Depression…Ruby Wax is in my Toolkit!

Ruby Wax.  She is influential in my life, and not for the reasons that you may think.

Ruby Wax doesn’t interest me ‘just because’ she is a celebrity that happens to have had depression – although to be fair this was the initial reason that made me sit up and take notice – her ability to be able to articulate her experience of depression and to put it out there in the public domain to support and educate others.  Ruby Wax is a well respected mental health advocate and has used her personal experience of this illness, her ‘back to school’ education at Oxford University, combined with her unique wit, to come up with a platform to talk about mental health through TV and social media interviews, the books she has written, her theatre tours, Frazzled cafes, and the thing that helped me the most at the time – the Blogs that she wrote December 2013 to January 2014

I want to talk about my personal journey with Ruby, and how she came to be a vital piece of my ‘get well & keep well’ toolkit.  Through the above mentioned blogs she has been there with me through my journey of coping whilst in depression, recovering from depression, and how to keep well to avoid an unwanted relationship with depression going forward. 

A bit about Ruby from me …

I’ve always been fond of Ruby Wax since ‘Girls on Top’.  It was a family favourite in our household on a Wednesday night; it aired on ITV at 8.30pm and it was the last programme of the night that we was allowed to watch because it was a school night.  Ruby Wax in two words, or maybe three depending on how you count the grammar – She’s Funny!  Through the years we continued to see her pop up on our screens through ‘The Full Wax’ and ‘Ruby Wax Meets’ where she interviewed celebrities and again, gave us laughs!

Roll on a few years, and Ruby Wax pop’s up in the spotlight again, but in a different way than I was used to seeing her.  She unwittingly became, in her own words, the ‘poster girl for mental health’.  Ruby had been working alongside Comic Relief with a Time to Change initiative to end mental health discrimination, which resulted in her face being plastered in every tube station across London! I’ll let the poster speak for itself …

This wasn’t quite what Ruby had signed up for; her willingness to speak out via Time to Change was real, but the first she knew about giant posters with her face plastered over them was when she saw them for herself, and she was initially mortified.

But this surreal time was the start of something brilliant as Ruby went on to write a comedy show about mental health, and performed this in mental institutions across the country.  Since this time and right up to this moment as I write, she continues to talk about mental health challenges across various visible platforms with genuine energy and vigour, and she manages to combine some serious messages in synergy with humour that people can relate to.   Google ‘Ruby Wax’ as I did; there are many written articles and videos which document her work, efforts, empathy, support and education on this illness.

One particular video clip that I found helpful; Ruby Wax and a GP discuss depression and treatment on BBC World News, filmed in 2013. In short the Doctor believes depression is over diagnosed and over treated by GPs, and goes on to say that pharmaceutical companies make vast amounts of profit from anti-depressants. Ruby answers that these drugs are prescribed for mental disorder, and that his previous statement would be like saying to a diabetic ‘don’t take the insulin’.  Dr Lefever says that treatment for depression should not be through tablets, he says “social problems need social solutions, and won’t be solved through tablets or GPs” Ruby asks “explain to me – if you don’t have tablets, how do you deal with it?  It’s like saying to someone with cancer to cut the chemo.” Ruby then sternly tells Dr Lefever “I think that’s very destructive, to tell someone with depression to not take the tablets” The Doctor then suggests ‘talking’, and says “everyone likes being heard”  and Ruby excellently cuts in with “Oh please, that’s for someone without a disease, everyone loves being heard! But we have to understand; every other organ in your body can get sick and you get sympathy, except the brain?”

I’ve sat here and pretty much transcribed the video, which wasn’t my intention but I really wanted to show you an example of what Ruby, and many others, can be up against sometimes!

I’m regards to medication, I took the medication.  I still take the medication. It’s simple really: you are ill …you may need medication to aid your recovery…and so you take the medication.  I’d like to see how talking treatment works when you have broken your leg or you have a migraine.  Talking treatments work well for lots of scenarios, not just mental health challenges, and can form part of a bigger treatment programme that may well include medication!

