I’m lying here in Byron Bay freezing to death in the rainforest after doing a show last night where the sound system turned my voice into Darth Vader half way through but like a trooper I played on because that’s what you do on a stage when all around you is chaos; play on and think to yourself  “Fuck it.”  How I got here was I was booked to go to Sydney to do a talk on the brain and the what it can do to you if you don’t whip it back into it’s cage, which lasted an hour (I have never gone that far to do a talk so this is a record).  I thought it might be stupid to just get on a plane for 27 hours do a hours talk and fly back. Call me crazy but I thought: That’s nuts. So I’ve wanted to come To Byron Bay for 20 years and they just had a book festival so they said I could come and do some of my show and sell some books. 

I’ve imaged Byron to be some hippie enclave where all the shops are beach huts, there’s drumming in the town square and everyone’s happy and beautiful living in a palmed paradise. It is stunning; everywhere you look is a perfect thousand mile white beach with surfers riding on wave after curling wave and the scenery is emerald green like “Jungle Book” but the town has done what all artist towns do; sell out.  One rainbow, tie die, dream-catcher, plastic Buddha, surf shop after another and my beloved hippies burnt to a crisp in the brain department. There’s one wandering down the street carrying a stuffed dog in an afro wig and his pants around his ankles, there’s another playing a folk song on one note with a back-up flute player imitating dolphin sounds dressed pirate-ish.  I went to a tourist site called Crystal Palace where you pay 30 dollars to wander around landscaped gardens dotted with crystals; not tiny ones I’m talking the size of a big walrus which in the gift shop go for (You’ll be happy to know there was a 30% sale)  only $7,000.  If you couldn’t afford that, luckily there were cheaper dream-catchers and your compulsive plastic fairy or Buddha.   It’s good to know the dream is still alive, though it’s probably better if you’re stoned.  I have also always dreamt of seeing a whale and was told there were hundreds of them podding or whatever they do. I go to the lighthouse and see a fin.  I’m trying again today so I’ll get back to you.

Don’t get me wrong: Cortisol and adrenaline are what you need to move ahead in this world or you’d never get out of bed, but the problem is we have no way of turning them off because these days there will always be another email, always another disaster, always something you want and can’t get. We never feel satisfied because there’s 20,000 miles of mall tempting you to get more.  We can’t stop striving and trying to keep up with the next guy.  

Magazines make you crazy to be a stick insect size 2, to be the most fit, to be a winner like Richard Branson. We can’t have it all, and all of us have a tipping point but we’re not aware of it so we keep pushing. This is seen as ambition and a great thing to have until we burn out or go crazy. By the way I wouldn’t say Richard Branson is mentally adjusted or Bill Gates who I once interviewed. He was like a block of cement with dandruff.  We have no brakes only breakdowns. But don’t be hard on yourself, all of us have this problem. Evolution did not prepare us for the 21st century, we just don’t have the bandwidth - and that’s why I started to study mindfulness.

I haven’t had a serious bout of depression for 5 years; I used to get it about every 3 years, so I’m long overdue, just waiting for the familiar abusive thoughts and high hair-raising fears from nothing visible. (If the devil had Tourette’s that’s what it would sound like). 

About 5 years ago I had the deepest and longest episode of my life. I suppose when you’re younger you’re more resilient so back then I would just take to my bed a few days at a time in state of hibernation; awake but feeling nothing, not sad just frozen (like your body is filled with Novocain), unable to lift an arm without feeling exhausted. 

With depression if you look in the mirror your eyes look like cold shark eyes.  (I only wish teachers were trained to spot those eyes - they would immediately be able to pick out who was just in a bad mood and who was mentally in trouble, saving lives and heartache). I had many bouts every few years as a child but doctors couldn’t figure out what I had, though I had every blood test and x-ray known to man. While I was growing up I used to watch my mother clean walls and furniture multiple times a day while screaming was diagnosed as ‘having a turn.’ Back then no one thought some had mental illness unless you were literally setting your hair on fire. 

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. Using drugs is like a tree has got some disease; to cure it you burn the whole forest down. But I would take anything, no matter the side effects just to never visit that country again. 

Medication isn’t foolproof, if it was, everyone on an anti-depressant would never become ill 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 analyze as much as you want, but 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 3 months, fearful of everything, even the shower, I would have to pep talk myself out of the chair, “Come on Ruby you can do it just take one step that’s it ok, now back to the chair.”

That’s when 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,"

While I was LA doing my show, I had a walk-in day each Monday where the public could come in for free (an almost unknown word there) and have the a-list (this time not celebrities) of neuroscientists and other experts to give the latest information about what works and what’s coming in the future as far as treatments.  We had Andrew Leuchter, director of the Laboratory of Brain, Behavior, and Pharmacology and Senior Research Scientist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. (In other words a big gun)  He uses brain-imaging techniques to examine brain function and predict which treatments are most likely to benefit individual patients by  measuring brain waves so he can read immediately if a drug is going to be effective or not. Now you won’t have to sit through those agonizing months waiting if a drug is going to work and if it doesn’t, start again.

We also had the head of NAMI (national alliance of mental health) Sharon Dunas (an angel) who informed everyone where to get free help, not just for those with mental illness but for their families and friends. There were also free classes to learn about drugs and what therapy does. She told us that when her daughter went to University (she had been the brightest in her class before that) she suddenly refused to eat and mentally shattered. Sharon said she made a deal with herself, if her daughter lived she would build a centre where anyone who needed help could get it free. She also organizes yearly walks (Something I always wanted to do in the UK) where about 5,000 people march to bring awareness as far as stigma. It’s exactly what the gays did and look where it’s got them; free at last, free at last.

With those heavy hitters in the room, it was as if the floodgates of questions we all want answered opened: how far away is the cure, why the stigma, what really helps drugs or therapy? The reactions in the audience were that people loved it; they were so grateful in a country that seems to have everything yet still can’t find help or even admit to needing it. And boy do they need it.