We all have mental health: feeling a range of emotions from joy, relief, pride to fear, disappointment to anger. Sometimes, our mental health consumes us: paralysing anxiety or even clinical depression. It is very easy to feel alone; nobody has ever felt the way we have. So when celebrities we see celebrities talking about mental health, it helps lift the stigma, normalising the conversation.
At the Purple House Clinic, we came across a fantastic book which compiles many of these stories all in one place- It’s Not Okay to Feel Blue (and Other Lies), curated by Scarlett Curtis. It makes inspiring reading. Here’s just a flavour of some of the stories below.
Physician, heal thyself: Professor Tanya Byron
Chartered Clinical Psychologist, Professor Tanya Byron knows all about mental health. She’s worked in the NHS and privately for thirty years, specialising in child and adolescent mental health. She is a familiar TV Psychologist, gracing our screens, as presenter and expert clinician on series such as: Little Angels,Teen Angels and Child of Our Time.
Tanya experienced a bout of clinical depression after a series of unexpected family bereavements, combined with her own postnatal depression. Her husband supported her and after an extended period of therapy, she eventually recovered. She admits now that at the time, she hated her depression and found it hard to accept that as a mental health clinician, that she could become ill. She had to learn to accept treatment, without shame, the same message she had given her clients. She now maintains that her experience of clinical depression has made her a better clinician.
