“I’M HAPPIEST AT

After decades of struggling with her mental health, actress Denise Welch reveals why she’s never been more content

Denise Welch is feeling jubilant. After suf fering from severe bouts of debilitating clinical depression for 32 years, she is currently enjoying the longest spell she’s ever gone without one.

“The good news for me is that since I had a big serious episode of depression in 2019 – that’s the last time I’ve had an episode,” says the actress, 63. “I have sur vived 2020 and 2021 in the same way as a lot of people, which is feeling over whelmed, sad, angr y, frightened and frustrated at times, but not clinically depressed. I don’t know why. The majority of my depressive episodes are brought on by a chemical hormonal imbalance, but still, I’m ver y pleased.”

Denise has been at the forefront of the nation’s conversation about mental health. Her book The Unwelcome Visitor, published last year, about her own battle with depression, was a bestseller, and she has been an advocate on Loose Women and social media.

Denise’s first depressive episode occurred after the 1989 bir th of her son, Matthew, now a musician with the band The 1975 (her second son with ex-husband actor Tim Healy is Louis, born in 2001). As Denise’s fame grew in series such as Soldier, Soldier and Coronation Street, she suffered breakdowns and self-medicated with alcohol and drugs but kept her illness a secret.

It was only in 2012, when Denise got sober along with her husband-to-be, the ar tist Lincoln Townley (they married in 2013), that Denise’s life improved immeasurably. Without alcohol, Denise’s depressive episodes became less frequent and less severe.

Now vocal about her struggles, Denise wants ever yone to gain a better understanding of mental health issues. “The thing is, if somebody was in bed with cancer, you wouldn’t say ‘You look fine! You can get up and do things,’” she explains.

“But that’s what people say to someone like me with depression. They even say, ‘What have you got to be depressed about?’ It’s because we look fine when we’re really not. Mental health has always been a poor relation to physical health.”

Denise says she feared for people’s state of mind during the pandemic. “We’ve lived through a year of psychological war fare. The reason I was so outspoken was because there seemed to be no respect for mental health throughout it. Covid is a vile virus and people have been frightened half to death – and fear depletes the immune system.”

Although Denise can’t predict the return of her depression, she has been taking steps to improve her day-to-day mental health. In March, she overhauled her diet and exercise regime. “I felt so sluggish that I star ted jogging. And Lincoln and I were eating too much rubbish in lockdown so we decided to cook healthier food and be more considered about which days we have fish and chips.”

The biggest change for Denise was quitting Twitter in March after her phone accidentally deleted it and she couldn’t log on. “After about ten days of tr ying ever y password and Twitter suppor t and not being able to get back on, I thought, ‘Do you know, I feel so much calmer!’” she says. “Twitter is a place of toxicity. I’m freer mentally since quitting.”

Denise still appears on Loose Women and this year landed a job on Hollyoaks, a role she loves not least because the

Liverpool set is only a shor t drive from her Cheshire home.

She’s found contentment not in the showbiz par ties of the past, but in the peace of home. “I’ve become so much more of a homebody as I’ve got older. I’m just happiest when I’m at home with my hubby.”

“Mental health is a poor relation to physical health”