The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Can You Have a Successful Career with Bipolar Disorder? A Real-Life Story

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

In this episode of The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast, Dr. Marianne Trent is joined by Laura Templeman, who shares her journey of managing a successful career in mental health while living with bipolar disorder. From diagnosis to daily challenges and strategies for balancing work and well-being, Laura’s story is a powerful testament to resilience and self-awareness.Key Takeaways:Living with Bipolar & Building a Career – Laura shares her journey, from diagnosis to thriving in her role.Challenges of Work & Mental Health – Navigating workplace pressures, burnout, and imposter syndrome.Support & Self-Management – How supervisors, routines, and medication play a role in maintaining stability.The Importance of Boundaries – Recognising early warning signs and prioritising well-being.Hope & Encouragement – Why a diagnosis doesn’t have to limit career aspirations.TimeStamps:00:00 - Introduction01:41 - Meet Laura Templeman03:03 - Recognising Bipolar Symptoms07:05 - What Bipolar Really Is12:09 - The Challenges of Work & Mental Health18:25 - Burnout & Managing Career Pressures22:49 - Support Systems & Workplace Adjustments27:21 - Medication & Treatment for Bipolar30:01 - The Role of Self-Compassion33:45 - Overcoming Imposter Syndrome35:24 - Final Thoughts & Advice for OthersLinks:📲 Follow Laura on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-templeman-8321a6167/🫶 To support me by donating to help cover my costs for the free resources I provide click here: https://the-aspiring-psychologist.captivate.fm/support📚 To check out The Clinical Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3jOplx0 📖 To check out The Aspiring Psychologist Collective Book: https://amzn.to/3CP2N97 💡 To check out or join the aspiring psychologist membership for just £30 per month head to: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/membership-interested🖥️ Check out my brand new short courses for aspiring psychologists and mental health professionals here: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/short-courses✍️ Get your Supervision Shaping Tool now: https://www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk/supervision📱Connect socially with Marianne and check out ways to work with her, including the Aspiring Psychologist Book, Clinical Psychologist book and The Aspiring Psychologist Membership on her Link tree: https://linktr.ee/drmariannetrent💬 To join my free Facebook group and discuss your thoughts on this episode and more: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aspiringpsychologistcommunityLike, Comment, Subscribe & get involved:If you enjoy the podcast, please do subscribe and rate and review episodes. If you'd like to learn how to record and submit your own audio testimonial to be...

Can you pursue a fulfilling career whilst living with bipolar disorder? Coming up today, Laura shares her inspiring journey navigating her diagnosis, the challenges of working in mental health and the resilience it takes to thrive. Whether you are a professional, a student or seeking understanding, this conversation is a beacon of hope and insight. Hi, welcome along to the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. I am Dr. Marianne, a qualified clinical psychologist. Now we have previously spoken about bipolar disorder on the podcast. If you would like some more information about what it is and the common signs and symptoms,

please do consider checking out the episode I did with Sam Swazinski. If you prefer to listen to your podcasts as an MP3, you can listen to that episode as number 135 of the Aspiring Psychologist podcast. Alternatively if you are watching on YouTube the episode is called What is Bipolar Disorder? Trauma symptoms and manic episodes that was part of our special trauma series. If you do find this content helpful please do like, please do let me know in the comments why you are watching, what stage of your career are you at, are you looking to gain some more information for yourself, for the service you work with or for people that you care about. With no further ado, let's dive into this episode and to speak with our guest for today, Laura.

