Worker with Bipolar Disorder to Receive $91,000 in Disability Discrimination Case Settled by EEOC
Employer’s Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit Rejected by Court in Rare EEOC Litigation on Issue of Psychiatric Disability
DALLAS – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today (2003) the settlement of a disability discrimination lawsuit against Lincoln, Nebraska-based Voss Electric Company (Voss) for $91,250 on behalf of a former worker with bipolar disorder. Voss is a distributor of commercial lighting products, with 12 branches and 16 sales locations located throughout the central United States.
In its lawsuit, case number CIV-02-92-C in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, the EEOC charged Voss with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) by terminating a long-time employee of its Oklahoma City facility who needed in-patient care due to bipolar disorder, a psychiatric disability. Rather than allow the employee the additional time off recommended by his physicians, Voss fired him by taping a termination letter to the front door of his home, the EEOC said in the suit.
Voss had filed a motion requesting the Court to dismiss the EEOC’s lawsuit, but the Court ordered that the case be tried. On February 28, 2003, the Court, in a detailed 17-page opinion, ruled against Voss on all arguments raised against the EEOC, and held that the EEOC’s claims should be submitted to a jury for trial.
The Court ruled that the EEOC had submitted evidence that the former employee’s mental illness, at the time of his termination, severely impaired a number of his major life activities, including thinking, interacting with others, communicating with others, and the ability to take care of himself. Voss then argued that, at the time of his termination, the former employee was unable to perform the essential functions of his job.
The Court, however, ruled that a jury should determine whether the employee was entitled to a reasonable medical leave to enable him to recover sufficiently to return to his former position. After the Court’s ruling, the parties reached an agreement embodied in a Consent Decree approved and signed by the Court.
“For years I did a good job for this company, but soon after I became ill they discarded me as I was trying to get well, which just compounded my struggles,” the fired employee said. “I am thankful to the EEOC for standing up for me and obtaining a fair settlement.”
Robert A. Canino, Regional Attorney of the EEOC’s Dallas District Office, said, “We should credit the sound legal analysis by the Court in this case. This is a difficult area of law to enforce due to interpretational issues challenging the courts, but the EEOC will not shrink from the task of educating the public about the ADA through the pursuit of civil actions when necessary. Decisions like this one which allow a jury to apply the law to specific facts can give victims of disability discrimination confidence that their voice will be heard.”
The EEOC filed suit after exhausting its conciliation efforts to reach a voluntary pre-litigation settlement. The Consent Decree settling the suit provides monetary and prospective non-monetary relief, including training of all Voss employees, officers, managers, and supervisors on the requirements of the ADA, and the posting of a notice informing employees of their rights under federal law at all of its locations.
“Mentally disabled employees are protected under the ADA just as those who are physically disabled,” said Sidney B. Chesnin, lead trial counsel for the EEOC. “Disabled employees are entitled to consideration of a reasonable accommodation for their disability. By simply giving a worker a reasonable period of leave to adjust to a medical condition related to a disability, the employer can often pave the way for the return of a productive employee.”
In addition to enforcing Title I of the ADA, which prohibits employment discrimination against people with disabilities in the private sector and state and local governments, the EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including sexual harassment or pregnancy) or national origin and protects employees who complain about such offenses from retaliation; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which protects workers age 40 and older from discrimination based on age; the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits gender-based wage discrimination; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits employment discrimination against people with disabilities in the federal sector; and sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Further information about the Commission is available on the agency’s web site at www.eeoc.gov.
I have been conducting research into legal cases involving people with Bipolar and have found this one regarding an employee who was dismissed for having a breakdown at work….
For details see the Disability Rights Commission website (UK organisation) http://83.137.212.42/sitearchive/drc/the_law/drc_legal_cases/impairment/mental_health_service_users_an/dismissal_of_person_with_bipol.html
Dismissal of person with bipolar affective disorder for alleged gross misconduct DRC00020
Summary: The client was diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder. Her condition is adequately stabilised with medication. In April 2000 the client was dismissed from her employment for what her employer described as ‘gross misconduct’ after she had a mental breakdown at work and was admitted to hospital. The client considers that her employer discriminated against her by terminating her employment for a reason relating to her disability (i.e. dismissing her when she broke down at work) and failing to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate her particular needs.
Interest: The case highlights the issue of retention of a disabled person’s employment through the provision of reasonable adjustments rather than proceeding straight towards dismissal.
Outcome: ET held that client had been unlawfully treated less favourably because of her disability but did not rule that it was an appropriate case for the Respondent to make reasonable adjustments. At the Remedies Hearing on 23 July 2001 the Respondent was ordered to pay the total sum of £23,069.80 including an award of £8,000 (plus interest) for injury to feelings.
