Carol

If depression affects 1 in 4 of us (and the statistics tell us today alone 2 people in Scotland will commit suicide) imagine just how many people are then affected by association. How many wives, mothers, fathers, daughters, grandparents, friends, colleagues will have had to battle with living with, working alongside and continuing to care for, love and support someone who's struggling with some form of mental health problem? Thousands upon thousands of listeners are, right now, struggling to cope with mental health by association.
In The Ripple Effect; Clare English hears the experiences of living with mental health problems from a loved one's perspective. Negotiating unpredictable behaviour; the introspection and apparent self-obsession of a sufferer; the uncertainly of what will greet them when they go home; how they manage not to end up depressed themselves in the face of such challenges not to mention, quite simply, just how you continue to love someone when they are so frustrating to be with and emotionally withdrawn? Today, we hear Carol's story, she explains how she had to change how she reacted to the challenges of her husband's Bi-polar condition if she wanted her marriage to survive.