The one lesson I’ve learned from life
Candice Brown
CANDICE, 36, won The Great British
Bake Off in 2016. a former PE teacher, she has written two cookery books and runs The Green Man pub in Eversholt, Bedfordshire. Last year she split from her husband of nearly two years, Liam Macauley.
TAKE EACH DAY, EACH HOUR, AS IT COMES
Seven years ago, I suffered a very traumatic incident in hospital, which led to PTSD, depression and dreadful insomnia. Sometimes, I almost had to be dragged out of bed in the morning.
I was ashamed and felt like a fraud. I was teaching Pe in a school specialneeds department in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, and I got the best out of the children by constantly telling them how well they were doing in life. But I wasn’t practising what I preached.
I entered Bake Off to try to prove my illnesses didn’t define me. Though I won, I was under such intense social media scrutiny that in some ways it added to my problems.
It took a nine-day Himalayan trek for the breast-cancer charity CoppaFeel! in 2019 to really change my mindset. I was walking with inspiring people who’d had the disease or lost a relative to it, and I found myself reflecting on who I was.
Later that year, I spoke about my mental health on singer Frankie Bridge’s Open Mind podcast, and people said my honesty had helped them cope with their own issues, or those of a loved one.
now I’m more willing to accept that it doesn’t matter that I might not be anyone’s idea of perfection. I’ll have good days and bad days — days when I’ll eat a tub of ice cream for dinner — and that’s fine. Online criticism can still cut deep, but I try to laugh it off. People accuse me of pouting too much, but that’s just what my face does when I’m concentrating.
It was hard running a pub in lockdown, but I told myself: ‘There’s nothing you can do about the situation. Just take each day, or even hour, as it comes.’
I was so busy when The Green Man reopened for indoor dining in May. I posted a picture of me looking like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards, and explained that I was managing well on one level, but was also anxious and trying to adjust to new medication, too.
Remember, there’s only one you and, even if you need a little help from time to time, that you is wonderful.