US Court ruling “Bipolar Disorder is physical disorder and not a mental illness” :
Implications for discrimination by insurers against mental health problem
(Article from Equilibrium website) http://www.bipolar-foundation.org/index.aspx?o=1354
This case revolves around the increasing and incontrovertible evidence from various areas of research that bipolar disorder is not ‘merely’ a ‘psychological disorder
It has reluctantly been accepted by individuals suffering from bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness) and other mental health disorders that they face problems with regard to insurance of all types. Life insurance, personal income insurance and motor insurance are all affected by history of pre-existing ill health of any type but some policies specifically exclude cover for the de-novo development of ‘mental illness’ during the term of the policy, treating it differently from ‘physical disorders”, as well as imposing larger premiums or imposing other limitations on people with known mental health problems.
A court ruling on this issue in the US which is of considerable significance in this area has not been picked up at all by the popular media or the professional literature either within or outside of the US. Although not of direct legal impact outside of the US, we believe this case raises important issues about the way both employers and insurers deal with claims arising from the development of mental health problems. It also raises more general issues regarding differential stigma of ‘mental’ versus ‘physical’ ill health. This case revolves around the increasing and incontrovertible evidence from various areas of research that bipolar disorder is not ‘merely’ a ‘psychological disorder’.
The Case: Fitts v. Fannie Mae[1]
The ruling by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia involves an employee of a major mortgage company who developed bipolar disorder and whose employee disability insurance provider stopped paying disability benefits after 24 months on the grounds of bipolar disorder being a ‘mental illness’. The policy provided cover until the age of 65 for physical disability. Ms. Fitts had worked for the company for 13 years before she was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1995. The employee- Ms. Jane Fitts, successfully brought a case against both the employer and the insurer arguing that bipolar disorder did not clearly fall in the category “mental, emotional or nervous diseases or disorders of any type”. The court awarded “prejudgment interest on all sums due her and the costs of this action “.
Three pieces of evidence were presented to back this argument, and two expert witnesses, including Miss. Fitts’ own psychiatrist, provided evidence:
1. Ms. Fitts’ father and brother showed symptoms of the disorder and so a hereditary predisposition coupled with having the disorder showed the genetic nature of the disorder, which must therefore have a physical basis.
2. Brain scans of Ms. Fitts showed excessive age-controlled atrophy of the left parietal lobe and abnormal wave activity on the left side of the brain.
3. Ms. Fitts suffered from physical symptoms such as headaches, chest pains, and insomnia that were ascribed to bipolar disorder.
Prof. Frederick T. Goodwin from the George Washington School of Medicine stated: “bipolar disorder is a physical illness because it is a neurobiological disorder that affects the physical and chemical structure of the brain”. He supported the claims listed above, also making the point that susceptibility to pharmacological therapy suggest a physical cause. Ms.Fitts’ psychiatrist maintained that while the clinical features of the disorder are mainly behavioural and emotional, they are due to physical changes in the brain.
Ms.Fitts’ psychiatrist maintained that while the clinical features of the disorder are mainly behavioural and emotional, they are due to physical changes in the brain.
The defence team argued that bipolar disorder clearly falls within the “mental illness” category because previous judgments had ruled it to be such on the manifestation of the symptoms and because it appears in DSM-IV.
This case was an appeal on a previous judgement against Ms. Fitts’s claim. The first filing of the suit focussed on violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the District of Columbia Human Rights Act (DCHRA), and breached certain contractual and common law duties. This court dismissed all of Ms. Fitts’ claims except her Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) claim. ERISA requires all policies to be written in unambiguous language and given that bipolar disorder did not clearly fall within the definition of mental illness in the insurance policy, the court was bound by the doctrine of contra preferentem, which has been applied as federal common law to ERISA. The doctrine states that in ambiguous definitions the ruling should be against the drafter of the contract.
Other cases
Another case ongoing in North America illustrates the unfortunate consequences of stigmatisation of bipolar disorder leading to an understandable reluctance by those affected to openly disclose to employers a history of pre-existing mental illness. The Canadian insurers of the television series The Dead Zone filed a suit against star Anthony Michael Hall to recoup more than $612,000 for failure to disclose he suffered from bipolar disorder, AP reports. The suit claimed production of the series, shot in Vancouver, was halted from May to August 2001 when Hall was treated for “bipolar affective disorder depression with psychotic features” for which the production company submitted a claim and received money. The case is waiting to be heard at The Supreme Court of British Columbia. (Source: Vancouver Sun)
In a case in New York, which does not have parity legislation, a court ruled that a disability insurance policy is not discriminatory because it provided only 24 months of cover for disability due to unipolar depression, rather than cover to the age of 65 years as it would have done for disability due to physical injury. The appellant, a Charlene Polon, continued to suffer with unipolar depression and has not been able to claim disability allowance under her policy from 1996. The case was made under the Insurance Law, and the court ruled that the law only protected from discrimination “with regard to her eligibility for and access to insurance” and not within the terms of the policy[2]. This case demonstrates that many instances of discrimination continue to occur and that even the covering statutes are unclear
For the rest of the article, follow this link:http://www.bipolar-foundation.org/index.aspx?o=1354
Private mental health clinic states rising demand for services from stressed out city types. How will the stress of these people get passed on to their families, especially their children? Does the stress “fallout” from these people amount to the same kind of “fallout” from people who are already suffering from mental health problems and, if so, is their own parenting brought into question? I very much doubt it. Do they fall into a different category somehow because their symptoms are caused by external events rather than internal chemistry? Probably. People will see these people as sufferers of the financial crises and, rightly in my view, feel sorry for them as they face losing everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve. (I don’t personally subsrcribe to the seemingly widely-held view that these people deserve everything they’re getting because it was their own fault somehow for being “greedy”. You simply cannot tar them all with the same brush.) Whatever your view on whether they deserve to lose out or not, their children don’t deserve to have this visited on them yet they will often bear the brunt of the fallout whilst they feel the strain and stress at home.
