Managing mania

October 19, 2001

Adam James interviews former school teacher Lynne Clayton who for more than three decades successfully managed her manic depression

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Lynne Clayton is a successful English teacher who for more than three decades years enthused pupils and colleagues with her energy and flair.

She is also a manic-depressive - an illness characterised by extreme highs (mania) and lows (depression) which could have stopped short her career at any time.

Recent findings from mental health charity MIND reveal 90 per cent of people diagnosed with a serious mental illness are unemployed.

But with a combination of peer support, medication, strength of mind, a love of her job, and ingenious self-management Clayton was one of the minority able to continue working.

Like many manic-depressives Clayton, until two years ago head of English at St Saviour's and St Olaves in Southwark, is blessed with creativity and motivation.

While psychiatrists might see this as indicative of Clayton's latent pathological mania Clayton describes it as her "creative energy". It was something she always chanelled into her work.

Such as the occasion when St Saviour's embarked on a Government-funded literary drive. Clayton returned home on a Friday afternoon and devoted the whole weekend, without sleeping, to produce an innovative spelling aid.

By Monday afternoon it had been photocopied, ready to be used in class. "It was this marvellous energy I used to work and keep going. It was also an energy I used to help keep my staff motivated," says Clayton.

On the occasions when Clayton's mania became uncontrollable,compromising her professional role, she would admit herself into psychiatric hospital. "With help and some insight I almost always was able to take appropriate action," she says.

Clayton is also keen to emphasise that during her career she was well-served by understanding colleagues. Although in her early years Clayton hid her diagnosis from other teachers she was open from the start at St Saviours. "When I went to see the head for an interview I told her about my diagnosis. She was absolutely fascinated and said she did not mind at all."

Her St Saviour's colleagues also never used the manic-depression label to ridicule Clayton's ideas as "mad"
"We just used to talk about my manic-depression and my department knew about it. "In fact when we were interviewing for new members of staff we discussed whether they should know beforehand that their head of department was manic-depressive. In the end we told them after they got the job."

Throughout her life Clayton developed strategies for controlling her mania which she believes sometimes kept her out of hospital. Karate, in which Clayton is a blackbelt, has been the most beneficial.

People experiencing a manic episode often suffer from "a flight of ideas" when a patient will talk rapidly, switching from one subject to another, making little or no sense to the listener. Clayton uses Karate's disciplined breathing techniques to reduce this symptom's severity. "This flight of speech, which is a type of panic, is controllable," explains Clayton. "As soon as you use the breathing techniques your body starts relaxing - and you can allow the ideas and words to just pass through you and flow away at their own accord."

Clayton has also mastered an acute awareness of her each and every emotion."I can emotionally observe myself. Like a leper who has to check their body, I check my emotions. I have to answer why I feel like I do. If there is a reason for an emotion, then fine. If not then that is a warning sign to me. It is a way of stopping an emotion having control over you."

Yet, as other manic-depressives confirm, mania feels so wonderful many desire to re-experience its ectasy. "Although I believe I can stop a manic episode I often do not want to because it is too important to me," says Clayton.

"It may be fraught with danger but there is an attraction to it. Compare it to being a racing car driver. Now they are endangering their own lives, and even those of others, but they are applauded for their activities. If somone came along with a cure for manic depression tomorrow I would not be interested in it because the mania is part of me. It has given me so much - a creative personality with bundles of energy."

At the opposite end of the illness's spectrum are the bouts of depression which, while terrible, only rarely caused Clayton to call off sick.

In fact teaching helped her crawl out of depression's black hole.

"When becoming depressed it is important to keep going as normal for as long as you can. If you succumb to depression you can stay there forever. I always used to manage to drag myself out of bed and get to school. And then there was the kids' enthusiasm which was so powerful it would help lift me."

During her last five teaching years Clayton suffered increasing periods of mania. One particular bout she suffered while St Saviour's prepared for an OFSTED inspection made her realise she should reconsider continuing with teaching.

Like everyone Clayton felt the strain of the final OFSTED preparations - but in her case the pressure took a heavy toil.
"By the time inspectors arrived on a Monday I had not slept since the previous Thursday. I had spent the whole weekend working on two important documents. I was not eating, and combined with the stress I became delusional and was hallucinating. I had absolutely lost it."

While Clayton's husband usually acted as her safety net by alerting her that the mania was out of control Clayton deceived him. "I pretended to go to sleep, and then as soon as my husband went to sleep I would get up and continue working," she remembers.

During the following school week Clayton, capable of disguising her mania to other people, slept for just four hours - but not before Clayton's department sailed through its inspection. "I remember the inspector telling me one morning how wonderful the department was. But during the rest of the afternoon I just cried and cried. I told the head that I needed to go home. When I arrived home I just cried all weekend. I was in a terrible state.

"From then on I was up and down like a yo-yo, and I was not taking the tablets I was on. When I went to see my consultant he said to me 'enough is enough'."

Reluctantly Clayton agreed and took early retirement.

But it did not her long to find new interests, and she has become committed to the mental health user movement, pushing for changes to the psychiatric service.

Clayton is appalled by what she sees as threats to patients civil liberties by Government plans for Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) whereby patients can be compulsorily medicated in their own homes. She has also become co-chair of Southwark MIND and is actively involved in a campaign to create women only wards in psychiatric hospitals. "My time has a teacher meant I have become very good at negotiating with people. It is a skill I use now."

Reflecting on her experience, Clayton encourages teachers to not only be tolerant of those with a mental illness, but to help counteract the negative press psychiatric patients often receive.

"I would ask teachers not to be afraid of mental illness, but to support people in a practical, kindly and empathetic way. I would also encourage them to do their best in the classroom to stop stigma and ignorance."

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