Hi, just want to welcome along our guest for today, Laura Templeman. Hi, Laura. Hi. Thank you so much for being here. And thank you also for pitching this episode to me. Oh, well, thank you for having me. Thank you for saying that you'd be delighted to come on and talk about this,

because I know talking about mental health and personal diagnosis can feel difficult at times. Yeah, it can, but I like to use it as a means of trying to inspire other people and especially having my own mental health diagnoses and working in mental health. Obviously it can cross paths with kind of personal experiences and things like that. So, yeah. Oh, well thank you. So the aim of today really is for us to think about whether it's possible to work with a bipolar disorder diagnosis and it might be that someone's listening to this or watching this trying to pursue

their own career in psychology or mental health or it might be that they've stumbled across this because they've got this diagnosis or they're considering going down an assessment route that might lead got this diagnosis or they're considering going down an assessment route that might lead to this diagnosis and they're concerned that they may not be able to work in kind of any industry. So that's kind of where we're heading but could you tell us a little bit first about about how you found yourself heading towards a bipolar diagnosis? heading towards a bipolar diagnosis? So I started to notice symptoms quite young, probably when I was around 14 and it was more so kind of like quite severe depressive episodes. Nothing ever really

came of it until I was around 18, 19 years old and I started having access to alcohol, kind of substances and then I moved away from home to go to university and I started engaging in kind of quite unhelpful behaviours, started drinking, smoking, became quite hypersexual and made use of Tinder in more ways than I should have done and that's kind of when the immediate red flag started coming on for me So I tried to chase it up with kind of the southern secondary care services down where I lived in Winchester at the time it didn't really go any further Because I explained that excessive spending I spent about about

£2,000 in about four days kind of racked up some debt, things like that. So I left it a bit until I was about, trying to think now, it was 2022 when I was diagnosed, so I'd been 23 and some of those symptoms started coming back and again it was more so the depressive episodes, extreme light dissociation and it was at that point I knew that something was not necessarily wrong but different and I thought maybe I should kind of seek that diagnosis for myself. So I actually paid privately and decided to get a private psychiatrist and get a diagnosis through there. And then I started working with secondary care services for medication who then validated

my bipolar diagnosis. So it's been a few years coming and it got to a point where I thought I think I need to take it into my own hands to kind of try and figure out what's going on. Oh, thank you. That was a really useful kind of potted history and I hope it didn't feel too tricky kind of doing it in such a quick way. So, it's been a couple of years now. We're recording this in January 2025, so it's been a few years since your diagnosis. Could you tell us whether you were having any thoughts about oh you know what is this gonna mean for my career?

Definitely so I've always wanted to work in mental health and I think at first I tried to put myself off it I thought you know I've had a long long history of anxiety and depression again kind of bipolar, I've got like a PTSD diagnosis so there's been quite a lot that's been going on and at first I was like surely this is gonna be a triggering career path, maybe I'm not the right kind of person, what if it causes episodes or something like that so I definitely doubted myself when it came to that and because it all happened quite quickly I was diagnosed a

month before starting my job in the service that I currently work for so I did try to push myself but yeah definitely definitely moments of doubt and sometimes I still get them now definitely not clear of that sometimes there still is doubts of whether you know know, is it going to work? Am I good enough? Things like that. Definitely. Yeah, and I think maybe that's not necessarily exclusive to having a bipolar diagnosis, you know. I've been qualified since 2011 and still am like, you know, am I enough? Are people more exciting and

energetic than me? You know? Imposter syndrome can be awful. Absolutely, absolutely. And so it's yeah, I guess it's beginning to separate when that is specifically linked to a mental health diagnosis, and whether it might just be that we're a bit of a low ebb and you know taking things you know got a little bit less resilience in our window of tolerance possibly. Definitely yeah and I noticed that kind of things like burnout especially in a PWP role is definitely well renowned anyway and I feel like my tolerance for that's quite

low in some sense as well. So I've noticed especially since qualifying and again in the training year it's very intense. I found that I reached a period of burnout there and it seemed to be more frequent compared to my peers who I was doing the course with, had to take kind of quite extended periods of sickness from work. So it was definitely throughout the training year that kind of I think the symptoms became a bit more apparent. Yeah, and like you say, I did a recent podcast episode about what is a PWP. So if anyone's like, PWP? What does that mean? Psychological Well-being Practitioner and there's a recent episode on that that takes you

