What's Normal Anyway? Celebrities' Own Stories of Mental Illness

by Anna Gekoski

  Then I texted my boyfriend, because I think a part of me wanted to let him know what I’d done, and I think as I was texting him I started to sort of fade out. I think he then, at that point, called my cousin who lives about 100 miles away from Bath and she called my mum before calling me. My mum said: ‘Fine, I’m on my way up there already, just keep her on the phone, call the ambulance.’ My cousin said it was really bad for her because I wasn’t talking well and she could hear me falling over and knocking things over and I couldn’t get to the door. And she’s like: ‘Oh my God, if I have to hear this it will haunt me for the rest of my life.’ So she’s just like trying to keep me on the phone.

  Meanwhile, my mum was already on her way to Bath before I’d even taken the pills, cos she’d been trying to get hold of me and I just hadn’t got round to calling or texting her back. In her sixth-sense motherly way she knew there was something wrong before, but in my opinion there wasn’t, because I was fine, I was actually fine, so I was surprised that she thought there was a reason to come up. And it’s funny because she said: ‘I knew there was something up’, and I’m like: ‘Mum, there really wasn’t anything up.’ Although I know it doesn’t look like it, as when she gets there I’m in hospital!

  So I woke up in hospital. I don’t know what treatment they gave me, I just know I had all these pads on me. Then, when the psychiatrist was due to come round, my mum was like: ‘There’s a psychiatrist coming and they’re probably going to want to section you.’ And since I had an aunt who was admitted to the Maudesley Hospital in London and was so drugged up to her eyeballs that she didn’t know her left from her right, I knew I didn’t want people to section me and force me to take drugs. So I knew I needed to say what I needed to say, no matter what I felt, for everybody: for my son, for myself, for everybody. Because I knew that my mum could take care of me better than they could so I was not going to take the chance.

  So I just totally blagged. I was just: ‘I’m fine, it was just a bit of a mistake, blah, blah, blah.’ I was: ‘Yeah, it was a bad day.’ I think I blamed it on the antidepressants, which I’m sure it was. I know it was connected to that because I wasn’t that bad until then: all the emotional unpredictability was because of that. I’d had three different antidepressants in the space of a week and a half, and later, when I looked into it more, I found that you’re not supposed to chop and change antidepressants just like that. Nah, not good, not good. So I just said: ‘Yeah, I’m sure it was because of that and I’ll be fine.’ And I didn’t have any more sleeping pills to not be fine with anyway, because I’d taken them all! And they were more than happy to let me go home and I was happy about that.

  ***

  Because I didn’t retire until a year later, there was no way I could have come out at the time and said I was feeling suicidal, or had attempted suicide. No way, not in public, absolutely not, because you’re showing weakness. It’s not the reaction of the public I’m concerned about but my competitors: why would I want to give them that advantage? So you can’t talk about it. Sometimes you’re all using the same doctor and are on the same team, so can you trust them? It’s a difficult beast to tackle because there are so many reasons why an athlete would not want to speak out while in the peak of their careers. So where does that leave the athlete? Dealing with it on their own.

  So when I finally announced my retirement the following year I was in heaven. Everyone was like: ‘Oh, how are you feeling? It must be really hard watching the Olympics.’ Er, negative! It has been great. A lot of depression comes from, I think, when you’re not living your truth: you’re not where you wanna be, doing a job you don’t really wanna do, because you feel you need to do it for the money. Or carrying on doing athletics when you don’t really want to because it’s 2012 and who would quit before 2012? What sane person would do that? So it’s like . . . it just shows that when you are finally living your truth, it’s easier to move from day to day.