So …Why Ruby?

When I recovered from my second episode of depression in March 2015, I was keen to understand more about the illness, and how I could help myself if it happened to me again (sadly it did a year later, I didn’t see the tipping point and I burnt out). I already had Dr Tim Cantopher and his knowledge of the limbic system in my toolkit (more info on this in my previous depression blog), but I didn’t want to get ill again so the more info I could access, the better!  Ruby Wax had already inspired me, so I googled ‘Ruby Wax’ and I read some articles and I watched a few videos!  Across these articles there were one liners and quotes that I fully resonated with…and BANG …the deal was done …Ruby Wax had involuntarily added herself to my ‘toolkit’  I’ve picked varying published quotes from Ruby which depict debilitating depression;

• Depression is ‘exactly what it says on the bottle’… poison, terrifying, and a complete mummification in nothingness.

• I’m this empty thing now, and have no recollection of the chutzpah I had only last week.

• I want to try and get to John Lewis but I know I will get there and wonder around lost and unable to remember why I went?

• I ordered cushions online and it took me 4 hours to figure out how to use the credit card.  I ordered the wrong cushions; I want to send them back but am paralyzed by the certainty that I don’t know how to do that.

• Those of you that do suffer know that we just need to look into each other’s eyes and we recognise that we have the illness.  It’s like a secret handshake, if you look into the eyes of a sufferer there’s no mistaking it, it’s the look of a dead shark.

• Why, when you have a mental disease, is it always considered an act of imagination?  Why is it that every organ in your body can get sick and you get sympathy except the brain?”

• You wouldn’t consider going up to someone suffering from Alzheimer’s to yell, “Come on, get with it, you remember where you left your keys?”

• There is nothing, empty space, whoever you were who lived in your skin has left the building, vanished.  This new me can’t read, isn’t funny, can’t really speak, get up or take a walk.

My Toolkit …

After I had recovered from depression for the second time, I had taken time to read up more on Ruby Wax’s involvement with mental health challenges, and in my case, where it related to depression.  All of the articles that I read were useful and gave me information, and there is one thing that Ruby says loud and clear and consistently throughout … It is an Illness.  It’s as physical an illness as many other illnesses, but left untreated, unsupported, it becomes a serious illness and it has the ability to take lives!  And sadly it does on a daily basis; I read it in the news most days.

There is one place where I found solace, empathy, and crucially the best help that I could have ultimately received in order to cope with the painful symptoms, whilst I was ill with my third depressive episode that lasted three months (April – June 2015).  This one place was Ruby’s personal blog which she posts onto Huffington Post.

There are a string of posts from the 8^th December 2014 through to 26^th January 2015, where Ruby identifies she is descending into a depressive episode.  At this time she keeps a weekly blog, and describes how things are going for her whilst she is ill.  Anyone that reads it, that has known depression, can relate to every single word that she has written.  And if you haven’t known depression, I think you would still be pretty moved.  There was a tweeted comment on this article “Ruby Wax’s words on her current depression are heartfelt, honest, tragic and great”.  I couldn’t have said it better.

Through this time period Ruby shares with us, weekly via her blog, how she is coping through these testing days.  She is recognising achievements, such as taking a walk where she felt the ground would swallow her whole with every step, but she looked at it as ‘well I managed to get dressed and out of the house’.  She describes how she taps into her mindfulness knowledge as a useful crutch by telling herself ‘this illness is depression’ rather than the thought that relentlessly batters her mind and wants to scream out ‘I’m depressed’.   She sums up by telling us that she is trying to ride this wave.

In her second article, titled Drowning, Not Waving 17/12/2014 she tells us that she remembers why depression is so awful now that she is back in that place.  She describes how she is feeling; she tells us that this is terrifying.  And everything in between.  It’s a beautifully written piece and again, it says everything that depression is and what it does to you.