through what that is but yeah, they really do put a lot on your plate in terms of client load and in terms of client hours. They certainly do, very high case load, very quick turnover as soon as you're done with one client you get another booked in, kind of supervision, CPD, very very high-pressure job. Yes indeed but a very important job. Absolutely. Like you've kind of painted a picture is that people that that have bipolar presentations or bipolar diagnosis do often tend to have kind of a complex trauma background, but not always, not exclusively, but in the most part that certainly... well I tend to work

with people with complex trauma so that's how I experience lots of bipolar diagnoses. Could you tell us about your experiences of being medicated, so being under treatment for bipolar, but also then I guess noticing any fluctuations in mood states. So typically we'd have what people would call kind of an elevated mood state or a mania or manic presentation followed by kind of periods of lowered quite significantly low mood. Sometimes it's kind of quite rapid, other times it's not. But how do you manage working with trying to kind of

track all of that? It can be quite difficult at times but I will say like my supervisors and my manager have been nothing short of absolutely excellent with it and I've always been open and honest with them so it can be quite difficult because for me I struggle to sometimes differentiate between what are the signs and symptoms of a actual depressive episode or is it just kind of typical burnout feeling quite tired and more often than not I've kind of noticed the symptoms a little bit too late which has kind of gone into a full depressive episode and I've noticed kind of the elevated mood side I'll take on too much and I still haven't quite

learned how to manage that so I'll book more contacts in a day than maybe I should I'll take on extra clients, extra calls, I'd work past my working hours doing notes and have absolutely no problem with it. I notice even sometimes in sessions I feel a bit more elevated and more chatty, but it's definitely kind of the depressive and low mood symptoms that I've noticed more whilst doing the job. I have had experience of having quite a severe depressive episode about a year and a half ago, where I had to take about a month off work, kind of extreme dissociation, no appetite, kind of what my therapist at the time described as depressive insomnia. So I'd spend days and days

awake downstairs, kind of again a bit of like the substance use. So I started smoking again, drinking a bottle of wine a night and it went really really to a very low point, kind of again kind of some of those negative thoughts. It went, kind of slipped into like the suicidal ideation side of things, so it did get really bad and I think that was me pushing myself to a point beyond burnout as well with the role. So there's been the occasional very severe depressive episode where I have had to take absences from work, um kind of on a day-to-day basis. I do try and push through it which isn't always helpful. Sometimes I kind of ignore my own warning signs and I think sometimes I gaslight myself and be like I'm fine, it's nothing serious, you know I can manage manage it but I think since experience the depressive

episodes I do try and be more cautious and if I do need to take time off work then I will but I definitely utilize my supervision as well. I'll tell my line manager if I'm feeling a bit, you know, a bit crappy. Sometimes the passion for the job will lower, you know, I absolutely love working as a PWP but sometimes it's just that feeling where I'm like I don't want to get out of bed I'm dreading going to work I don't want to do this what's the point kind of that that negative cycle of those very unhelpful thoughts but yeah my manager and my supervisor have been the absolute crutch to helping me get through that definitely.

Thank you. And of course, you know, we've got a duty of care to look after you because you're an important part of the staff team, but there's also that duty of care to care for the patients and make sure that they're receiving. And so it's kind of a tricky one to balance, isn't it? And, you know, you mentioned that sometimes you might feel like you're more elevated in sessions, more chatty. And I guess it's just being able to stay on top of that to make sure that you know that this isn't about you. This isn't about us as clinicians. This is about, you know, the care and treatment of the people you're working with.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the one thing I am is very honest and I've used it in line management again I'll be honest and say look. I'm Really really struggling. I might need to take some time off work There was a time Previously where I got quite upset in a meeting and started crying and I said to my line manager I said the thought of having to sit down with like a client today brings me dread and I said that's not normal I said I'm usually very happy Love my clients love my sessions love the job and I thought I know that this is not normal for me

