Here are the answers to today's #askruby in full

1. @DEVILSLOUNGEBAR: @Rubywax are you coming back to Australia? Be great to see you again #AskRuby

Yes I want to go back so much to do Sane New World I won’t even need a plane I will canoe there using my hands as paddles.

2. @AdamWitcombe81: @Rubywax Do you find that you have a certain behaviour that lets you know you're going downhill or is it completely controlled now #askruby

I know I’m going downhill when I start counting how many people I think like me and I can only come up with 3. I then decide those 3 probably like me because either they’re stupid or they feel sorry for me. This is the beginning of my descent. It is not controlled.

3. @gary_enefer: @Rubywax how do you deal with rudeness or being blanked?I have depression and people get annoyed or ignore me if I can't do things their way.

You may be imagining it because when you are depressed it feels like the whole world is blanking you. When you’re well again and they blank you and you know it tell them to ‘fuck themselves’. They’ll probably like you more.

4. @SamiMtt: @Rubywax ab fab movie. Anytime soon?

When Jennifer Saunders awakes from her coma. Many of us have not heard from her and this probably means she’s thinking about it. She is a genius and must not be disturbed.

5. @Merlotburmese: @Rubywax #askruby You don't make much 
reference to meditation in your book, how much is it part of your
routine?

Mindfulness is based on meditation but adapted for the Western world. I use it to deal with stress, depression, an anti-dote to bombardment of bad news and all the digital viagra and as an exercise to be able to focus my attention on what I want it to focus on and not on what I don’t. 

6. @FiveFrogsBlog: @Rubywax hi Ruby. I'd love to know what fears you have. What scares you? #AskRuby 

A journalist once asked me that and I said, “Death” and she said “Any particular reason?” You can’t top that one either death or the answer.

Let's drop the myth that you can empty your mind - that only happens when you're dead. But rather than run from or repress the critical voices (and we all have them, not just one in four but all of us), you learn to watch your thoughts, rather than getting trapped by their demands. The greatest liberation of my life was learning that thoughts aren't facts; they come and go, some are heavy, some light but always changing and you don't have to cling onto any particular one if you choose not to. It's like having a radio on in another room, you can listen or not. Those of us with depression or even those who suffer from anxiety or stress, in order to avoid those accompanying critical thoughts, make ourselves incredibly busy (sometimes doing things that don't need to be done) but no matter how many triathlons you run, those thoughts will come back and bite you when you finally hang up your gym shoes, which you eventually will; we'll all have to hang up our gym shoes someday.

When I had my third child in 1993 the kindest act anyone ever did for me was give what I had a name; clinical depression. Finally I knew I wasn't crazy, I had a disease, which hopefully could be treated. Of course, I embraced medication even though I believe it's archaic but it's all we've got. Medication isn't foolproof, if it was, everyone on an anti-depressant would never have it again despite cramming themselves with multiple pills (I take so many I crunch when I walk). In the end you don't even need a trigger to fall back into depression. You can analyse as much as you want, when this beast jumps on your back, you're helpless. After the last bout, six years ago when I had a hard time leaving a chair for three months, fearful of everything, even the shower, I thought 'I'm going to take this seriously and research what's out there to help me get early warnings, to hear the pitter patter before the tsunami crashes over and breaks me, the way animals have their ears to the ground before an earthquake'. I wanted that. I decided I would learn what really goes on in the brain and return to school.

So I manically investigated the latest research on the brain and found out that mindfulness and cognitive therapy had the best results for preventing relapse. I chose mindfulness. I wish the choices were between mindfulness and knitting, it would have been easier to explain to friends but mindfulness won out. I was reticent about doing something that sounded like I'd have to put a bindhi on my head while sitting on a mountain, listening to sitar. But I said 'put the sarcasm aside Ruby; study this'.

I hunted down Mark Williams, the founder of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy who taught me an eight-week course. I thought this was sensational and I wanted to learn more on how it was affecting my brain. He said unfortunately I'd have to go to Oxford and get a masters; I have the drive of a rottweiler so entered those hallowed halls in 2010 and graduated last September. The other students were already professionals, serious grown up people who looked at me like they were having an encounter with a third kind but God dammit I was there. I learnt how the brain works, and how mindfulness can help us corral the multitude of voices that are the internal soundtrack to our busy lives.

What those of us with depression usually do when the voices are particularly critical is we give ourselves a hard time. We get angry at ourselves for having the voices so it's like sending in a second arrow. Pain is painful but suffering is optional. I know it seems counter-intuitive but only if you look directly into the eye of the storm, you'll know it's time to batten down the hatches, try and de-busy-fy.

