Top Tory Ruth: : I never want to be PM– I value my mental health too much
Scottish leader’s brutally honest answer to why she won’t be moving South
RUTH Davidson has revealed she never wants to become prime minister because she values her mental health too much.
The leader of the Scottish Conservatives said she had struggled with depression, suicidal thoughts and self-harm as a teenager.
In a remarkably candid interview she rolled up her sleeves to show the scars on her arms from where she had cut herself.
Miss Davidson, who is pregnant with her first child, has frequently been touted as a future Tory leadership candidate.
But the 39-year- old explicitly ruled out such a move and dismissed claims she could take a peerage or move south and become an MP as ‘b******s’.
Asked if she would ever run, Miss Davidson said: ‘No. I value my relationship and my health too much for it. I will not be a candidate. On a human level, the idea that I would have a child in Edinburgh and then immediately go down to London four days a week and leave it up here is offensive, actually offensive to me.’
Miss Davidson spoke for the first time about her past battles with depression, saying it was like a ‘smothering black blanket over my head’.
In a forthcoming book about women in the public eye, Miss Davidson tells how the death of a boy who lived in the same village as her sent her ‘into a total tailspin’ at the age of 17.
She wrote: ‘I started hurting myself: punching walls, cutting my stomach and arms with blades or broken glass, drinking far, far too much and becoming belligerent and angry, pushing people away. I was punishing myself and hating myself for it at the same time.’
After being diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of 18, she said her medication gave her ‘desperate, dark, terrible dreams’ where she ‘couldn’t tell what was real’, and she started having suicidal thoughts.
In her second year at university she ‘ became so afraid of sleep’ that she spent a whole term ‘living nocturnally’.
Miss Davidson described her battle with depression as ‘like a smothering black blanket over my head, cutting out the sky’.
‘It was heavy, constricting, suffocating. It took away hope and energy and life,’ she wrote.
She managed to conquer the illness by taking steps including regular exercise, moderating her drinking, and throwing away her pills. ‘I am still frightened of going back to the psychological place I once inhabited,’ she told the Sunday Times.
‘When I have periods of heightened anxiety, or I can feel the weight of the black blanket start to descend, I go back to what I know works for me: structure, exercise, forward momentum, measurable outcomes. Sometimes that’s hard in a job that’s 100 miles per hour.’
Miss Davidson announced she was expecting her first child with partner Jen Wilson in April.
She found out in March that an IVF course started the previous summer had been successful, announcing the news 12 weeks after the conception. The couple have been together since 2014.
Miss Davidson won support from across the political spectrum and from mental health charities for opening up about her battle with depression.
The Scottish Association for Mental Health praised her for ‘speaking so openly’ about the issue. SNP Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf said: ‘Well done Ruth for talking openly about your own mental health.’
Miss Davidson yesterday posted an extract from her book about mental health on Twitter.
She said: ‘I think it helps to talk about mental health. I know it would have helped me. Also, realising that a diagnosis isn’t a full stop, nor is it binary. It can be managed over time.
‘It can only help that folk from all walks of life speak about mental health – so much support out there, know that if you’re suffering you are not alone, you can talk to someone.’
Miss Davidson led the Scottish Conservatives into the 2016 Scottish election, when the party became the second largest party at Holyrood with 31 seats.
She also led the Scottish Tories to a renaissance at last year’s general election, securing 13 seats at Westminster in the party’s best performance since 1983.
‘It took away hope and energy’