Bonnie Langford is great! I can just about remember (in the deepest recesses of my mind), her in Just William, when she played Violet Elizabeth (I think), and "skweamed and sweamed" until she made herself sick. Then again on That's Life. She always seemed so cheery, and smiley (very apt, her name). Yet - she is a revelation on Eastenders. I love her character.
In a way I wish Stacey went through what Shabnam is going through. It would have been interesting to explore how tragedy affects bipolar.
I'd been diagnosed with bipolar when pregnant with DC2. I was taking Sodium Valproate (my first was 18yrs old, and getting pregnant again seemed improbable). This is a highly dangerous drug for foetuses, so I had to come straight off it, and take high dose Folic Acid. My bipolar was unchecked and severe then.
When pregnant with my youngest (who was stillborn), I was taking Lamotrogine, but decided to come off it. I wasn't 'stable', but was able to cope. After she was delivered, I became quite unwell. I had home visits by psychiatrists, and they tried to force me to going to day hopsital (I'd had an emergency section after my uterus ruptured, and lost 3.5 litres of blood). I was physically unwell, as well as emotionally. I had the funeral to plan with (OK, DH did most of that, but I had to choose her outfit, flowers, poems etc). I wanted to be with my family, not with mentally unwell people, and my tolerance for them would have been low.
I know it's way off, but in RL such things do happen to people.