Ruth: I feared mental health crisis at Indyref
RUTH Davidson has admitted her ‘biggest fear’ in politics was that she would face a mental health crisis in the run-up to the independence referendum.
The former Scottish Tory leader revealed she has worried throughout her political career about the return of mental health issues she experienced while at university.
During a wide-ranging STV interview, she broke down in tears talking about her pride at finally becoming a mother when she gave birth to her son, Finn.
She also refused to rule out a return to politics in the future.
Miss Davidson first revealed in 2018 that she had struggled with depression in her younger years and had self-harmed as a teenager.
Speaking to the In Conversation With Bernard Ponsonby series, released on the STV Player yesterday, she admitted there had been ‘really tough times’ in her career, including ‘crying in the night’.
She admitted: ‘I suffered from depression when I was at university and I’d had a secondary incident a few years before I became leader and my biggest worry going into this was that I wouldn’t be able to cope, and at the point at which I was most needed, I’d somehow fail, as in a personal, emotional health failure.
‘That was the thing that most worried me during the referendum because it mattered to me so much – keeping the country together – that if I’d in some way broken down or whatever, that would have been irrecoverable. ‘I was so worried that I would not be well or that, in some way, my depression would come back. I had been free for years and years and I think I know myself quite well, and I know how to recognise the warning signs and how to mitigate them. But that was my biggest fear.’
She said that getting through the referendum without having ‘faltered’ helped her know she was ‘strong enough’ and had made a ‘huge difference to my life’.
Miss Davidson said she had a bad accident as a child and doctors had feared she would be unable to have children. She added: ‘I had never learned whether I was able to have children or not, and then at the point in which I realised I was gay, it wasn’t a common thing for gay women to have children.’
Fighting back tears, she said: ‘So having children was a really big thing, and I didn’t want to spend 100 hours a week away from him.’
Asked if she will ever return as Tory leader, Miss Davidson, who will quit as an MSP at the next Holyrood election, said: ‘I don’t think so.’ But she added: ‘I’m only 41, I don’t know if I’ve got another job in politics in me. I don’t think I will ever stop being political.’
‘I had struggled with depression’