Bipolar and suicidal thinking

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Confirmed speakers
Previous webinars

Let’s talk bipolar and suicidal thinking

Launching on World Suicide Prevention Day on 10 September, we're hosting a series of webinars where five specific groups in our community will talk about bipolar and the symptom of suicidal thinking.

Join us to listen to 20 different guest speakers across the webinars as they share their lived experiences and expert strategies to manage this common symptom of bipolar.

Get your ticket for the series now and join us for one or more of the webinars.

12.30pm - 1.30pm Tuesday 10 September (World Suicide Prevention Day)

Speakers include: Nicky Chinn, Adam Deacon, Nacho Ruiz Hens, David Harper

12.30pm-1.30pm Tuesday 17 September

Speakers include: Dr Talen Wright, April Kelley, Lauren Elcock, Chris Pratt

12.30pm-1.30pm Tuesday 24 September

Speakers include: Dr Tania Gergel, Dr Clare Dolman, Krystal Wilkinson

12.30pm-1.30pm Tuesday 1 October

Speakers include: Seamus O’Hanlon, Eve Mair, Charlotte Edwards

12.30pm-1.30pm Tuesday 8 October

Speakers include: Leah Charles-King, Swagata Sen, Professor Femi Oyebode

Confirmed speakers

Adam Deacon	Eve mair	nicky chinn
April Kelley	Krystal Wilkinson	Séamus O'Hanlon
Chris Pratt	Lauren (Papyrus)	Dr Talen Wright
Dr Clare Dolman	Leah charles-king	Dr Tania Gergel
David Harper	Nacho Ruiz Hens

Adam Deacon

Adam Deacon is a BAFTA award winning actor, writer, director, producer and musician from Hackney, East London. At the age of 12 he began to act and trained at the Anna Scher Theatre. He’s worked in television, film, theatre and radio throughout his 29 years in the business.

Adam co-wrote, co-directed and played the lead role in Anuvahood, which was released in 2011 and won him the prestigious BAFTA Rising Star Award; with Time Out magazine labelling him as "The New Face of Youth Cinema". In 2015 things took a turn in his life when he suffered a breakdown and was diagnosed with bipolar.

Through the right medication, talk therapy, hard work and perseverance Adam has rebuilt his life and career, and in 2023 he returned to film making with his action comedy movie Sumotherhood which he co wrote, directed, produced and starred in. The film was made independently but later picked up by Paramount Pictures and went on to be a box office success.

Adam is committed to raising awareness around mental health and breaking the stigma surrounding it and since 2020 has been an Ambassador for Bipolar UK.

April Kelley

Co-founder of Mini Productions, April is an award-winning actress and producer who has carved out her career pioneering female talent, as well as shining a light on and giving a voice to bisexuality and bipolar. After years of misdiagnosis and being prescribed the wrong medication, April was 27 when she was diagnosed with bipolar.

April's writing debut Treacle in 2019, in which she also stars),premiered at BFI Flare: London LGBTIQ+ Film Festival. Since then, she's gone on to write and star in Just in Case (2021) and Do This for Me (2022). Both films are in collaboration with Bipolar UK, the Film and TV Charity and Raising Films.

Chris Pratt

Chris is a Quality Assurance Engineer for a healthcare software company and a lived-experience champion for End Stigma Surrey where he is passionate about banishing stigma associated with mental health conditions.

Chris was diagnosed with bipolar at the age of 19 during an admission in a psychiatric hospital. He was deeply ashamed and kept his diagnosis secret for nearly 20 years. Chris came out as gay at the age of 27, which coincided with another episode of bipolar, and had to deal with similar feelings of stigma and shame.

Following another hospital admission in 2020, Chris decided things needed to change. He embarked on a journey of learning and personal change to improve his mental wellbeing and resilience. This then led him to make the brave decision in 2022 to open up publicly about his condition and he started blogging regularly for Surrey mental health charity Mary Frances Trust.

Since then he has joined the End Stigma Surrey campaign, started a personal blog and made television appearances. You can follow him on Instagram @beingchrispratt.

Dr Clare Dolman

Clare Dolman is a journalist and researcher whose PhD at King’s College London focused on women living with bipolar and their decision-making regarding pregnancy and childbirth. She lectures on the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ training courses on perinatal mental health and service user perspectives.