Yet, I think it highly unlikely that social services or CAFCASS or any judge would hold that these people are “incapable” of looking after their children as a result of any depression or anxiety resulting from these job losses. This depression and anxiety is likely to be looked on sympathetically by those people in total contrast to how they would perceive someone with a mental health diagnosis such as Bipolar who suffers from the same level of depression and anxiety. Would this then be discrimination?
Is this fair? What do you think is the difference between the effect of a depressive illness brought on by job loss compared to a depressive episode in Bipolar? Should they be treated as resulting in an inability to parent their children? If not, why not? If so, why? Your views and perceptions would be gratefully received.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/oct/08/mental.health.financial.crisis
The text of the Guardian Article:
An independent mental health hospital located near London’s banking district has identified a new disorder sweeping through the devastated ranks of City bankers and hedge fund managers.
The clinic says it is seeing more and more cases of “square mile syndrome”, a term it is using to describe stress-related mental health problems faced by City workers as the credit crunch chews through the financial sector, leaving a trail of redundancies in its wake.
Capio Nightingale Hospital, a private clinic, says it has witnessed a 33% increase in the number of City workers seeking advice for anxiety, depression and stress since July, and a 30% rise in patients seeking help for drugs and alcohol addiction – often the result, says the clinic’s medical director, of recreational drug use tipping into full-blown dependence during times of stress. There has also been a 27% rise in inquiries about its eating disorders programmes.
“We’re seeing 25-year-old bankers waking up with acute anxiety and stress, and realising that the job they thought they had for life and the bonuses they had come to rely on had literally disappeared overnight,” says Capio Nightingale’s medical director, William Shanahan, who is quick to point out that “square mile syndrome” is not a medical or diagnostic definition.
“Hopefully, we can encourage more people to come and get help,” he says. “We can draw worrying comparisons with the Black Wednesday days of the 1990s, when we saw a sudden spike in the number of City workers who suffered mental health problems after the bottom fell out of the market. We want to try to avoid this happening again.”
Shanahan says there is still not enough recognition of the mental health problems faced by employees in high-pressure jobs. The clinic is offering a deal where patients who can produce a P45 issued after September 1 can pay for their treatment once they find work.
“Things have got better, but there can be a reluctance to admit you have a problem when you’re in a high-flying job where you are expected to deal with stress day after day,” Shanahan says. “If we don’t watch out, square mile syndrome could be a timebomb.”
On World Mental Health Day 2008 the latest research* we have commissioned reveals that a staggering 49.3% of us wouldn’t feel happy to disclose a mental health condition such as depression at work, rising to almost 54% amongst manual unskilled workers.
The research found that only 18.3% of people would reveal a mental health condition to their HR department, however, 34% of people would discuss their condition with their line manager. Younger workers (16 – 24 year olds) and older workers (over 55’s) were least likely to be happy to discuss their mental health conditions. With 57% of younger workers saying they would not discuss it at all and only 12% of over 55’s saying they would be happy to talk to their HR department.
Respondents from Edinburgh and Leeds were least happy to discuss their mental health at all (67% and 63% respectively). 39% of the respondents from Edinburgh cited shame and embarrassment as their main reason for not wanting to disclose a mental health condition, whereas, 26% of respondents from Leeds cited fears that their employers would not be sympathetic as the reason for not feeling happy to discuss their mental health.
“Despite the office of National Statistics estimate that one in six people may experience a mental health condition at any one time, our research illustrates that people are still very reluctant to reveal their conditions and show any signs of perceived weakness.
However, we know from our work that people with mental health conditions are perfectly capable of managing a job and their condition with the right support from their employers and therefore feel it is vital that such misconceptions are laid to rest”.
Tim Cooper, Managing Director, Shaw Trust
The stigma attached to mental ill health was more of a concern than the fear of possibly hampering career progression among 25 – 44 year olds, with 37% of people in this age group citing shame as their main reason for not feeling happy to talk about a mental health condition.
Those respondents in graduate entry level jobs were the most confident that a mental health condition does not affect their ability to do their jobs, with 29% of the people in this group citing this as the main reason they wouldn’t discuss their mental health.
Respondents in professional sales, media and marketing were most concerned amongst all industry sectors about being treated differently if they were to disclose their mental health condition (31%) compared to just 4% of people within the professional finance industry who cited this as a concern.
Professional Finance also came out at the biggest industry group to cite that a mental health condition didn’t affect their ability to do their jobs as their main reason for not wishing to discuss it.
