Doctor Who star Eccleston: Anorexia battle almost drove me to suicide
AS DOCTOR Who, Christopher Eccleston’s fight against intergalactic foes captivated millions. In real life, the star was in a battle with anorexia and depression that almost drove him to suicide.
The actor, who won acclaim for reinventing the Time Lord for a new generation of fans in 2005, has revealed he was struggling with serious mental illness during the making of the sci-fi series.
In his forthcoming autobiography, I Love The Bones Of You, Eccleston describes himself as ‘a lifelong body-hater’ and reveals he contemplated throwing himself under a train following the end of his marriage in 2015.
‘ Many times I’ve wanted to reveal that I’m a lifelong anorexic and dysmorphic,’ he writes. ‘I never have. I always thought of it as a filthy secret, because I’m Northern, because I’m male and because I’m working-class.’
The father- of- two reveals his anorexia was prevalent during his spell on the BBC drama, adding: ‘The illness is still there raging within me as the Doctor. People love the way I look in that series, but I was very ill. The reward for that illness was the part. And therein lies the perpetuation of the whole sorry situation.’
Eccleston says he was diagnosed with severe clinical depression following the breakdown of his marriage to Mischka, 20 years his junior. During filming of the BBC drama The A Word, Eccleston says he began to contemplate suicide and rang a psychiatric hospital for help.
He says: ‘ I was in a state of extreme anxiety, convinced I was either going to die or I was going to kill myself. In my despair I reached for my phone and looked up a psychiatric hospital, I rang ahead, grabbed my bag and ran.’
While lying awake in hospital, the star became convinced he was going to die: ‘I was 100 per cent sure I was in the last few weeks of my life.’
His road to recovery began when he was finally diagnosed with severe clinical depression and prescribed antidepressants.
‘I am on them to this day. I could be on them for the rest of my days. I do have an issue with that. I would like to attempt slowly to reduce the dose, to experience reality again, to see how I do… And yet, interestingly I have received some of the best reviews of my life since I started taking them.’
I Love The Bones Of You, by Christopher Eccleston, is published by Simon & Schuster on September 19, priced £20.