50 Years BiPolar 1 Never Felt Better

 Illness Stigma Family Friends Careers, Life Lessons
In my Wainwrights Shoes Memoir By Chris Wainwright,

 

6. Role Model Hero

As children grow up they are generally attracted to people they particularly admire. Having a good role model in or out of the family circle will be influential. Sometimes you hear of teenagers looking out for mentors to offer them help and guidance with decision making. Apart from dad who was always willing to do that mums father was one of my childhood heros and I often think of him. When I was a boy he used to share some of his WW2 memories with me about his time as a POW in Changi Jail, Singapore. I don't think for one minute that I heard about everything he remembered. According to Nan he didn't discussed them with anyone else. A great Surrey County Cricket fan Grandad Titmuss used to test me on my knowledge of the game. One of his favourites was recalling the nine ways a batsman could be given out. He was a stickler for fair play and often reminded me;- "When that one Great Umpire in the sky comes to mark against your name it's not what you won or lost but how you played the game". It was about good or bad behaviour. Having joined the Sappers as a boy soldier of fourteen his upbringing would have been strict. He suited Army life as a Royal Engineer and his career meant the world to to him. In common with many other soldiers he insisted that many civilians weren't up to scratch. At that tender age I hung on his every word but with time I realised that it was his dry humour. Very occasionally he suggested the best solution for certain problems was to drop a bomb. I wasn’t sure at the time but years later I realised that as a wartime captive in Singapore it was a bomb that saved him. One day he rolled up his jacket cuffs and showed me his manacle marks. Deeply impressed in both wrists they stood out all too clearly. They were inflicted during imprisonment but he didn't explain how or why. I didn't hear anything from him which involved suffering. Grandad had been captured twenty years earlier but to him it must have seemed like only yesterday. He and his fellow soldiers carried their memories for the rest of their lives. Grandad found a position with the Forestry Research Lab and became a technical author with expertise in the applications of worldwide hardwoods. When he died I wound up his estate during articles. On the phone to his publisher he said that during his incarceration in Changi grandad wrote notes on cigarette papers in readiness for his reference book, ‘Commercial Timbers of the World”. When liberated by the Americans all he had to wear was a pair of ‘shorts’ he made out of roofing felt he’d ‘acquired’ while making the set for a play and a pair of clogs he’d carved from a piece of wood. I wonder how he and his fellow men felt when they realised they were going to be freed. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up thinking about it. Nothing has ever affected me like that. Frank, known as Tim, had been given up as dead along with the others. He returned home to find he had a new son from Nans new relationship. The new father did the decent thing. There were hundreds of other couples in the same position. I think it was an ‘open secret’. Those extremely brave men were a shadow of their former selves having been starved and treated like animals. Those determined soldiers ‘also served’ but on returning home received nothing like the heros welcome they deserved. There was occasional disrespect from ignorant civilians because they had been captured. Throughout the Forces however the POWs were much respected. Malnourished to put it mildly, reduced to skin and bones beset with diseases such as beri beri, death was always present so their survival was a miracle. I understand that the Japanese invasion of Singapore was regarded as one of Britains greatest military failures. Hardly surprising the BBC and other TV broacasters rarely if ever feature it. People can think what they like but Grandad and his fellow soldiers deserve the greatest respect in the face of unremitting brutality. Those men should not ever be tarred with the same brush as their leaders. It's another story of lions lead by donkeys. Grandad was awarded a commission and retired from the army as a Major. War is inevitable. Listening to my grandads memories gave it a far more meaning than any book. Be thankful if you don’t have to fight for your country. If you do please remember the heros who served before you 

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I'm proud to write about my grandfather. I was in the middle of one of my undiagnosed deep depressions when he died.

I wasn't much use in his last weeks - that's another way that bipolar 1 is cruel. I was intending to put my beret on top of his coffin but I couldn't even manage that. I've started to wear it at the Remembrance Day Service in honour of all the fallen along with Nans brother buried in Caen having lost his life as a paratrooper. I hear it said but it's totally wrong to say todays young men wouldn't volunteer if needed. I know as a fact that they would and that they'd be proud to.

Like all Prisoners of War held by the Japanese Grandad and his fellow captives will have had to dig deep to stay alive. Todays schoolchildren will profit from learning about the inumerable battles for freedom during WW2. I've just finished a contemporaneous memoir by George Millar about an Englishmans time as an SOE with the French Maquis in 1944. It puts human conduct, courage and duty in perspective.

As I say the history about the Japanese POWs deserves regular telling at school and broadcasting on TV. Should we sympathise with nations whose armies ignored the laws of war? Absolutely not! Their crimes against prisoners must never be forgotten. I'll never forget what Grandad, Nan, mum and siblings went through

 

Keeping well with bipolar 1 means looking after yourself. Even with medication I get low at times in the winter and need to make an extra effort. I use a SAD light box every morning from about November to March and do my best to exercise more. I take an extra 75mg SSRI too and I always feel better in myself if I keep disciplined. If I resort to alcohol or comfort food I not only feel physically worse but I also lose my self-respect. I've never been one for massocism or the hair shirt so I don't go too hard on myself unless I need to. I was reasonably fit up to age 22 so I sometimes wind the clock back and recall my early sports and Army days - it helps balance me out! If ever I need help to get going I thing of those over the years who never gave up.
 

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