And again, I've always been honest about it and just say like I can't do this right now I am finding it really difficult. Like I said kind of the feelings of dread and things like that so yeah I'm definitely honest because again the clients are what matter within their treatment it's their sessions I'm their practitioner they deserve the best standard of care and my 100% and when it got to a point where I knew I couldn't give that was when I kind of said I think I need to take some time off. Yeah absolutely that's so important I hope it was okay for me to ask you that. Absolutely. Just thinking back to

what you said about kind of changes in your kind of alcohol use and kind of your mood states and how many clients you're taking on and what times you're finishing. Sometimes it can be really helpful, it might be something you've done already, but to kind of literally have quite a thorough checklist that you complete kind of every day and almost just being doing with numbers in it

and columns or colors depending on whatever you wanna apply. But in that way, you can kind of quite quickly over a space of kind of a week or a month see those changes especially if you colour code them. Is that something that you've ever tried or considered? You know I know that's something that I've never thought of. I know there's kind of like the regular mood diaries where you write how you're feeling obviously routine and sleep is very important for someone with a bipolar diagnosis. And because obviously too little sleep can actually cause like, you know, manic and hyper manic episodes. And, but no,

that's actually not something I've tried. That sounds like a good idea. Yeah. Almost if you were to draw up a page of, I know you could do it. Like you could do grids of 365 days on a big piece of A3 paper or something, or do it a month at a time. But, you know, almost if you're recording, I don't know, like you could give things numbers and each number has a color. So if you leave work bang on time, then that would be one color. If you have zero alcohol, that would be that same colour. You know all of that so that as soon as things start to to get a bit spicier you're almost noticing those changes.

Does that make sense? That's such a good idea but I know as of December 2023 because I still had a tendency that although I wouldn't drink as often if I did go out and drink I'd get absolutely mashed like almost blackouts or I went to I said the final time I'm drinking is the work Christmas party and I haven't drank in like what about 13 months and I went completely teetotal I haven't touched a cigarette haven't touched a drink and I said I think that's the only way that I'm going to be able to kind of manage that. So yeah, I went completely teetotal from that. Okay, so sounds like you've made some significant changes because you wanted to look at your

coping strategies really. Yeah, and I noticed that again again kind of working in mental health as well about alcohol substance use you know it has very adverse effects kind of that high when you're drunk but kind of the after effects the depressive symptoms and then it was about the effect of more so home life kind of what is it doing to my partner it's not a behavior I want to exhibit around the children you know like mommy used to exhibit around the children, you know like, Mummy used to drink all the time, I really, really do not want that and I thought

the only way that I can manage it is, because I always struggled to manage my usage, I couldn't be one of these people who was just, I'll just have one drink and go home, no that never happened to me so I thought the only way that I can manage this is by getting rid of it completely and I found it easier than I thought I would I thought you know it's gonna get to when I'm feeling a bit down and I'm gonna want to drink but I can't say I've missed it can't say I've missed it at all. Yeah I mean for very different reasons I've sort of stopped drinking probably almost a year ago I've had maybe

One or two but like literally like a glass of wine on holiday because we were all inclusive and I thought Try it was horrible. So but I would say I'm largely T-total and I Found it like easier like because yeah, I'm not going out thinking, oh, I'll have to get a taxi home. I'm going out thinking, well, I know exactly how I'm going to get home. I'm going to drive myself home and I'm going to be sober and it's going to be like this. And then the next day I can get up and feel like I want to get up and exercise and I don't feel like I need to kind of rot in bed. I've never been a big drinker