  So when I was feeling good I called my GP and I said: ‘How do I wean off these antidepressants?’ And she said: ‘You don’t, you just get off them.’ I think whatever it was, I was on the lowest dose possible, but I thought she would say start splitting them in half or something, but she said: ‘Oh, just get off them and if you have any problems give us a shout.’ But I never had any problems. I feel proud of that because that was my goal: to not be on them. I never felt like it was a long-term option, because as long as you’re putting chemicals inside your body, your body’s not going to be in its natural, normal state that it’s meant to be in. So to me, who wants to be as close to what I was born to be as possible, antidepressants are far from that. What with the side effects and differences in your personality, long-term there are too many downsides as far as I am concerned. They were just a crutch to get me to feel inspired to do the things I wanted to do, until I could take over and do them myself. It was about helping with the intrusion to the extent that I could help myself and I feel that I am helping myself now.

  Now that I know that I have a propensity to be depressed it’s a bit easier for me to stay aware, while before the situation could just take over my life without any action on my part. But now that I’m aware it’s a condition – and it’s a condition that I can do something about – I can more actively respond when I feel bad, because, at the end of the day, we all are in control of our own situation to a degree. And of course, the worse your depression is the harder it is to grab that control back – it’s very, very difficult because, once you’ve fallen into that cycle, it is a very, very vicious cycle. So you feel crap, you don’t do anything, and that causes you to create more situations in your life that make you feel crap. But you do have control ultimately; it’s about getting back to where you have, and feel like you have, full control.

  So it might be that I start telling myself: ‘Well, what things do I, can I, appreciate?’ Because depression is usually when you’re feeling helpless and hopeless and out of control in your life, so you just focus on the areas of your life that you’re not happy with. So I try to focus on what I do have – so gratitude basically. Okay, so I have a roof over my head at the moment, at least that’s something. I’ve got a vehicle that I can get around with. I’ve got people that I know who, if I reach out to, will help me; you know, I’ve got good friends. So I try to switch my focus to positive things. I try to force myself to think about what’s good about my life. The minute I start feeling down, what I’ve started doing is switching, trying to punch myself back, literally, and it’s really, really difficult but I’m like: ‘Come on Tash!’

  Also, I try where I can – because I’m terrible with nutrition – to make sure that I’m putting good things in my body that will support my health, both physically and mentally, as there are certain things that we know are brain foods and help to lift your moods. I had a really great nutritionist back in America who told me that it is possible to pull yourself out of depression naturally but it takes three weeks minimum to see it turn around. If you’re already depressed – or you’re predisposed to depression – and you’re not supporting yourself with nutrition then it’s extremely difficult to get out of it, because you’re feeding your mind with whatever you put inside. And chemicals, processed things, sugars and salts, are no good for your mind so they don’t help you. Another thing: try to just get out and exercise, even if it’s for five minutes. Loads of people hate doing exercise, even me. Oh yeah, I do not like exercise, I can’t stand it, I really do not like exercising at all. I’m just lucky because it doesn’t show. Do you know what I mean?

  In addition to that I try to read things that I know will inspire me to take action. Books like Lucky You by David Hooper, The Magic by Rhonda Byrne, or Amaze Yourself by Jill Ammon-Wexler, about taking a quantum leap. The reason why I choose these books is that they empower you to take action, to take control of your own life. And although you may not act fully on everything you read, at least for that moment you feel inspired and in control of your own situation. So it’s about just trying to arm
our yourself with things: having books around that are helpful, or positive-thinking CDs that you can fall asleep to that can change how your brain has been wired and shift some of the negative thoughts. I’ve used that kind of stuff a lot but I’m not a very routine person – I’ll do it for a week and then not do it for three weeks – so it doesn’t work for me for a long time. But for people who are routine it’s great.

  So the best thing for me – I can’t speak for the world, that’s for sure, because everyone’s experience is different with depression, it’s like a thumbprint – is when I am feeling good, to be extreme about the things that I know will work. So when I am feeling good I just go crazy about reading positive things, go crazy about eating well. Or, if I’m feeling positive, I might say: ‘You know what, maybe I’ll go and research places where I can go and talk to someone when I’m feeling depressed. I don’t really need it right now but maybe on a day when I’m not feeling so motivated I’ll have that information, so maybe I’ll call.’ Then if I do have a lapse, I have a bit more of a head start and maybe that lapse won’t fall so deep. So always try to have a plan or something in the back of your mind because you never know when that might be able to click in and work for you.

