Due to having a crippling illness, Ruby Wax must stay at home and shut herself out of the world.
Comedian, actor and presenter Ruby Wax is certainly no wallflower and has been at the centre of plenty of action, debate and story telling during her time in the Australian jungle for I’m a Celebrity.
The 72-year-old has however revealed that despite believing she was well and healthy, a disease that was discovered in the 1990s reared ugly head after 12 years and forced her to revert to a normal life.
The alarming realisation that her condition had returned occurred after she sought advice from her specialist and while she was abroad, away from her family, researching material for a book.
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In 2022, Ruby embarked on a series of “life-changing journeys” intended to help her discover meaning in life for the new book she was writing. She hoped to help people find purpose in a post-pandemic world. Her friend, the Rev Richard Coles, who finished in third place in last year’s I’m a Celeb, suggested she visit the Christian Brotherhood where he trained, but it was there that she became ill.
Ruby was diagnosed with depression in the 90s and it resurfaced in what should have been a peaceful place of solace. She said: “That time [in the monastery] could have been the most pleasurable experience,” she told the Guardian in 2023.
“Maybe it was because I’d got off medication to do the psilocybin (a ‘potential cure for depression’). But it can happen when your career is going really well… there is no predictor. Depression is a disease that decides to rear its head – like herpes.”
She has a lot of knowledge about mindfulness, something she is very knowledgeable about, and has kept herself well for the previous 12 years. She was made a University of Surrey Visiting Professor in Mental Health Nursing, received a master’s degree in mindfulness cognitive therapy, and received an OBE for her contributions to the field.
We’ve seen her with her jungle campmates meditating daily to maintain her inner calm. So it was a real shock when she was suddenly caught again.
She explained that she used to be able to see it coming and pull everything back. I would be aware to change, change, and change. Because I fear being locked into my room, I would go there in a secure location where no one could get me and where I could see the doorknob. I’ve been there for weeks, sometimes. I would wait for the dopamine instead of visiting a hospital. I used to work constantly and override it before I would become extremely ill. The tipping point is typically known to me. However, I missed it this time.
She called her psychiatrist, who informed her that she needed to return home and visit the hospital when she realized she was “spiralling” once more. Following the incident, the book, whose name was changed to I’m Not As Well As I Thought I Was, begins here.
She acknowledges that it was undoubtedly not intended. “I went on various, life-changing journeys before I started the book in search of meaning. I ended up in a mental health facility, and it’s obvious that things didn’t go my way. The mental car crash resulted in this account, and everything had to change from there, she writes.
Thankfully, Ruby, who is married to TV and film producer Ed Bye and has three grown-up children, was also able to visit other places, such as a refugee camp in Greece, a month-long silent mindfulness retreat in San Francisco, and the Dominican Republic, where she swam with whales. However, she knows that her illness is something she will never be able to truly escape from.
She described depression as “the black hole of diseases, where you sit helpless as your mind hammers you with accusations.” Your brains are ejected like tiny demons that bite your brains. She tragically admits, “I’ve spent my life creating a ‘front’ to give the impression that everything is fine,” and it’s difficult to stay alive and listen. It isn’t and wasn’t, either.
Source: Mirror
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