As a child of the 1980s I grew up watching Ruby Wax on television with a mixture of fascination and fear.
Her toe-curling interviews with celebrities raised a chuckle and effectively punctured her subject's untouchable aura, but always left me with the impression of her as a particularly terrifying individual.
Swallowing my trepidation, I had to interview La Wax last year and found her to be quieter and more thoughtful than her TV persona but also chatty and warm and with a distinctly softer accent.
Like many larger-than-life entertainers, throughout her comedic antics she was fighting a battle with depression. What most impresses about Wax is her decision to use her profile to campaign to raise awareness of and funding for depression and mental health issues. Her one-woman show, Losing It, toured the country last year and last night her latest documentary, Ruby Wax's Mad Confessions, featured interviews with MPs discussing their own mental ill health.
In this climate when so many are clinging to sanity amid the pressures of debt, insecure employment, rising costs and with a Cabinet of millionaires who treat the economy like an amusing board game, the threat to the nation's mental wellbeing could not be greater.
Mental illness is not something which affects a small group of society. We must all work to maintain good mental health. None of us is immune from stress, anxiety and exhaustion; awareness helps us recognise what is at the manageable end of the spectrum and when to seek help. Advocates such as Wax are working to close the chasm between "us and them".
There was a time, not so long ago, when discussing cancer was taboo. Hopefully one day, thanks to personalities like Wax, mental health will undergo the same transformation.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article