ANDITTASTES PULLITBACK
almost independent lives,” she said. “He doesn’t question what I do and he’s funny.
“I mean, if I want to go out for dinner with my friends, I don’t automatically have to bring Ed. I ask them if they want Ed to come.
“Ed doesn’t even know some of my friends. I’m not a couple.”
They have worked and lived together in relative harmony – but there have been many negotiations along the way. Ruby said: “Life’s a deal. Ed will cook and clear up when we have people over but I invite everybody and make sure we pull this off, that everybody’s happy.
“If something goes wrong, I’m the first person on the phone to really hit it hard, because I’m aggressive and he’s not.
“If you have a situation where somebody has to be English, he steps in.
“You don’t need an American to get on the phone and say, ‘My phone hasn’t been working for eight months’ – it would be like letting loose an animal.”
She took action to pre-empt the sadness she knew she would feel when the last of her children left home, booking her place at university before the last one exited, to avoid empty-nest syndrome.
She said: “I kind of know when the party’s over.
“But I am devastated – I want my kids to live at home now. They live 10 minutes from me but I love having all my kids at home.”
Her own childhood was an unhappy one – her mother Bertha had OCD and was prone to screaming rages and hysterics, while her father, Edward, a wealthy sausage skin manufacturer, was angry and violent towards both wife and child.
For years, Ruby believed her parents’ relationship was horrendous.
But some explanation was provided when she took part in the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? last year, and discovered the terror they had suffered as Austrian Jews at the hands of the Nazis just before World War II, which may have pushed them to the edge of sanity.
She said: “The discovery didn’t traumatise me. I found it really uplifting.
“If something’s an epiphany, that’s a good deal. I understood my roots. That’s worth 50 years of therapy.”
She admits it changed her feelings towards her parents.
Ruby said: “Now I understood who they were as people, as opposed to cartoonlike parents.
“I got an insight into what they were like when they were young. It helped me understand them and I don’t have any animosity.”
They escaped to Belgium and eventually stowed away on a boat to the US and ended up settling in Chicago, where Ruby was born, although she has lived in the UK since she was 18.
Practising mindfulness has made her happy and calmer – except when she’s handed a traffic ticket – and more able to focus her mind where she wants it to be.
Yet she admits that some of the time, she still goes through life at a mad pace.
She said: “If I need to, yes I do, but when I start burning (out), I might notice it quicker and get out of there.
“It’s like when you party hard, you know it and you have to go rest. Whereas a lot of people think it’s endless and keep pushing. It’s kind of like addiction.
“I have the facility to work really hard but then I can tell when I’m starting to burn out – and then you gotta pull back. I know when I look tired – you don’t have to tell me.”
When she’s going down mentally, she can’t think.
Ruby said: “It’s like brain fog. It’s like a car that’s caught in mud. I used to push and push and then you really break the engine.
“But now I’ll go, ‘No, the brain is filled to capacity’. The trick is to learn to back off.” ● How to Be Human: The Manual by Ruby Wax is published by Penguin Life, priced £14.99 and is out now. Parisien sweatshirt, whistles.com Striped L’amour T-shirt, handm.com