feels like she is beginning to get her life back again.

The 62-year-old former nurse attributes her survival to her friends, the medical professionals who have helped her along the way and her two cats – Asher and Pickles.

But it wasn’t an easy road. She said: ‘I have had mental health issues since I was 16 but then it was just classed as depression.

‘There wasn’t the level of understanding that there is now. I wasn’t able to receive the right help. My mood could switch so dramatically.

‘It can make me very angry and verbally abusive, which is not like me at all. It’s like I’m a completely different person. People don’t recognise me.’

Stephanie, who has lived in Leigh Park her whole life, was determined not to let this stop her fulfilling her goal of becoming a nurse. But unfortunately this was out of her control. ‘I started my SEN (state enrolled nurse) training in 1980 and then worked for two years between 1982 and 1984 before they sacked me,’ she said.

‘I had a lot of time off for depression as there was no way of controlling it. They did tell me that if I had more time off they would sack me.

‘That was a real blow. I didn’t work for five or six years afterwards.’

Holding down a job since then has been a problem for Stephanie.

She said: ‘I managed to get into secretarial college where I gained lots of qualifications. But that career was short lived. I worked for a while in a cleaning firm which lasted about six months. I haven’t worked since then. But I am now going to the Job Centre where they’re helping me look at getting back into it.’

Stephanie was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder 10 years ago. And a while later she adopted two kittens to help her cope. ‘At long last I had something to live for and my cats became my soulmates,’ she said.

‘If I was having a rough time my cats still needed me for food, love and shelter and there was nothing I wouldn’t do for them. Even in the depths of my depression I still found energy to feed and be affectionate towards my cats.’

But things took a difficult turn in December 2017. She said: ‘I reckon things were going drastically wrong around Christmas that year and I never fully recovered. No one except my close friends really noticed that I was spiralling downwards into a deep depression. My friends tried several times to raise the alarm with the professionals to no avail. I had even considered getting my cats re-homed because I felt I couldn’t care for them any more.