Press Coverage and Releases:
Launch Press Release 11th March 2007
Guardian UK- feature article and cover picture by trustee Felcity Duncan
British Medical Journal- circulation circa 92,000 doctors worldwide
Equilibrium Links from BBC Health Website
British Medical Journal- circulation circa 92,000 doctors worldwide
Stephen Fry supports launch of Equilibrium - The Bipolar Foundation – coinciding with BBC documentaries (telecast March 12 and 13, 2007, BBC2)
“My own history of mania and depression has been a background to more than thirty years of my life....It’s time for a Great Leap Forward in funding, prioritisation, public understanding and knowledge about bipolar disorder (manic depression). Do join us!"
So says Stephen Fry, who has taken on the role of international ambassador for a new international organisation for bipolar mental illness: ‘Equilibrium – The Bipolar Foundation’, which publicly launches on March 12, 2007. http://www.bipolar-foundation.org
Fry acknowledges that he has been affected by the severe ups and downs of bipolar disorder for many years, but did not realise what the problem was until the age of 38 when he came close to committing suicide. Bipolar Disorder has been said to have affected many other well known people including Virginia Woolf, Spike Milligan, Frank Bruno and writer Ernest Hemmingway, and Patricia Cornwell to name but a few.
It affects many more of the less well known - up to 254 million worldwide, 12 million in the US and 2.4 million people in the UK, and is a major cause of suffering and suicide. The World Health Organization has identified bipolar disorder as one of the top causes of lost years of life and health in 15-44 year olds, ranking above war, violence and schizophrenia.
“Bipolar disorder is a much neglected and potentially lethal problem which is ignored, frequently unrecognised, poorly treated and ruins the lives of many. This is tragic when a lot already can be done to help if it is spotted early and treated ”, says Oxford University psychiatrist, Dr Alan Ogilvie, CEO of Equilibrium
“The fact that people in six continents, more than 45 countries and 48 US states have already visited the web site even before the public launch is extremely encouraging.”
Equilibrium is dedicated to improving treatment and understanding of the causes and effects of bipolar disorder. It recognises that this is a global problem which needs to be approached in different ways in different countries and environments. To achieve this the Foundation has started working with international local partner organisations. The range of approaches vary from basic public and professional education, dealing with stigma to the development of more effective and acceptable treatments.
Fry’s documentaries, “Stephen Fry- the Secret Life of the Manic Depressive” are being re-shown on BBC2 on 12th and 13th March due to demand and very high ratings on their first showing in the autumn.
Equilibrium , which is based in Oxford, England has had seed funding to support its development and launch but now is seeking support for an ambitious program of public education and research not just in the UK but internationally. It has a first year target of raising £750,000 to support the launch of its program. It is actively seeking individual and corporate support partners and has already received personal donations via the website.
Key members of its’ advisory board include Oxford University specialists Professor Guy Goodwin, Professor John Geddes as well as literary agent Felicity Bryan whose daughter Alice died from bipolar disorder. Several people with bipolar disorder are also in involved in establishing the organisation and its programs. Audio interview material with Professor Goodwin about bipolar disorder is available at http://www.nelmh.org/home_affective_bipolar_media.asp?c=3&fc=002&fid=80
Equilibrium Links from BBC Health Website
These links have led to many visitors from the BBC site.
The Guardian- UK- Saturday April 22, 2006
Eight page feature by Trustee Read full article here
Once We Had A Daughter
Alice Duncan, a budding photographer, was a schoolgirl when bipolar disorder struck. Her family assumed it would pass with her teenage years. It didn't. It turned out to be a life sentence with which she couldn't live. Her mother, Felicity Bryan, recalls good times and dark days
On
November 21 2004, my daughter Alice, a student at Glasgow School of
Art, told her flatmate that she would not, after all, go out to get
some supper with him but felt like having an early night. She would go
to bed with her book. When she was alone she put a plastic bag over her
head, secured it very tightly and took her life. The disease from which
she had suffered before had returned and would return again. She did
not like what she saw ahead.
As if watching a play, I view the scene the day I learned of her true illness. It is November 2000. We are attending the "discharge meeting" at the Littlemore Hospital in Oxford. We are in a large room sitting in a circle: my husband Alex, myself, Alice's psychiatrist, the psychiatric social worker, various psychiatric nurses, and Alice herself.
Alice seems really well. Her beautiful blond hair is, for once, well brushed. She had been suffering from depression since March when she had to drop out of school in her final A-level year. We had watched, anguished but helpless, as our daughter transformed from an energetic, quirky, sociable teenager into an isolated, speechless girl who dared not enter a room, had taken an overdose and cut herself. By June she had become psychotic and had been admitted to the Littlemore. She had been discharged at the end of July and had then within days thrown herself off our roof, breaking her back in three places. After major - and miraculous -surgery involving grafting and putting steel in her back, she had returned to the Littlemore.
But that is all behind us. The week before this meeting she had bounded into my office in Oxford - the old warm Alice, full of bounce and looking so happy - having just successfully taken an A-level Spanish exam while still a hospital patient. Now we are planning her future: studying for further A-levels next summer, seeing a psychiatrist at our local health centre once a month, the social worker once a week, taking her medication, and so on.
Alice goes out to get her bags. We are saying our goodbyes. The psychiatrist, almost as an afterthought, says, "Do you want to know my diagnosis?" Yes, we reply, a bit bemused. We thought we knew.
"I'd say she is Bipolar 2."
"What does that mean?" I ask.
"From what you have told me, your mother was Bipolar 1, which is more severe."
The shock is instant.
"You mean manic-depression?"
That is what they used to call it, he concedes.
"So it will come again - she may have it for life?"
Yes, he says quietly. That could be the case.
It seems extraordinary now, but it had never occurred to me for a second that Alice's "teenage depression" would be in any way related to the vile illness that had struck my mother in her mid-40s and, until her death in 1968, given her and her family eight years of hell. But this man is telling us our daughter's illness is genetic. He is telling us that Alice, and we, have a life sentence.
I was 15 in 1961 when my mother Betty's depression first hit. My sister Elizabeth (Libby) was 18 and Bernadette (Bunny) was 12. Up to then, we must have seemed the perfect happy family: attractive, clever, successful parents who really loved each other, with three lively daughters on whom they doted.......
