WE KNOW HOW KYLIE FEELS ...TWO POIGNANT STORIES OF SURVIVING A BREAKDOWN

After Kylie Minogue revealed how a break-up of a relationship led her to plunge into the depths of despair, writer Una Brankin discloses how shame led her on her own dark path in a searingly honest account

I lost interest in books, food, work, TV, everything, basically

After Kylie Minogue announced she had breast cancer, one of the more prominent paparazzi expressed his vexation, saying that of all the celebrities he snapped, she was always the most gracious. Of the lot of them, he added, she least deserved the bad luck.

The Australian superstar didn’t deserve a supposedly two-timing and fame-seeking fiance either. After all she’d been through with her illness, it’s no wonder she had a nervous breakdown after the split.

Although my circumstances, at 27, were different, I can empathise with Kylie’s descent into the abyss. The seeds were sown when I was a 17-year-old greenhorn with zero self-confidence.

I met someone four years older — not a huge age-gap, you might think, but enough for him to manipulate to his sleazy advantage. Let’s just say: #MeToo.

For years, the experience left me drowning in shame — insidious soul-destroying shame over letting myself be used. I became extremely wary of the opposite sex, until I met the very respectful Mr Right (I reckoned I’d been sent him to make up for the blackguard of my youth).

But little did I realise that the traumatic teenage experience would come back to haunt me.

It hit full force 10 years later, when I should have been having the time of my life as a journalist with a quality Sunday newspaper in Dublin.

I hadn’t even been thinking consciously about what happened, but after a decade of blocking out the demons, they suddenly refused to be ignored.

It crept up gradually. I began to lose interest in books, food, work, TV, conversation — everything, basically. I began to dread the walk to the offices in the mornings as I’d have to be in my own tormented head for those 20 minutes. The thought occurred, regularly, that I didn’t care if I got run over by a bus or train (albeit I never considered doing an Anna Karenina at Connolly Station).

Looking back, there were triggers. The nearest and dearest was away most of the time on tour and there was no guarantee he’d come running back to me. I’d lost touch with some good friends and I wasn’t close to my family at the time. And I thought my career was going nowhere.

I couldn’t sleep, yet I didn’t want to get out of bed, ever. The only thing I could concentrate on was films on video, because I could forget I was me for an hour or two. I even avoided looking at myself in the mirror; I hated having to put make-up on. I wanted a long, long break from myself.

Eventually, I became so run down and alienated that I went to see a GP. He referred me to counselling, which I was reluctant to do, but went out of desperation. And so, in a shabby room over a shop in Donnybrook, the murk slowly began to emerge.

Then came the anger. I’d been so wrapped up in shame, the rage had been kept at bay. And when the counsellor explained that depression is anger turned inwards, my meltdown began to make perfect sense. It took a long time to feel any better, however.

The anger seemed to fester and breed negativity and cynicism. The fires it ignited didn’t have the cathartic effect the counsellor hoped for. The demons were on the loose and running riot.

It took a book to subdue them, a straightforward guide entitled Being Happy. Illustrated by cartoons, it looked juvenile and glib when I first opened it, but the effect was miraculous. I connected with every word in it and, by the time I’d got halfway through, I was feeling more positive.

By the end, I was back on an even keel. Obviously, the counselling must have been beneficial, in that it unlocked all the torturous thoughts I’d been blocking out. But it left them hanging there.

This deceptively simple little book showed me how to deal with them. I moved on and stayed happy for many years, until the dark clouds started to gather again, around 2005. This time, however, I was prepared and the depths were avoided.

I don’t know Kylie Minogue got through her nightmare, but I hope she never has to experience it again. It takes a lot of forgiveness, including self-forgiveness, to heal those wounds, but you emerge a better person for it and it makes you realise that it doesn’t take much to make you happy.

Once you’ve been through a breakdown, any less serious issues you’ll encounter in life can be dismissed as mere trifles. All you’ll feel is lucky, lucky, lucky.