Stephanie Cole, 60, actress
I’ve suffered from depression all my life but there have been three main episodes. The first time was when I was 12 and my parents were going to a get-together to which children had been invited. I remember getting into the car and having a kind of hysterics which manifested in a huge panicky fear and lasted three months.
The real big one happened about thirty years ago when I suddenly started to lose confidence in my abilities as an actor and as a consequence gave up the business. Then my daughter was born and it got much much worse. I had agoraphobia and claustrophobia and couldn’t even get out of the door to go shopping. The basic problem had been there before, but having the baby meant the depression kicked in very badly. Unfortunately my doctor prescribed valium which is death to someone with depression.
There wasn’t really anyone there for me at that time. It wasn’t so much a lack of sympathy as a lack of understanding. Not as harsh as “pull yourself together”, but more like “go out and forget about it”. My then husband, who was a very calm, happy-go-lucky sort of person, couldn’t understand it at all. It was also at the time that my brother had just been diagnosed with schizophrenia, so quite rightly he was the main focus of the family.
After about a year I remember waking up one morning and thinking “I can’t stand living in this circumscribed way any longer” so I threw the pills down the loo and ran round the block out of frustration and rage. It was the start to getting better and getting back to work.
During the menopause I also had bad times. I’d wake up with black depression not understanding why and not knowing what to do. I still have days when I wake up and don’t want to get out of bed. Then it’s a matter of just living through it. At least now I know that it’s like the weather changing: you can wake up the next morning and metaphorically the skies are blue again. I’ve also learnt over the years that exercise, particularly swimming, helps a lot.
Lack of understanding comes partly from a fear. I see it through the prism of my experience with schizophrenia - which of all the mental health illnesses carries the biggest stigma of all. Whenever my behaviour might have been excessive in any way I’ve sensed the attitude, “Oh well, mental problems run in the family”. There are people I would never talk to about all this because I don’t want the conversation “Oh you actors are so over-dramatic”. It’s not helpful.
I’m also reluctant to go into much detail because people put their own lens on things and there’s a danger of being held up to ridicule. When you read about a celebrity who’s been through a bad time it’s often made light of in the media, made to sound as if they are being self-indulgent in some way.
And I get very cross when I see the media making fun of counsellors and therapists because my experience is that if you get a good one they can be your life-line because they’re there for you in a totally objective way. I was in analysis for six wonderful years and managed to untie some of the knots which caused the depression to take hold.
I still find it extraordinary that people are ready and willing to help with physical disease but not with mental disease when in fact a broken mind is far worse than a broken arm.
FACT: Around 1 in 4 people with mental illness have not consulted a professional about their mental health. (British Journal of Psychiatry, 1998)
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