Overall 54% of people felt that they would receive more support at work for a physical disability than a mental health condition (rising to 58 % amongst the senior Manager / Professional group) compared to only 6.9% who believed they would receive more support for a mental health condition.
” People have become more comfortable talking about physical illnesses over the years, however, there is still a huge stigma associated with having a mental health condition. Dealing with such a problem often leaves people feeling awkward and a culture of secrecy seems to have emerged in which people are frightened to confide in others”.
Professor Cary L Cooper, CBE, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University
“There is a clear need for more structure and education on how to support employees with mental health issues, businesses need to create an environment in which people not only feel confident enough to discuss a mental health condition with a line manager or member of the HR team but in which they can also receive the support they need to continue making a valuable contribution. We see the effect that being out of work and coping with a mental health condition can have on people’s lives and we are urging employers to use this website to find out how to make a difference in the workplace”.
Tim Cooper, Managing Director, Shaw Trust
*All figures unless otherwise stated are from a Tickbox survey. Total sample size was 1070 workers. Fieldwork was undertaken between 18th – 24th September 2008. The survey was carried out online.
Alasdair Campbell told Tony Blair that he suffered from repeated bouts of depression and had had a drink problem. Blair had responded “I’m not worried if you’re not worried”. Campbell had had a breakdown, had taken to drink and had suffered from severe depression. Yet the Prime Minister asked him to work for him. Regardless of whether you think Alasdair did a good job or not, it says a great deal about Blair that he is willing to encourage Campbell to take on the role that he did.
Or does it? It is highly likely that Blair already knew that a relatively high proportion of MPs suffer with mental health difficulties and he was simply accepting of the fact. According to research, published on the Stand to Reason website, One in Five MPs experience mental ill health and are forced to hide their problems…..http://www.standtoreason.org.uk/goals
The report published on 16 July 2008 by Stand to Reason in conjunction with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health, with support from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Mind and Rethink has shown that one in five MPs surveyed has experience of a mental health problem but fears disclosing this because of the stigma and discrimination associated with mental health issues.
An anonymous questionnaire completed by 94 MPs, 100 Lords and 151 parliamentary staff has revealed that:
- 19% of MPs had personal experience of a mental health problem (17% of Peers, 45% of staff)
- 94% had family or friends who have experienced a mental health problem
- 86% of MPs said their job was stressful
- 1 in 3 said work-based stigma and the expectation of a hostile reaction from the media and public prevented them from being open about mental health issues.
The report shows that despite significant numbers of people working in Parliament experiencing mental distress, over half of MPs did not think they had sufficient understanding of the Disability Discrimination Act to make reasonable adjustments for a staff member with mental health problems and only 17% had received any mental health awareness training.
President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Dinesh Bhugra said: “Sadly, stigma is still widely prevalent. Mental illness comes in many forms across the age span, and is everyone’s business. Mental health and physical health cannot be parted. We applaud this effort to start talking more openly about mental illness. MPs occupy a privileged position in the public eye, and greater openness has the potential to lead to a better public understanding of mental health issues.”
I am strangely comforted by the high number of MPs who have or are suffering from mental health problems as it gives me hope that they may be prepared to challenge the legislation and case law governing custody issues where a parent suffers from a mental health problems as presumably, some of these MPs are parents themselves. If the legislation was handed over to them to change, where would they draw the line in terms of assessing someone’s ability to parent? If changes to legislation were handed over to those within Parliament and the legislature who had direct experience of mental health, I wonder how they would chose to re-draft or re-frame some of the legislation governing mental health issues. If their own parenting was being scrutinised with the threat of their own children being taken away from them due to their mental health problems, would they seek to re-draft the legislation?
My guess is that they probably would. My next piece of research is going to be to try and find out some more about who these MPs are and whether or not they have children. I wonder how many of these MPs may have been diagnosed with Bipolar rather than depression. I think I shall attempt to find out the same with the Judiciary. However, I know that people with mental health problems are not permitted to be magistrates, so I now need to determine whether Judges can be Judges if they have mental health problems. If MPs have to step down having been sectioned, I wonder if the Judiciary have to too? If there are MPs and Judges who have retained custody of their children and yet suffer with a mental health problem, it begs the question of the test that is being applied to determine who is a “fit” parent and who isn’t. I’m sure there must be some method in their madness…..I just need to establish what it is….
For the relevant articles, see the links below:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7508128.stm
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: SIDNEY B. CHESNIN
March 18, 2003 SR. TRIAL ATTORNEY
(214) 655-3330
HOLLY COLE
SR. TRIAL ATTORNEY
(405) 231-5853
TTY: (214) 655-3363
Worker with Bipolar Disorder to Receive $91,000
in Disability Discrimination Case Settled by EEOC
Employer’s Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit Rejected by Court in Rare EEOC Litigation on Issue of Psychiatric Disability
DALLAS – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today the settlement of a disability discrimination lawsuit against Lincoln, Nebraska-based Voss Electric Company (Voss) for $91,250 on behalf of a former worker with bipolar disorder. Voss is a distributor of commercial lighting products, with 12 branches and 16 sales locations located throughout the central United States.