since having children anyway, but it just gives me my vibrancy. I used to get reasonable amount of colds as well. I would say since stopping drinking, I've maybe had one cold, which is very, very unusual for me, even as an intermittent drinker. Gosh, yeah, I didn't even put two and two together with that. But yeah, like you said, like hangovers were never nice. And for me, it would knock me out for days and going to work, feeling a bit funny, a bit kind of, you know, not as good as really I should have been going to work in but yeah again it used to make me feel really really depressed afterwards kind of like the the beer fear I think it's called and then I realized that I can still have fun without having a drink the people I surround myself with have been supportive and respecting and I've always said I don't mind if

you drink around me like that's not something that bothers me but I'm lucky that I've been surrounded by the support that I have been and again my partner very very rarely drinks like we've never drank in the house we've never drank when we've gone out so I'm not surrounded by it either and so I think I've been very lucky in that sense that kind of I've had minimal kind of surrounding or kind of people around me that do drink but yeah I've noticed a massive change and I feel like my health has got better kind of my skin my hair like what you mentioned kind of a vibrancy and I can

like what you said kind of I can out, spend some time with friends, come home, not feel tired or drained and then go to bed, have a restful sleep and wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and I still had a good time. So it was definitely the right choice for me and definitely for the better. And like I said, I haven't missed it at all. I don't feel I've missed out on anything. So I'm very lucky because I know it's not that easy for other people, but yeah, it's worked for me. Good. Well, I'm really pleased to hear that. And in the old days, I'd say, oh, and it's cheaper too. But actually, the other day I had a mocktail and it was £11.50.

So it really isn't necessarily that much cheaper I would say. Gosh that's a boring £11.50! Yeah I had to stick to a cork, a cork and ice and I'm happy. Okay so keeping it cheaper. But even someone I was speaking to recently said they bought a pint of Coke in London and it was £5.50. Bloomin' heck! God that's ridiculous isn't it? Bloody hell! It really is. I think gone are the days, so when I was kind of growing up in the 90s and early 2000s sometimes bars would run promotions that if you were the designated driver your drinks would be free. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

That'd be such a good idea as well though wouldn't it? Oh yeah they don't do anything like that anymore. That'd be such a good idea as well though wouldn't it? Oh yeah they don't do anything like that anymore. Nothing's for free these days is it? So we're kind of thinking about family life and work life and do people around you help you to kind of monitor your states do you think? of monitor your states do you think? Oh absolutely and especially my partner like he's been amazing and I think he can start to tell if again my sleep gets quite disruptive you know maybe if I've always been quite bad taking my medication which again as a practitioner we warn clients against but there's times when I've been feeling low where I'm just like oh like Ryan I can't be bothered you know and he knows what medication I take when and will come in with it

and say Laura you need to take it but he'll start to notice when I'm starting to feel a bit lower he can tell again disrupted sleep kind of that like lack of interest in wanting to do things, not wanting to socialise, kind of not talking. I think as time's gone on he can pick up on it really really quickly and for that I'm very lucky because sometimes I don't really notice myself. So definitely like my parents don't know much about it and again to no fault of their own it's just something that I try not to kind of bother them with but again work great and I'll openly tell them if I'm noticing any symptoms but um I always remember my line manager saying sometimes we can tell when people are on the verge of burnout

because like my case load management wasn't as brilliant as it should have been, and I was getting a bit behind on my notes and my admin just because the motivation energy wasn't there, and I've always said to the people around me like, be honest, don't think I'm going to get hurt or offended or upset. Like if you notice something I appreciate it more if you tell me so I can get a bit more of a grip on it before things get too bad. But yeah my partner has been my absolute staple with things like that and yeah he's very good at recognising the signs and yeah keeping me on track. Great and I know certainly from some of the people I've worked with they especially when they're working find that their secondary care mental health

providers can be quite flexible in helping them to tweak their medication to kind of to cope with any elevated or lowered mood states. Is that your experience as well? Yes, they've been absolutely fantastic. So I think I go for a medication review, usually twice a year. I started off so I take Sertraline, I take Limochagine and I take Propanolol. So I've got an SSRI, a mood stabiliser and a beta blocker so a bit of everything. So they do monitor it closely saying is it working and I remember saying if you're experiencing quite severe depressive symptoms and we know it's not working like you should not be getting that on