  And when I have done something positive, I really try to overly applaud myself for it. Because I am a person who is predisposed to being depressed, when I do actually do something it’s a big deal. So, you know, I’ve been cleaning my house at the moment, getting ready to move, trying to get things boxed and packed on my own and the place looks like, I don’t know, it’s been derelict for three years and some squatter’s been living there. But if a little space gets cleared, I say: ‘You did well Tash, the bathroom’s clean.’ I’m like: ‘Progress!’ So I can feel proud. You know, if someone’s feeling depressed and they took five minutes and went for a walk, or two minutes and went online and found out about depression, they need to really give themselves a proper ‘well done’ for doing it, because it’s huge. I think that’s really important. You might not have got to the big goal but you’ve got to recognise every single one of your tiny steps because there are no big steps without the little, tiny steps coming first.

  Having said that, there are times when I also have to let myself be whatever I am, because the minute I start making judgements that’s when it gets more difficult. Like: ‘Oh, you should call these people, and you should talk to that person, and you should do some more work around the house.’ So as well as applauding myself for what I have done, I make a point not to beat myself up for whatever I haven’t done. You know, if the dishes have been there for two weeks and I sit there saying: ‘You can’t even clean up’, I’ll just drive myself deeper down into that feeling of lack of self-worth and being not good enough. And it doesn’t serve the greater purpose of trying to stay positive, which is the opposite of being depressed, which is just very negative, very dark. So sometimes I’m just like: ‘Okay, I’m feeling shit, I’ll just sit here and feel shit for a while and just let it be and see how I feel tomorrow.’

  So I guess the main thing is: ‘It’s okay: it’s okay to be not okay. Sometimes you’re not okay and that’s okay.’ The thing to be alert to is when it’s going on too long – that’s when I know I need to take some action. It’s definitely majorly necessary to be alert to your moods all day and you’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do to try to stop yourself from getting too far low, cos too far low means goodbye. But there is always opportunity, there is always a way to get out, it’s just a matter of time and finding what’s right for you and being patient with yourself. I think there is always light at the end of the tunnel. When you have a ‘condition’ – that’s the word I like the most – that condition means I need to live my life differently and means I need to explore avenues of dealing with it. And, you know, it’s still not perfect, I still get depressed, feel depressed, but it’s easier to manage.

  ***

  I’ve never faced any stigma personally but it must be there, because of the way people respond when they are, or think they are, depressed. I think the fact that people don’t want to share it means that they must feel there’s a reason why they need to hide it or be ashamed of it. And it does concern me thinking, in the future, about people being able to go online and find out that I’ve had this situation and whether it will affect whether they want to hire me, or wanna work with me, or whether they think I might just lose it at some point. So I haven’t experienced that yet – and hopefully won’t ever have to – but as we know how the world works, I think it’s definitely possible.

  So I think we need to be a bit more vocal about what depression is generally: making a big deal about it, but in a way that shows it’s not the end of the world. Do you know what I mean? You know when you hear someone’s depressed or suicidal you think: ‘Oh, poor person.’ You just get this image of this person who’s all weak: a weak woman with her hair and clothes unkempt. But, you know, that’s not always what depression really looks like: depression can look like a supermodel. So if people have a clearer idea of what it is, I think it will become less stigmatised, because people will begin to realise that it’s way more common than they think.

  I think it would be good for athletes to speak out more and to have more knowledge of what to do when they do speak out. I was fortunate because my federation did what it could to try and support me with my mental health issues. Other people aren’t so lucky because their federations don’t have any kind of support system. Who can they go to? Who can they talk to? Sometimes you can’t even put into words how you’re feeling so it’s hard to tell anyone else. So people need help in what to say, how to get it out, how to tell people. So I think if more sports organisations and governing bodies had things in place and were welcoming if someone is willing to speak out, it would be good.

