Imagine you are married to a 49 year old woman called Edie and that you have three children.

You go away on business for a few months and Edie calls an estate agent and puts your house up for sale. By the time you return home, a family are within days of moving in. You have to explain to all involved that your home is a council house, that it is not yours to sell.

In over 30 years of marriage, you've experienced other incidents. A few peaceful years with Edie - then suddenly, something goes wrong.

There was a time she called in at the garage in town to ask if she could test drive a Mercedes. The run should have lasted ten minutes, but Edie never took the car back. Instead, she drove round town all day - followed by the police and mechanics from the garage.

There were shopping sprees galore. You always hid the credit cards before you went away. But she found one this time and spent thousands of pounds in a large store. She then gave all the purchases to children in a hospital and it took a large lorry to remove all the goods and return them to the shop.

Or the time Edie hired a beautiful black limo and got the chauffeur to drive her all over Edinburgh, then to Glasgow where she spent so much money the chauffeur grew suspicious and took her to a hospital.

Imagine waking up to find someone has removed the four wheels from your car. You call the police and they discover that Edie has hidden the wheels in the garden shed because she's fed up with you spending so much time at the office.

There were also the times Edie took the children out in the middle of the night, in summer and winter, to have picnics in the cold and dark.

There was never any knowing with Edie, no telling what she would do next.

Edie is one of Scotland's 30,000 manic depressives - but one who has found help and for whom incidents like those above are now rare.

In the flesh she is not what you might expect: reserved, very charming and remarkably honest.

Manic Depression affects one in 200 people at some point in their lives causing extreme swings of mood. Not everyone with this illness behaves like Edie. Severity varies from one individual to the next.

Sufferers alternate between over-activity in the manic phase to under-activity in the depressed phase. Between crises, however, they are usually completely well.

The person with manic depression doesn't always know when the "episode" will happen. The onset can be sudden and stealthy, frightening even for families who live with the person.

Relatives may feel drained, exhausted and anxious. They may speak of living constantly on a knife edge.

Someone in the manic phase tends to be extrovert and euphoric; in short, as high as a kite. Typically they feel well, and refuse to accept they're ill or need treatment.

It's not unusual for someone in the manic phase to go out and 'blow' the family savings or initiate over ambitious projects.

Many people with this illness require admission to hospital, sometimes on a compulsory order. One in seven commits suicide yet the correct combination of medication and support can help keep the worse moods at bay.

Conversely the lows are black and debilitating. A bad depression can be prolonged, deep and immobilising.

Edie has had a lot of help from her husband, Peter, and their three children. "I've been lucky," she said. "I've still got a husband, a home, a marriage and lots of support from the children. Some sufferers lack this support because their partners find the mood swings intolerable. My husband knows the signs. He always seeks medical help now, even if that means hospital". Edie has suffered manic depression for 30 years. "It started after my first son was born. Everyone thought it was post natal depression; 18 months later I had my second son in Cambridge and this time it was worse. Doctors had me sectioned (admitted to a psychiatric ward) in fact I've been sectioned several times."

There have been occasions in Edie's life when despair has led her to harm herself by slashing her arm with a knife. In the 80's life improved for Edie because she started taking the mood stabilising drug, Lithium. The highs and lows still happen but they have never been so extreme. She still feels a terrible frustration, however.

There are times when this illness makes me feel so frustrated. Once I took a carving knife to the three piece suite and slashed it to bits because I felt nobody understood. When I'm on a low, I feel as if I'm in a pit. I feel like a battery running out. At those time I lie curled up in my bed with curtains drawn. I won't move. I don't bother with anyone or anything. There's no point in anything, because this illness just keeps coming back.

But the meetings help. Talking to others in the same boat. We share our experiences and discover we're not alone in our pain and confusion. To a significant extent people do come out of that pain and confusion and they learn to understand and manage their illness. Manic Depression can become tolerable."

From a Newspaper Article on March, 1994

Edinburgh Evening News