Cancel the dinner parties, no one's going to care and you hate those people anyway. About a year ago I heard the early warnings: I'd wake up terrified so I'd start my day with an insane 'to do' list; 'buy lamp, get toothpaste, learn Spanish' with more urgency than Obama finding out if North Korea is hiding missiles. Because I could spot I was in trouble, I immediately cancelled everything, checked into a retreat that costs £29 a night, turned off the lights, didn't read or watch TV and after about four days the cortisol and adrenaline lowered because I didn't feed the animal. The depression passed; I dodged the bullets.

Mindfulness isn't for everyone, we all are as different as fingerprints and have to find our own way of breaking bad habits that can seriously damage our health. For me having a means of tuning into my mind, checking the weather conditions and spotting if a storm is coming has saved my life.

Here are this week's #AskRuby questions and answers in full:

1. Nikki Recherché: I have suffered anxiety for the last Four years now (I'm 28). After the first year I became master of that fear, and I'm sure I could do it again, however the fear that it will return again always lingers. is it worth being mindful of the fear or should I throw caution to the wind?

A: What is being master of your fear? Fear about fear is still fear. 
If you repress it it will leap up one day and kick your ass. In my 
opinion we are never masters of our emotions but you can study 
things like mindfulness or cognitive-based therapy and learn to live 
with it.

2. Horacia Stucki: Why don't you have your own show, or have I 
missed something? I miss seeing you on TV.

A: I don’t have my own show because I don’t have my own show 
you haven’t missed anything. Nothing lasts forever, I could cry or 
just move on and go to Oxford, which I did and am now touring a 
show in the UK based on my book, “Sane New World” 

3. Christine Furst: Dear Ruby, are you going to record an audio version of your book "Sane New World" as well? Here is why I ask this. I had a serious depression and I was not able to read for 33 month. Your book is actually the first book that I read after I was suddenly able to read again. During the time of "partial and temporary analfabetims" my main source of information was via "vocal and visual media" like video and podcasts. Maybe you already have an audio version. Maybe not. 

A: Funny you should ask. I’ve did the audio of my book in December I hope it comes to you soon. When I was depressed I couldn’t tell one letter from the next so I know it’s a bitch.

4. Bernadette Grannon: How can you better deal with what life 
throws at you when it feels relentless and you are single and 
dealing with everything alone ?

A: Use your friends as much as you can and if you don’t have some, make some they will help you deal with life; a boyfriend can’t always do that he makes it more difficult.

5. Jilly Fee: Dear Ruby how does a woman deal with menopause ?

A: I personally believe in most Western medicine otherwise I’d 
probably have died from influenza or small pox. So in this same 
spirit, if the replacements are out there and they stop my bones 
from drying up, I will take them and be thankful.

I remember doing my last tour, Out of Her Mind, a comedy partially about mental illness. Don't worry, I toured it for two years in mental institutions and made sure I got the inmates' 'seal of approval'; these were my people, my tribe, they knew I never spoke down to them and if you can make a schizophrenic laugh, you're a hit.

I usually got to stay overnight and hang out in the smoking room where you hear the greatest conversations on earth - no bullshit in there. In the second half of the show there would be a discussion and they asked fantastic questions like, "How do you get rid of a poltergeist in your radiator?"

After two years, the show went to 'normal theatres' whatever that means, all over the world and we would also have discussions. Most people wanted to know how to break the stigma. I'd usually suggest that we should learn from the gay movement. In my lifetime they went from pariahs to goddesses.

Perhaps we should do mental illness pride parades; borrow their old boas and high heels, (they must be in storage somewhere) and march to Parliament demanding the laws be changed as far as discrimination. Unless people 'come out,' nothing is going to change.

I remember an audience member, a very butch guy from Newcastle, stood up in the balcony and confessed that he'd been on anti-depressants for ten years and never told his wife. She was sitting next to him.

Then another guy in the audience said, "What's with you Americans always going on about your depression? I'm from Norway, why don't you do what we do?" I said, "What's that?" He said, "We jump off cliffs."

Now in my new show, Sane New World which is for everyone, not just the mentally ill but all of us, I'm getting a lot of questions on how to deal with the digital viagra we're all addicted to (I'm even answering spam these days) - especially, how do we help our kids manage this? How do we deal with all this in-coming bombardment of everything from fashion tips to terrorists? I say all this is here already, we created it, now how do we deal with ourselves as individuals? How do we find our own repose amongst it all, that's the question we need to answer first - and then we can pass it on to our kids.