In its lawsuit, case number CIV-02-92-C in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, the EEOC charged Voss with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) by terminating a long-time employee of its Oklahoma City facility who needed in-patient care due to bipolar disorder, a psychiatric disability. Rather than allow the employee the additional time off recommended by his physicians, Voss fired him by taping a termination letter to the front door of his home, the EEOC said in the suit.
Voss had filed a motion requesting the Court to dismiss the EEOC’s lawsuit, but the Court ordered that the case be tried. On February 28, 2003, the Court, in a detailed 17-page opinion, ruled against Voss on all arguments raised against the EEOC, and held that the EEOC’s claims should be submitted to a jury for trial.
The Court ruled that the EEOC had submitted evidence that the former employee’s mental illness, at the time of his termination, severely impaired a number of his major life activities, including thinking, interacting with others, communicating with others, and the ability to take care of himself. Voss then argued that, at the time of his termination, the former employee was unable to perform the essential functions of his job.
The Court, however, ruled that a jury should determine whether the employee was entitled to a reasonable medical leave to enable him to recover sufficiently to return to his former position. After the Court’s ruling, the parties reached an agreement embodied in a Consent Decree approved and signed by the Court.
“For years I did a good job for this company, but soon after I became ill they discarded me as I was trying to get well, which just compounded my struggles,” the fired employee said. “I am thankful to the EEOC for standing up for me and obtaining a fair settlement.”
Robert A. Canino, Regional Attorney of the EEOC’s Dallas District Office, said, “We should credit the sound legal analysis by the Court in this case. This is a difficult area of law to enforce due to interpretational issues challenging the courts, but the EEOC will not shrink from the task of educating the public about the ADA through the pursuit of civil actions when necessary. Decisions like this one which allow a jury to apply the law to specific facts can give victims of disability discrimination confidence that their voice will be heard.”
The EEOC filed suit after exhausting its conciliation efforts to reach a voluntary pre-litigation settlement. The Consent Decree settling the suit provides monetary and prospective non-monetary relief, including training of all Voss employees, officers, managers, and supervisors on the requirements of the ADA, and the posting of a notice informing employees of their rights under federal law at all of its locations.
“Mentally disabled employees are protected under the ADA just as those who are physically disabled,” said Sidney B. Chesnin, lead trial counsel for the EEOC. “Disabled employees are entitled to consideration of a reasonable accommodation for their disability. By simply giving a worker a reasonable period of leave to adjust to a medical condition related to a disability, the employer can often pave the way for the return of a productive employee.”
In addition to enforcing Title I of the ADA, which prohibits employment discrimination against people with disabilities in the private sector and state and local governments, the EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including sexual harassment or pregnancy) or national origin and protects employees who complain about such offenses from retaliation; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which protects workers age 40 and older from discrimination based on age; the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits gender-based wage discrimination; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits employment discrimination against people with disabilities in the federal sector; and sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Further information about the Commission is available on the agency’s web site at www.eeoc.gov.
A quote from a mother not coping with her toddler: “I was so angry with my toddler son when he was tantrumming and refusing to eat, that I grabbed a tuft of hair on the back of his head and pushed his face into his bowl of spaghetti! His face was covered in spaghetti sauce! The look on his face was of total shock but I was still so angry that I did it a second time”!
A group of mothers who had young children got together over coffee one morning. One of them bravely started to confess her worst behaviour with her children and recounted the above situation with her toddler.
Another mother then said “I was so angry with my toddler who was screaming and screaming that I rammed his pushchair into a wall. I knew it wouldn’t hurt him because the front wheels would hit the wall first and I just wanted to give him such a shock that it would stop him from screaming. He wasn’t hurt but I was still raging so I slammed him into the wall again.”
One of the funniest mums then burst out laughing and said “It’s amazing what you will do to get your kids to stop them from their tantrums. My son was throwing a tantrum in the queue in Asda and everyone was staring at him and at me. He was really letting rip. He had done this so many times, and I had tried every parenting tip in the book and nothing I could say or do stopped him from throwing these tantrums. This time, something snapped inside me: I threw myself on the floor beside him and threw my own tantrum. I pounded the floors with my fists, I kicked and kicked my heels into the ground, I thrashed my head back and forth all the time screaming at the top of my voice. Everyone was stunned into silence including my young son who stopped his own tantrum and looked on dumbfounded at his mother throwing her own almighty tantrum! Eventually, he bent down and said in her ear “Mummy, can you get up, you’re embarrasing me!”. She said that he had not thrown a tantrum since! Her strategy worked!!
One of my ex husband’s friends (who is a trained criminal psychologist) related to me the time when one of her babies had been screaming for such a long time that she could no longer tolerate the sound. She went into the baby’s room and thumped the pillow a few inches from her child’s head with frustration. She said she thumped it several times til she had got her rage out of her. She said that she did this because she was so enraged with her baby’s screams that she had wanted to hit her child; this was the closest she came….
All these women are from very good, solid, middle-class homes, with educated, profesionally qualified mothers….They are not from impoverished, drug/alcohol addicted backgrounds and all of them live in comfort with the average amount of stress.
