Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
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response led to her writing her new book – The Unwelcome Visitor: Depression and How I Survive It. She says: “I’d been travelling to the North East to visit my sister Debra. But by the time we reached the Angel of the North I knew my Visitor was on his way.
As always happens, I get a metallic taste in my mouth and a tingling in my palms and all the colour goes.
“I went to bed, woke up next morning and he was still there. I picked up my phone and, instinctively, started to film myself.
“I felt stripped bare and vulnerable, but I felt I had to show how it felt. I knew many people would already understand but hoped it might help others learn. But I never expected the reaction to my posts. More than 1.5 million saw them and thousands sent me heartbreaking messages.
“I was overwhelmed. People were saying ‘You’ve helped me understand my son’s illness at last’ or ‘I’ve never really had much empathy before but now I want to learn about depression.’
“That’s what made me burst into tears... and determined to write this book to try to help others.”
Fans who have followed Denise’s TV career will be shocked to learn depression blighted her TV success on Spender, Byker Grove and Soldier,
Soldier. In tomorrow’s Mirror we reveal how her attempts to ease the pain led to her self-medicating with drink.
At the height of her fame as Corrie barmaid Natalie Horrocks she was on the path to alcoholism. Denise, who was married to Benidorm star Tim Healy for 24 years, tells how she was “engulfed by a suicidal, pitch-black depression” after the birth of their first son. Her mum took her to the GP “practically catatonic” but she finally explained: “I am so depressed.”
Denise says: “Without a flicker of sympathy, she said, ‘Well, I had five children, dear, and I just didn’t have time to get depressed.’ I still can’t quite believe it but her words are burned on my psyche.
“Thirty years ago, no one that I could relate to was talking about depression. Even doctors understand. I have almost had diagnose my illness over the y
“I was told it had to be some that happened to me, not j chemical chaos of having a bab massive hormonal imbalanc which no one looked at for yea
“Clinical depression is a cr isolating and occasionally te illness. Yet those who have somehow have to PROVE we h
“You wouldn’t say to someo a severe physical illness, ‘Well had that for a month now and y fine – so come on, get out of b
“That’s what makes it one cruellest diseases there is. W