Clare, who has a diagnosis of bipolar, is a trustee of the MMHA: Maternal Mental Health Alliance, the Global Alliance for Maternal Mental Health (GAMMH) and APP - Action on Postpartum Psychosis, as well as an ambassador for Bipolar UK.

David Harper

David is a presenter and journalist. He works for the BBC, ITV and LBC. He was diagnosed with bipolar over 10 years ago, and decided to go public about his diagnosis last year.

Eve Mair

After a stint in advertising, Eve began working at Bipolar UK as a Senior Public Policy Officer in 2022. She was diagnosed with bipolar in 2017, when she was a student at university.

Krystal Wilkinson

Krystal Wilkinson, 42, is an Associate Professor in Human Resource Management, an ambassador for the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and a peer support volunteer for Action on Postpartum Psychosis. She was diagnosed with bipolar in her early 30s and experienced postpartum psychosis after the birth her of son six years ago. 

During the months Krystal spent in inpatient psychiatric wards after the birth (including a mother and baby unit), she often experienced suicidal thoughts. Today, she is a passionate advocate of better support for expectant and new parents’ mental health, particularly in the workplace.

lauren Elcock

Lauren has personal and professional experiences with suicide and is very passionate about the subject. She has been a Community Development Officer for the suicide prevention charity PAPYRUS for just over two and a half years.

During this time, Lauren has worked on a variety of projects with different organisations to raise awareness and knowledge about young suicide. This includes recently collaborating with HearthTalk, who provide wellbeing services to Hong Kongers in the London, and creating bespoke training with them aimed at preventing suicide amongst Hong Kongers.

Lauren is looking forward to discussing why it's important to focus on LGBTQIA+ suicide and what we can collectively do to help prevent it.

Leah Charles-King

Leah Charles-King (sometimes known as Leah CK) has contributed to over 35 years in mainstream media and the entertainment industry as a music artist, TV and radio presenter, TV property expert, and mental health advocate. She is also an accomplished Live Events Host and Public Speaker.

In 2021 Leah joined the presenting team of the popular Channel 4 property programme ‘A Place in the Sun’ and has quickly become a fan favourite.

Her music career began in the 1990’s as one third of the girl band ‘Kleshay’ signed to Sony Music, and enjoyed two UK chart singles as well as a successful arena tour as the supporting act for Lionel Richie.

In 2001 Leah moved from London to Birmingham for her first high profile on-screen role in television. She became the first (and only) black female continuity presenter on CITV (Children's ITV) in its 45 year history.

Recognised and respected in the industry among her peers, Leah was a fan favourite hosting Jackpot247 casino on late night ITV, and also enjoyed a long working relationship with American TV network, BET (Black Entertainment Television) as a red carpet correspondent and celebrity interviewer across the USA, UK and the Caribbean.

Leah was the first on-air talent to launch BET International across Europe and the UK.
Leah’s TV credits also include: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, CITV, Disney Channel, Channel 5 and Sky.

Known for her incredibly personable, engaging and witty style, Leah is an accomplished presenter who has racked up well over 100,000 hours of live, unscripted, non-autocued TV presenting experience, and has produced and presented programmes aired in Europe, USA and Africa.

In 2019, Leah spoke publicly for the first time about the condition she had been secretly managing: bipolar. She subsequently launched her own platform ‘Illuminate Mental Health’ to normalise the conversation in an attempt to help end stigma around mental illness. She continues to be featured on many podcasts and interviews openly discussing her mental health struggles.

Leah filmed a report for BBC’s ‘The One Show’ called “Bipolar and Me” which was watched by over 8.8 million viewers.

Leah is a proud ambassador for Bipolar UK. On World Bipolar Day in March 2023, Leah penned a free to download ebook entitled 'Live Well with Bipolar' and continues her role as a mental health advocate and campaigner.

In October 2023 Leah launched the 'Bipolar Unfiltered' podcast series which can be found on all streaming platforms.

Follow Leah on socials: @leahcharlesking

Nacho Ruiz Hens

Following a 15-year career as a renewable energy investor with more than $2bn invested across 2GW in the Americas, Nacho reinvented himself as an author, a coach and an entrepreneur.