These are all true stories from friends I know in Kingston. None of them have Bipolar; in fact, none of them have been diagnosed with having any form of mental disturbance. None of them have had their children taken from them. During this coffee morning, all the mothers there were laughing at the stories and thanking each other for their honesty. Each mother there said that they had done simarly awful things when they have been at their wits end with their children.
I’m not conding these mothers’ behaviour, nor am I saying that their treatment of their children is acceptable or normal. I was shocked to hear these things yet, if I’m honest, also strangely comforted to hear that other mother’s lose it with their kids too at times.
I haven’t done any of these things and yet I’m the one who’s been told that, because I have Bipolar, I am more at risk of harming my children. None of these mum’s have been told that they have something wrong with them.
So what are the worst things I’ve done as a parent? I’ll be honest here, painful as it is and you can all be judge and jury as to whether the things I’ve done are so unusual in parenting experiences that the children shouldn’t be with me.
When my eldest daughter was a baby, she screamed so much one night that I screamed back with all my might. I didn’t shake her or hit her, I just screamed too. Then I put her in her cot (gently) and left the room, slamming the door and phoned my mum sobbing with frustration feeling a total failure and feeling terrible for shouting at my baby who, after all, was only being a baby.
When she was a toddler and I had my second son who was only a few months old, all of us came down with a bad bug. Both she and my son were waking me several times a night; she with her illness, he to feed every hour and a half (breastfeeding) and me with my chest infection. I had just fallen pregnant with our third child and was exhausted from the first few weeks of pregnancy as well as from looking after a 2 year old, a 6 month old baby and my third on the way. I felt exhausted, ill, feverish, resentful, desperate…One morning, at around 6am she woke up and threw an almighty tantrum on the stairs. Her tantrums often lasted for an hour at a time. My son then woke up wanting to be fed. My husband wasn’t there to help and my mother was just about waking up in bed. I was trying to cope with all this on my own. I lost it with her. I picked her up roughly and put her in the “time out” place which was our downstairs loo, yelled at her to stay in there until she stopped tantrumming and slammed the door. I was so enraged that I thumped the door (I didn’t hit my daughter at all). Unfortunately, the bit of the door that I hit was glass and I lacerated the tendons in my hand and had to undergo plastic surgery to my hand. My daugher, understandably, was totally shaken by the experience of watching her mother put her hand through the door.
When I was taken to hospital for my hand, the admission nurse asked whether I was post natally depressed. I said I wasn’t sure. I was then assessed and my reading for post natal depression was high and a course of anti-depressants were prescribed.
Social services were informed and my daughter was placed on the child protection register. The health visitor said that I was considered to not be a cause for serious concern because I had chosen to hurt myself in anger rather than hurt my child. I was horrified that I had lost control of my temper in that way. It took my daughter a few weeks before she was back to her normal self.
That’s the worst thing I’ve done to my children.
Other things have included: being so angry with them all, that I shut the door to the house (didn’t lock it) and stormed outside to the end of our drive (about 3 metres in length) and sat in my car with a cup of coffee for 15 minutes to calm down. I could see the house from my car window so I could ensure that they didn’t come out and nobody went in. The children were 8, 6 and 5 at the time. This happened once in total – never again.
I’ve smacked my children when they were toddlers: my eldest daugter when she was a toddler got smacked around 4 times (a smack – not hard hitting), my son around 3 times and my youngest daughter around 2 times. I quickly learnt that smacking ( although highly endorsed by my parents generation and indeed our school system whilst I was still at school where they had the cane), doesn’t work. All it does is to encourage the children to hit each other and others. So I don’t smack. I now resort to shouting when I lose my cool, walking out of the room, slamming doors and being very grumpy.
I have been learning increasingly effective parenting strategies though and gradually I’ve been increasingly able to stop shouting (not 100% yet!) and to walk away when I feel the temperature rising.
According to my exhusband and the Judge, I have also hurt them emotionally by telling them too much about the Court case. Our children were living with my ex husband and I all through the 18 months of litigation and during the actual 10 day High Court hearing. Every day during that Court case, my exhusband and I left the house, caught the train and a taxi and went to the High Court and then came home again the same night. The children knew that we were going to court every day. They knew that the CAFCASS officer had come to see them because they were deciding who the children should live with. They knew that my exhusband was saying that I wasn’t well enough to look after them.
Unsurprisingly, they asked questions – intelligent, perceptive, direct, uncomrpomising questions and asked me to be honest with them in giving the answers. I tried not to give them too much unecessary and upsetting detail, but according to the Judge, I gave them too much information which has caused them distress. I’m not sure how she concluded this given that she hasn’t even met the children, nor was she present to hear the conversation, nor was it recorded…..My children still say that they want me to tell them honestly when they ask questions. I’ve talked with 3 psychologists about how to answer these questions without damaging them emotionally or psychologically, read numerous books on divorce for guidance but apparently I got it wrong.
