A law student will star in a TV show about mental illness that is likely to be titled Failed By The NHS.
Former Tring School student Chloe Evans, 21, spoke to hemeltoday ahead of the programme – which is scheduled to be broadcast on BBC Three on Tuesday, August 13.
Chloe, who has just finished the second year of a degree at Nottingham Trent University, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was 17.
The condition is also known as manic depression and sufferers are known to have extreme mood swings.
Chloe said: “Mania is when you have this rushing feeling and your thoughts are going really fast, you can’t sleep for days and it’s just like everything is going at 100 miles per hour.
“You lose your sense of reality and you are not in control of what you say and do sometimes, and that’s followed by periods of serious depression where you can’t get out of bed and everything is a struggle.”
Chloe became an outpatient at St Paul’s Community Mental Health Centre in Hemel Hempstead, where she was given antidepressants, anti-psychotics and mood-stabilising medication.
The drugs had a numbing effect on Chloe’s moods.
The TV show – part of BBC Three’s mental health season – documents a weekend trip Chloe and four others have to the Lake District as part of a ‘mindfulness’ course.
The treatment teaches participants breathing techniques based on Buddhist teachings to help them better manage their emotions, so they rely less on medication.
Chloe, of Frogmore Street, Tring, says the treatment is not offered by the NHS.
She will host an event to raise awareness of mental illness at The Red Lion pub in Water End, where she works, on Tuesday, August 6.