In 2020, Nacho was diagnosed with bipolar and experienced significant disruptions in his life. In 2023, he started writing about bipolar to raise social awareness and help people who were struggling to find balance and a deeper purpose.

In 2024, Nacho founded Ignite Elevate, a high performance coaching practice that includes the Bipolar & Powerful program. As a non-for-profit entrepreneur, he created Brilliant Bipolars to provide financial and career transitioning support for people with bipolar who are in between jobs.

As a tech entrepreneur, Nacho is developing the Open Upp mobile app: an anonymous social network that is designed to be a safe space for people to open up and get specific help. He believes the way forward to deal with bipolar calls for radical transparency and that this will save lives - lives that can then make an impact and change the world!

nicky chinn

A songwriter and record producer, Nicky co-wrote several international number one singles with Mike Chapman in the 70s and 80s. The many hits include 'Living Next Door to Alice', 'Tiger Feet', 'Lonely This Christmas' and the worldwide hit 'Mickey'. 

Chinn and Chapman were the recipients of three Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting, including the Jimmy Kennedy award for outstanding career achievement in 1997.

Nicky has been an ambassador for Bipolar UK since 2020. He was diagnosed with bipolar in 1961, at the age of 16.

Séamus O'Hanlon

Séamus is a trainee journalist from Yorkshire who now lives and works in Essex.

Séamus was diagnosed with type 1 bipolar disorder with psychosis when he was 15 and has since been interested in learning more about mental health to help himself and others, primarily through journalism.

Séamus is loving to read fiction again following university, photography, and as ever, adores going on long walks creating a good routine to help put his mental health first.

Dr Talen Wright

Dr Talen Wright is Bipolar UK's postdoctoral research manager. She, alongside the director of research Dr Tania Gergel, is responsible for all research activities taking place within the charity. Talen's background is in psychology, however she moved to psychiatric epidemiology for her PhD.

Talen's research interests centre on marginalised and minoritised people's mental health. Her PhD work investigated microaggressions and their associations with depression, anxiety, and suicidality within the transgender community. Her work now within bipolar is to ensure lived experience is centred in all research work and to address the community's most pressing concerns.

Dr Tania Gergel

Dr Tania Gergel is Bipolar UK's first Director of Research at Bipolar UK and is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Division of Psychiatry at University College London, Cardiff University Medical School and King's College London, specialising in mental health, ethics, and law. Tania is internationally recognised for her work on advance directives, ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) and co-production.

The primary focus of Tania's research has been on the clinical, legal and ethical issues surrounding the creation and use of advance directives in severe and episodic mental health conditions, in particular bipolar. She has worked in partnership with the Department of Health and Social Care on the upcoming introduction of statutory provision for ‘advance choice documents’ within the (England and Wales) Mental Health Act and co-founded the Advance Choice Documents website, launched in January 2024. 

Tania's work focuses on putting the lived experience of mental illness at the centre of mental health research and policy.

Previous webinars

In this webinar, Bipolar UK CEO, Simon Kitchen shares the Bipolar Commission’s findings about the link between bipolar and suicide. He is joined by Ashley Brice, an experienced crisis negotiator with the British police specialising in suicide prevention, and author and freelance writer Eleanor Mandelstam who lives with bipolar.

They discuss ways to manage the really difficult days, and share expert advice on what to say – and what not to say – to someone who’s struggling with suicidal thoughts - a common symptom of bipolar.

If you, or someone you are supporting, need urgent help, you can find details of where to get support here

You can find more resources about suicide prevention here

About the Speakers

Simon Kitchen

Simon has been CEO of Bipolar UK since April 2018. His previous roles include running the Dementia Action Alliance. Simon’s first experience of bipolar was in his late teens when he supported a friend with the condition.

Ashley Brice

Ashley is a trained and experienced hostage and crisis negotiator with the British police, specialising in conflict resolution and suicide prevention.

Eleanor Mandelstam

Eleanor is an author and writer specialising in mental health. Her book ‘Bring me to light’ was published in 2019 and she regularly writes blogs for beurownlight.com. Eleanor is also a qualified mental health first aid champion with MHFA England.