Ruby blogs weekly through this episode of depression and each article is like a ‘beautiful monster’  A cliché perhaps?  But it sounds better than the description I would actually like to use that goes something like this …Depression is a F***ing C@#T!

These are the titles of the articles written throughout Ruby’s last (hopefully the very last) episode of depression:

08/12/2014  On Depression

17/12/2014  Drowning, Not Waving

21/12/2014  Waiting it Out

25/12/2014  Still Drowning, Not Waving

31/12/2014  Digging Myself Out of the Black Hole

07/01/2015  Learning to Be Kind to Me

26/01/2015  Hindsight is 20:20

If anyone is interested in reading these blogs from Ruby you can find them on this below link.  I feel that I can’t do justice to what she has written, solely by writing about it!  I promise you won’t be wasting your time by reading these; in fact you’ll be learning something new, be it about depression, or be it discovering empathy for someone that is battling through an illness.  You may even shed tears.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/news/ruby-wax/

And this specific blog post, titled Just Stop 05/04/2016 came at just the right time for me!  This is when I became unwell, April 2016.  This is exactly where I needed to be told ‘Just Stop’.  So I did.  And it was a difficult time, but I did fully recover from the illness after 3 months, as opposed to the previous episode which lasted 6 months where I kept myself busy because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do!  Please read it – its ace!

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ruby-wax/just-stop_b_9608198.html

Ruby Wax and her ability to speak out is the inspiration for why I have set up a blog, along with Zoe Paramour who was the one to actually encourage me to set up a blog!   My blog has two categories:

• Depression
• Chatter

I have plenty to say on both counts!  It’s good to care…share…talk!

Giving something back …

Myself and my friend Karen went to see Ruby Wax at The Wyllotts Theatre in Potter’s Bar (classed as the countryside to an inner London child as myself) It’s a one woman show… It was as brilliant as I had anticipated, and the mass mindfulness session was meaningful and actually I felt quite empowered.  When it was the interval, I popped outside for a cigarette (Sorry Miss Haigh) and instinctively pulled my phone out to scroll through Facebook to kill 5 minutes but then I stopped, put it back in my bag…and took these 5 minutes to be mindful.  Quick learner or what?!

Because I know Ruby would appreciate the plug (and why not, opportunity calling) here is a link to her current tour of Frazzled.

http://www.rubywax.net/tour.html

Ruby is also the proud author of two books:

• Sane New World
• A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled

Available in all good book shops and online and stuff, just google it!  I’m half way through Sane New World; so far it’s been interesting, funny and quite importantly, an easy read.

I don’t know Ruby Wax, she doesn’t know Donna Chan, but there are a few things that we have in common:

• We both have green eyes. I only noticed this when I was doing some research for this article.
• We have both been ill with depression. We both know this painful existence.
• We have both recovered from this illness.
• We both know mindfulness; it’s because of something that Ruby wrote that now, if I’m in a queue at the supermarket, I simply use this time to be ‘mindful. I’m new at it, she’s not.
• We both blog. I’m new at it, she’s not.
• We’re not Chinese, although my married name may indicate that I am.

Thank You Ruby Xxx

I’d like to share some lovely words that I read the other day, I’m sure it relates to us all in some way, but for me personally it sums up coping whilst in depression.

You will not always be Strong, but you can always be Brave

Each day that you get through whilst ill with depression makes you brave.  You may not feel it and the symptoms of depression will definitely tell you otherwise, but You are Brave.  Repeat it to yourself … I am Brave…I am Brave… say it loud so you can hear it for yourself rather than fight the demon that is telling you otherwise in your head.  You are Brave!

 I know that surviving the illness that is called depression is the hardest and bravest thing I have ever done in my life.  And although I aim to avoid ever falling foul to this illness again, and it frightens me to think it could happen again, I know that having Ruby Wax in my toolkit is a wise and logical move…

…combined with the medication!  (Up Yours Dr Lefever)