In short, I have never broken any bones, stubbed out cigarettes, been drunk or on drugs whilst looking after them, left them in the house on their own (which both my ex husband and various nannies have done), not left them in a car on their own (apart from in the garage forecourt whilst paying for petrol), not lost them whilst taking them out, not starved them…….any other thing that I’ve overlooked?
Oh yes there is! I was so cross with them one day that I wrote a long letter describing how I hated their behaviour when they were being so naughty. I described that I felt like hitting them (but stressed that I didn’t do so), that I was such a bad mother, that I was a failure etc. In fact, writing out all the things I was feeling was following the advice of my psychologist who told me that one of the most effective ways to deal with anger is to write it all down on a piece of paper and then throw that piece of paper away. Unfortunately, I didn’t throw it away – my husband found it and used it in Court as evidence that I was an appalling parent.
Yet the two incidents I describe above – the hand through the window and going out to my car for a coffee were brought up in court as classic examples of why I shouldn’t be allowed to parent my children. The letter merely showed as concrete evidence that I was too psychologically disturbed to parent the children.
The fact that my ex husband repeatedly smacked the children when we were married and still does (regularly, I’m told by my children) doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that the CAFCASS report states that my youngest daughter is frightened of him because “he picks me up by my middle and throws me on the bed when he’s angry with me”, doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that he has often shouted at them, threatened them physically, shaken them, slammed the brakes on the car yelling at them that he will “put them out on the pavement” unless they stop screaming, doesn’t seem to matter. The other emotional/psychological things he says and does all don’t seem to matter either.
The fact that my children are scared of him doesn’t seem to matter. They are scared that he will hit them, they are scared that he won’t take their fears seriously and so don’t tell him when they are upset about something, they are scared that he will continue to hurt me. In fact, it was the children who told me that I should go to the Domestic Violence unit because they read the leaflet in the doctor’s surgery and said “Mummy, you should go and talk to these people, because that (the violence) is exactly what daddy’s doing to you.” The fact that the children have witnessed him hitting me and threatening to hit me and shaking me whilst swearing at me and shouting, doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that he hid a knife under his bed together with his porn magazines and videos, doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that, whilst the children are still living with him, he has gone out to lap dancing bars and come home very drunk, doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that he has left the children in the house on their own, doesn’t seem to matter.
Apparently, he’s the “well” one with no mental or psychological problems and is a ”fit” parent, but I’m not.
Well, what do you all think? Are these things I’ve done appallingly bad? Am I misguided in thinking that I am a capable parent?
Let me know you’re honest thoughts and please do share your worst parenting stories or those of a friend – anonymously – and maybe a picture can emerge of what range of parenting misdemeanors are sufficient evidence of such bad parenting that the children should be taken away from a Bipolar parent…..
Phew! That was brave of me to share those things….
My children are telling me that their father is hitting/smacking them when they are with him. They tell me that this is happening around twice a week.
10 years ago, I crashed into a 50 foot scaffold which landed onto the top of my car, having swerved round a corner too fast just shortly after passing my driving test. I had got angry at a traffic warden, drove off in anger and put my foot on the accelerator instead of the brake by accident. The result: my car was written off, the ambulance people were astounded that I wasn’t hurt and I was thanking God that I hadn’t injured anyone in the blind moment….
This incident occurred prior to my diagnosis of Bipolar and prior to me being on a stable medication regime. It has not happened since.
What has happened to me however, is me being the victim of other people’s road rage: I have had 3 people drive into the back of me, one causing wiplash to me whilst I was 7 months pregnant. None of them had Bipolar.
I have also been in a car crash whilst not driving: my boyfriend many moons ago was driving our car when he went onto the wrong side of the road and caused a head on collision. We both suffered minor injuries. He didn’t have Bipolar.
My ex-husband reversed the wrong way up a motorway to get onto a slip road. He crashed into another car crossing a junction. He didn’t have Bipolar.
Yet there is somehow an attitude towards people with Bipolar that they are somehow “unsafe” to drive, “unpredictable” “risky” etc. I came across this very attitude on a site recently:
“My husband is bipolar and for almost all of our married life he has shown severe aggression whilst driving. The slightest irritation on the road would cause him to exhibit road rage. He would most often tailgate and show aggressive signs to other drivers. I have known him to get out of his vehicle to remonstrate with other motorists, without fear of his life or the safety of others, including my own or our young family. The slightest intake of breath on my part would make him angrier, and he would be even more reckless. I often felt as though a gun was being held to my head, except that the weapon was the motor vehicle. Other than not to travel with him for months on end, I felt trapped. I had thoughts of going to the Metro Police to report him, but feared repercussions. What steps I should have taken? Due to illness he no longer drives.”
This was my reply:
Anyone can experience “road rage” – its not just people with Bipolar. I have Bipolar and have only had one episode of “road rage” in 10 years and that was prior to my diagnosis and prior to being stable on my medication.
The DVLA (driving licence authority) in England does medical checks on all people with Bipolar with their treating psychiatrist to determine whether or not they are fit to drive. If they are, they have their driving licence renewed.