  Because, whether we like it or not, athletes are looked up to, we’re idolised, we’re heroes, so what we say has an effect on people. Even when I spoke about it there was an athlete who contacted me and said she was really glad I’d come out because, even though she was only at club level, she had started self-harming because she wasn’t achieving what she thought she should. And when she read my story she realised that she could just let it go. She said: ‘Like, if you’re an Olympic athlete and you can just say: “Enough is enough, I’m done”, then I surely can so I’ve just moved on to other things now and I’m fine.’ So even if, in speaking about my story, there was that one person on the planet who was able to make a different choice because of hearing it, then that’s one less person. So if you can have a positive effect, then for me that was worth whatever negative may come from that.

  So what would I say to the public about mental illness? Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it! Do not knock it ’til you’ve tried it. Because, you know, it’s easy to pass judgement. When I’m Twittering and I’m talking to people it’s made me realise just how judgemental people are. But you never know what someone’s going through, so I think people need to step back a bit, because it’s easy to say you would do this and that when you’re not in a situation, but you have no idea how you would respond when certain things are thrown at you in life. So I think people need to recognise that this is far more complicated than you think and it could be you one day. Because life might be going swell now but so many things cause people to be depressed – they might lose a loved one, lose a home – and major life changes can throw people into depression before they can bat an eyelid. So just be a bit more understanding. And if you do know someone who’s depressed, don’t assume you know how you can help them, just ask them: ‘Is there any way I can help? Because if there is any way I can help then I will do my best.’

  RICHARD MABEY

  Writer, broadcaster, and naturalist

  ‘I just ceased to be anything other than a person who is trapped in a toxic worry about their own worry. Bubbles like this occur: they are completely separate from what’s outside. You are trapped in this self-referential cobweb of negativity.’

 
Born in 1941, Richard Mabey grew up in the Chilterns and was educated at the University of Oxford. He worked as a lecturer, and later as an editor at Penguin Books, before becoming a full-time writer in 1974. Since that time, Richard has written over thirty books, including: Food for Free, Weeds: The Story of Outlaw Plants, Whistling in the Dark: In Pursuit of the Nightingale, Beechcombing: The Narratives of Trees, Turned Out Nice Again: On Living With the Weather, and Gilbert White, which won the Whitbread Biography Award. He is also the author of the bestselling Flora Britannica, which won a National Book Award, and Nature Cure, his memoir, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread, J.R. Ackerley and Ondaatje prizes. In addition, he has presented several television documentaries, is a regular contributor to BBC radio, and writes for the Guardian, New Statesman, and Granta. Richard has suffered from periods of anxiety and depression since he was a child, which culminated in a breakdown in 1999. He lives with his partner Polly Lavender in Norfolk, which is where the interview for this chapter took place.

  ***

  I’m happy to talk about my environment when I was growing up but I would preface it by saying that I’m deeply disinclined to blame – if that is the word that one wants to use – anything that subsequently happened to me, or any part of my personality, or any defects in my personality, on anything that my parents did or didn’t do to me. Being in the book business, one of the kinds of book that most repels me is the ‘slag-my-parents-off’ genre, which frequently turn out to be bestsellers. They seem to me often to indicate a refusal to take responsibility for yourself, which surely suggests that the authors are not yet recovered from whatever it is that is the matter with them.

  But I guess there is a context. My parents were Londoners who, through the prescience of my father who saw the onset of war four years before a lot of other people did, moved my mother out to the Chilterns in 1936. I think it was a culture shock for both of them, moving into a quite conservative rural area. I’m not sure my mother was ever entirely happy with – no, happy’s the wrong word, I’m not sure she was ever comfortable with – the edge-of-market-town kind of culture. She didn’t make friends very easily so I think she was always a slightly lonely woman, although I would never have thought she was depressed at the time I knew her. She died twenty years ago now, before I had my serious illness, and in retrospect I suspect she probably was depressed.