Denise’s breakdown: star’s terrifying collapse
Searingly honest, Denise Welch admits to her most recent battle with the dark clouds of depression
Actress Denise Welch, 58, has lived with depression for three decades, and last week she confessed honestly, ‘I’ve had several nervous breakdowns.’ In early February, Denise revealed that her latest mental collapse, lasting three days, had only happened two months previously. That would be terrifying for anyone, but especially for a woman who has done so much to avoid what she herself has called ‘the terrible blackness’. ‘I no longer compound my illness with alcohol – I won that battle five years ago – but I still have episodes,’ she admitted.
Denise first suffered from depression after her eldest son, Matty, 27, was born.
‘I never resented Matthew, but all I wanted to do was sit in my dressing gown and have somebody give me an injection to make everything go away,’ she confessed. Sadly, the post-natal episode was a trigger for black clouds that still blight the star’s life.
With the support of husband Lincoln Townley, she no longer drinks and had ‘group therapy’ to understand her ‘emotional eating’.
But, given her depression battles, the fact that she once contemplated suicide, and the admission that she felt ‘relieved’ about the decision to divorce actor Tim Healy, you wouldn’t blame her for grappling with the idea that happiness can be fleeting.
Talking of her latest novel, If They Could See Me Now – about a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage that seems perfect to others and the outside world – she mused, ‘Life’s not always as it seems…’
Her upcoming short film, Black Eyed Susan, is a ‘short, arty drama based on my illness’. It’s the story of a woman struggling to survive when a teenage boy (played by her son, Louis, 16) tries to drive her to suicide. ‘I’m proud of it,’ she commented.
As she told best at an event for the homeless charity Centrepoint, being in a downward spiral means ‘you realise we’re all merely a few steps from losing everything’.
‘People can end up on the street as a result of the kind of mental breakdowns I had,’ she said. ‘But for many homeless people, their breakdowns are untreated, and their lives fall apart… It can happen to anybody.’