your medication so I started off taking I think it started at 50 milligrams and then I experienced kind of quite a severe depressive episode and then raised it 200 and then the last psychiatrist that I saw what was it ordered a blood test and said we can check lamotrigine levels in your blood and the results came back that there was actually quite minimal amounts so then it was raised from 200 to 300 but I think I've been one of the lucky ones where like my combinations worked really really well for me and it's very rarely had to be tweaked more so just the lamotrigine because obviously that's very trial and error because I think you can go up to 700 milligrams with Lamotra gene so again there's quite a large

window of what works but yeah they've been absolutely fantastic they've listened to my concerns if there's been any changes they've actioned it really quickly kept me involved so yeah they've been absolutely fantastic and what I'm on now works really well for me. Great, and like you said, everyone's an individual so everyone's will be different. So if someone's kind of listening or watching this to kind of get an overview, please don't be alarmed if yours does sound different to what we're discussing for Laura. A really common concern is when people are starting medication is whether they will still

feel like themselves. Could you talk us through that a little bit? Yes, so I've always been open to medication. Again, it's something that I've always been willing to try. I don't remember any initial concerns. I've taken SSRI since I was about 18 years old but I've noticed that I'm more like myself. Again, energetic, bubbly, probably I'd say even happy, optimistic. So I think actually again I've been really really lucky with my medication and it's brought me back to being even half of my normal self which I'm grateful for. I haven't actually experienced any massive side effects apart from when I started the Lamotrigy

and I got like quite irritated, quite angry, my tolerance levels were next to nothing so that was one of the biggest side effects but apart from that I've been really really lucky again and I think I'm one of the rarities where I've had quite a straightforward experience with it. But yeah, minimal side effect. And yeah, I had no initial concerns about taking the medication because I was quite open to it and willing to try anything that helps at that point. Great. Thank you so much. So have you got any kind of parting thoughts really for someone that is, yeah, perhaps finding themselves to be in a position

of thinking, what about my career? How's that going to combine with bipolar? Have you got any parting words for them? I think definitely don't doubt yourself. Don't draw a line underneath having a successful career in mental health just because of a bipolar diagnosis. It can be hard, it can be tricky to navigate, it can bring up triggers and uncomfortable feelings but it can be managed. I think I definitely recommend being as open as kind of you're comfortable with kind of your workplace. Don't be afraid to ask for help from work or to ask for any kind of you're comfortable with kind of your workplace. Don't be afraid to ask for help from work or to ask for any kind of special considerations regarding

workload, clinical contacts. Don't be afraid to say that you're not managing as well, it doesn't make you any less of a practitioner. We're all human and we can only manage the best we can but definitely kind of some kind of you have to look within yourself as well kind of how can you manage it and especially outside of work as well. Self-care and you time is so so important especially kind of like the compassion fatigue can be really difficult but you can do it it is manageable it is doable and I'm so grateful that I've had the experiences with the people around me and with the people that I work for. But yeah, it's manageable and

you can do it and a bipolar diagnosis is not the end of the world, the end of your dreams, the end of your career. Yeah, it can be managed. Thank you that's such a wonderful place to leave it and with a really kind of positive uplifting message. Thank you so much for your time I'm wishing you well with what you're doing now but also perhaps whatever comes next for you in future too. No thank you for having me and giving us space to kind of talk about my bipolar diagnosis and my experiences at PWP so thank you PWP. So thank you very much. Oh, thank you again, Laura.

Thank you so much for our guest today, Laura. What a wonderful, insightful conversation that is. Please do, if you find this content helpful, like, share, comment, subscribe wherever you are listening or watching from. It really is the kindest thing you can do for any podcaster, totally for free. I would love to know what you make of this episode.

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