Felicity - Interview 2

More about me...
Felicity and Alex had a beautiful daughter called Alice. She was a talented budding photographer. During her late teenage years she had depression, and then become psychotic. When she was aged 18 she tried to kill herself by jumping from a roof. She survived and recovered physically, but was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (which used to be called manic depression). With the help of various drugs she felt much better and in 2002 was accepted by a local art college. Alice did not like taking her medication and in 2003 her psychiatrist allowed her to stop taking all her drugs and he discharged her. At first Alice seemed fine without medication. She lost weight, and was highly productive. She passed out of college with distinction and was accepted by Glasgow School of Art to read fine art photography. She had a wonderful first year at Glasgow, made friends and did excellent work.
Then her depression returned. She went home and saw a psychiatrist and was put on medication. After only two weeks she was determined to return to Art School. On the way to the station she told her father that she was finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that she was going to have to live with her illness for the rest of her life. On November 21st 2004 Alice told her flat mate that she would not be going out to supper. She stayed in the flat and suffocated herself.
Felicity and Alex were woken in the night by a policeman, who told them what had happened. Then Alex had the difficult task of breaking the news to their two sons. Family and friends were “completely stricken” by the news of Alice’s death. The family flew to Glasgow to meet her friends and teachers. They also went to see Alice’s body. Felicity said she looked “incredibly peaceful”. They did not attend the inquest.
Felicity and Alex arranged a “beautiful funeral”. Over 400 people came to the funeral, and there were many tributes to Alice, both during the funeral and afterwards during the wake. She was buried in the graveyard.
Felicity and Alex have always consulted each other and their sons about what was right for Alice and what was not. Family solidarity has been important for them all. For example, they all decided to fill the house with candles during the first Christmas after Alice’s death, and they all played a part in choosing and designing a head stone for Alice’s grave.
Felicity felt quite depressed after that first Christmas. Arranging the funeral and then Christmas had kept her busy but then she felt “really low,” did not want to get out of bed and found it hard to concentrate at work. She consulted her GP, who suggested she should see a bereavement counsellor from Cruse Bereavement Care (Cruse). Felicity has found it a great help to talk to someone from this organisation. She saw the counsellor for many months.
Felicity feels she is coping better now [almost three years after her daughter’s suicide, though has been back to her GP and is still taking a low dose of Prozac. Although she thinks about Alice every day she feels she has “moved on”. Last February she visited her son in China and said that for the first time in two and a half years she felt “genuinely happy”. This was partly because she could see that her son had also “moved on” and was “doing well”.
Felicity has found it helpful to write about Alice and to raise awareness of bipolar disorder. Alex and Felicity have also taken comfort in setting up a prize in Alice’s memory, The Alice Duncan Travel Prize. Each year a student who has just graduated receives money to enable him or her to travel and then come back and have an exhibition.
Felicity and Alex have also published a book of Alice’s photographs. The book is called Alice Duncan: Photographs, and is published by White Bridge Press. Felicity and Alex said that it was “incredibly important” that they were able to publish this beautiful book in memory of Alice.
Felicity also wrote an article about Alice that was published in the Guardian on Saturday April 22nd 2006. The article is called “Once we had a daughter”.
Felicity was interviewed in July 2007.
See also our interview with Felicity’s husband, Alex.
Felicity describes what happened when her daughter, Alice, first became ill with bipolar disorder.
Felicity describes what happened when her daughter, Alice, first became ill with bipolar disorder.
Felicity and Alex talked to Alice about her bipolar disorder. Alice found it hard to accept that...
Felicity and Alex talked to Alice about her bipolar disorder. Alice found it hard to accept that...
Felicity thinks it was unforgivable that her daughter, Alice, was discharged from psychiatric...

Felicity thinks it was unforgivable that her daughter, Alice, was discharged from psychiatric...
Felicity wrote a tribute to Alice, for the Guardian. If people ask about Alice she refers them to...

Felicity wrote a tribute to Alice, for the Guardian. If people ask about Alice she refers them to...
I was thinking perhaps I’ll write a little piece for the local paper so her friends know. Alex was away at the time and I was feeling quite low, and I began to write, and once I’d started I couldn’t stop, and I thought this is my opportunity to write my tribute to her, and also to explain about manic depression. Because so few people know. What I didn’t mention was that at her funeral my sister, who’s a doctor, my older sister had said before the funeral, she said, “I would like to speak about Alice and manic depression, at the funeral, and about our mother.” And I said, “I think that’s a wonderful idea,” and [my elder boy] said, “I think that’s a fantastic idea because a lot of my friends they talk about people feeling manically depressed and they haven’t a clue what they’re talking about, whereas if somebody explained”, and so my sister got up and she talked about our mother, and what form her manic depression took, and how she had several times tried to take her life. And then she said, tragically Alice had inherited this genetic illness. It had been very helpful to a lot of people in the congregation, to help them to understand what had been wrong with Alice. And I felt I wanted to put this on paper too, so I wrote this long piece for the Guardian magazine.
It came out at the time of the book, and so there was Alice on the front of the Guardian. And they did it beautifully. I was so grateful to them. It was very important to me. I felt now I would never have to explain again. If people ask me about Alice, I could refer them to the piece.
[holds up pictures]
This is a sweet picture of Alice with me when she was little.
Ah, that’s lovely.
They carried the one beautifully, the one of the leaf. And then there’s pictures of me with my mother, and that one of the leaf you see they used. And people, several people have said that they’ve got it on their wall. And I was showered with letters. It was very gratifying because a lot of them were from people who suffered from manic depression themselves, and what was interesting to me was what a secret illness it is. Because if you have got it and you are coping, you are in work, then you don’t tell people you’ve got it because you don’t want to lose your job. You don’t want to in any way risk things not going right for you. And I had a lot of letters from, and e-mail correspondence with quite a number of people. I got a letter from a professor of psychiatry who said it should be obliged reading to all students of psychiatry because it explained the effect of manic depression on a family. I also got a letter, which was the most important one of all, from a man called Alan Ogilvie who’s a psychiatrist specialising in bipolar disorder. He said he felt that my article was the best thing he’d ever read about the effect of bipolar on a family, and he was just starting up this NGO charity to do research into bipolar disorder and to de-stigmatise it, and he wondered if I’d like to be involved. And so I’ve become very heavily involved with that and I’ve become a trustee and I have raised some money for them. He’s become a very good friend, and it’s been very important to me to feel that I can use my experience in this way, and I think he finds it a help.
Felicity chose 'Dido's Lament', Henry Purcell's aria from the opera Dido and Aeneas at her...

Felicity chose 'Dido's Lament', Henry Purcell's aria from the opera Dido and Aeneas at her...
Alice was buried in the West Indian manner, where everybody stands around the grave and sings....

Alice was buried in the West Indian manner, where everybody stands around the grave and sings....
The Cruse counsellor was a great source of support. Felicity saw her regularly for about a year...

The Cruse counsellor was a great source of support. Felicity saw her regularly for about a year...
Had she had any particular training do you think?