TINA: ‘ When that dark cloud comes, there’s nothing anyone can do for you’
Shameless actress Tina Malone, 57, was 28 years old when she was diagnosed with manic depression, which is now understood to be bipolar disorder. Speaking to Closer last week, she revealed she “goes through an episode” – in which a person feels a sense of mania followed by a crash – once every two years. She explains, “Bipolar disorder is a chemical imbalance in the brain and the best way for me to describe it is, you could have £50k in the bank, a beautiful home and you’re wearing a gorgeous new dress for a night out, but then you notice a book out of place on the shelf and you break down.
“There aren’t always warning signs and it can happen even when you’re in a good place. Or it’s the opposite – one minute you can’t bear to interact with anybody and then, ten minutes later, you have an impulse to put your best dress on and go to a pub and dance. But then, when it gets really bad, you break down. I told my husband Paul [Chase] about my condition two weeks after we met. We’ve been married for ten years now and he often says, ‘You can work an 80-hour week, sleep four hours a night, cook for 20 people and yet you drop a cup on the floor and it’s like somebody’s died!’ But that’s how erratic it can be.”
Last year, Tina – who’s mum to grown-up daughter Danielle, and shares seven-year-old Flame with Paul – was given a suspended prison sentence after breaching an injunction protecting the identity of James Bulger killer
Jon Venables by sharing a post on social media. She insists that was a result of an episode, and the first time her condition had made her feel suicidal. She continues, “There’s no way of controlling it because, in your head, what you’re saying or doing is right. Kanye possibly doesn’t mean some of the things he’s saying, but when that dark cloud comes over you, there is nothing anyone can really do or say – you have to be forced into medical help, because you believe you’re right. My heart goes out to him.”