I drive around 360 miles a week. I come across countless of angry, rude, aggressive and downright unkind drivers daily. Are you saying that they are all Bipolar? Or are you saying that those with Bipolar also, at times, exhibit these kinds of characteristics along with the general population?
Blaming “normal” unhealthy human behaviour on Bipolar is not helpful to either you or the Bipolar sufferer. The person with Bipolar has to learn to recognise what makes them feel angry in the first place. If their spouse/employee/family always blames anger/frustration/rage/annoyance/irritation on “Bipolar” that is a sure fire way to make the Bipolar sufferer feel anger/frustration/rage/annyance/irritation. They, like everyone else on the planet, feel these normal emotions from time to time. To attribute it to Bipolar and to not to normal human feelings, is to undermine that person further and to invalidate their feelings thereby leading to further depression. In my view, this is a discriminatory and prejudiced attitude ie that Bipolar people are not “the norm” in terms of their feelings when it comes to driving.
Look at your own self and your own negative emotions and behaviour and see if you come up smelling of roses!
Meanwhile, I’ll just stick to driving safely and awake…..Seems to do the trick…
For any of you going to Court over the finances of your divorce, consideration of your fitness to work as a Bipolar sufferer will be a top priority.
80% of people with mental health disabilities are unemployed. This doesn’t mean that 80% are unemployable; it means that:
- there are many employers (4 out of 10) who won’t employ someone with a mental health illness
- there are insufficient flexible working opportunities for those who suffer to enable them to work in a way that they can manage their condition effectively
- there are those who are so discouraged by their condition that they “self stigmatise” ie they believe so strongly that nobody will want them, that they don’t even apply for work
- there are those who are worried that, if they apply for work, they will lose their incapacity benefit
- there are many who worry that they will be subjected to hostile/negative/unpleasantness in the workplace if colleagues find out that they have a mental health illness.
If you are fighting with your exspouse/partner over finances, they are bound to argue that you (the Bipolar sufferer) could go out and get a job and support yourself and therefore you shouldn’t require ongoing support from your ex spouse/partner.
This is what my ex husband argued: because I am a qualified lawyer and used to work in a top 10 City law firm, I should be perfectly able to go back to such a highly paid environment and support myself and our three children and therefore he should not have to pay me any maintenance.
I argued that my “ability” to work and obtain highly paid employment, is an entirely separate issue to whether I will, in reality, be offered a job given my mental health background.
I argued that, given the 80% of unemployment amongst the mentally ill, it is unlikely that I will fall within the 20% who will get work at a high level. I might get low paid and low status work, but if I do, that is likely to be insufficient to enable me to support myself and my three children adequately in the lifestyle that they are used to (eg private schooling etc).
How can you determine these issues? Well, you need expert evidence ie an expert to write a report to the Court and then come to Court, if required, to give evidence and who is willing to be cross-examined on the evidence he/she gives.
Ideally, you have 2 experts: the first should be your treating psychiatrist/doctor who can give the Court his/her assessment of your ability to work. This will include:
- a description of your diagnosis eg Bipolar 1, Bipolar 2, rapid cycling Bipolar, cyclothymia, schizo – affective disorder etc
- an explanation of the effect that your diagnosis has on your ability to work eg levels of concentration, focus etc
- an explanation of which medication you are on and how this affects your ability to work eg does your medication make it difficult for you to wake up in the mornings? Does your medication make it harder for you to concentrate?
- an assessment of which types of work you might be able to undertake eg if stress is one of your triggers, would you be able to hold down a highly stressful job?
- What are your particular triggers? eg if noise is a trigger, how would commuting to and from work on a busy/noisy train/tube/motorway affect your ability to commute?
- your longer term ability to hold down a job
- your own ability to manage your illness eg do you recognise your triggers? Do you comply with your medication regime? Have you developed good coping strategies?
This expert report will be given to the Judge so that he/she can form a view of how your own particular illness affects you and how it will affect your ability to work.
This will help the Judge decide how likely it is that you will find work, maintain work and what level of work in terms of pay and status that you are likely to achieve.
The Judge can then base any capital distribution or maintenance levels with that knowledge in mind.
If the Judge is unaware of the discrimination issues that surround the employment of the mentally ill, then it is a good idea to submit to the Court some well researched papers on the subject. For these, Google “Professor Graham Thornicroft” and you will find some very good resources on how discrimination in the workplace affects the mentally ill.
A particularly good piece of information can be found in his book “Shunned”. You can obtain this from Amazon.
The Social exclusion part of the government’s website is also helpful. Here are some useful links:
www.library.nhs.uk/SpecialistLibrarySearch/Download.aspx?resID=213004
This above link is a paper called “Actions speak Louder” and you can download this using Acrobate.
Resources for investigating the issue of Social Exclusion of the mentally ill include:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/503876.stm
BBC news article on Social Exclusion of the mentally ill.
www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/Exclusion.html
www.ukcap.org/getheard/index.htm
www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/33473
If you Google “Social Exclusion government taskforce for mentally ill” you will find a whole load of material which will inform you about the stigma of mental illness in the workplace.
Any questions about any of this stuff, please send in your comments.
