Here are the answers in full to last week's #AskRuby

1. How do/did your friends (who don't suffer) support you during 
your depression?
via @_0rladox

I didn’t tell them. I was too ashamed to mention it, I thought they’d think, “What a wanker she has so much and now complains she can’t lift herself from the bed.” I would agree with them but I was mentally incapacitated.

2. What are your thoughts on behavioral addictions not being included in DSM IV? 
via @Scrimmers
Just to enlighten the confused, all psychiatric diagnoses are categorized by the DSM IV meaning Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder and this is the most recent edition. Not that long ago the DSM said being gay was a pathology; imagine them all on anti-gay meds; there goes Broadway musicals out the window. 

We all have a little bit of everything and everyone one of us is as different as a fingerprint so how can you categorize us when our minds go wrong? We aren’t like cans of Campbell Soup where you can say, “She’s chicken noodle and he’s a minestrone.” (I hope you see where I’m going with this). 

3. Is humour the best medicine?

It’s a good one but not as good as xanax. 

4. As crisis counsellors, we manage vicarious trauma -how can we get employers to offer support without viewing it as weak? 
via @0dds0cks

Give them the shock of their life or send them into a war zone and ask them for support again, this time they’ll listen.

5. Any chance of you doing a show in NYC? 
@JustaFreckles

I would fly there without a plane but who can compete with “Book of Mormons?” 

6. Any plans to reunite with the "Girls on Top" ladies?
via @molodyko 

Are you out of your mind? If you saw that show now you would never speak to me again, it does not age well. It was like having a slumber party with crazy people on TV. Now they’d make you rehearse and actually learn lines, back then we just showed up and made each other laugh.

This was my opening speech today Dec 6th as I hosted the Women In Film And Television Awards.  I got a good response and I think I make my point:

"It’s such an honour to be asked to host the Sky Women in Film and Television awards 2013.  It’s great to see all of you young and old not so many old but that’s the world we live in.  On that front I’m under no illusion about the rules of this trade. When I was doing my  show about 10 years ago , I discovered a slight line here when I smiled, so I immediately cut the cords and set myself adrift from the shores of television.

I knew that someday the day would arrive when I’d be replaced by someone younger and more beautiful, in my case it was Alan Yentob.  He carries the baton now of doing interview documentaries and I wish him well.  Which reminds me of a joke.  Recently I had a tattoo of David Dimbleby on my right inner thigh and a scorpion on the inside of my left inner thigh and I asked my friend if she thought they were accurate depictions. I asked who did she think the face was on my left  inner thigh she said she had no idea. I asked who she thought was on my right inner thigh.  She said she had no idea but she said the one in the middle is defiantly Alan Yentob.  Anyway enough of him, really enough of him. I did interviews and shows for 25, which is a miracle for a brunette.  I got to do documentaries interviewing extrodinary, riveting and original people and then I interviewed celebrities . Suddenly low and behold reality TV became popular and I thought ok why not try it once. On the escalator of life I finally hit the basement when I made a career double suicide pact with Richard E. Grant by doing a show I hope you missed called Celebrity Shark Bait.  Here’s a clue; the sharks weren’t the celebrities.  We did it for the money and a chance to see to Cape Town.. Besides us on this show, there was also a girl (forgot name) from some soap (forgot name) who wore very low cut tops to show off her white, milky breasts.  They filmed her most days and Richard and I were told they didn’t need us, so we told estate agents we were looking for a house to buy and snooped into people’s homes. Meanwhile, Milky Breasts was now being filmed (I’m not making this up) in a freezer where they hang dead pigs from hooks all around her while she stood freezing in her bikini.  They told her the point of this was to prepare her for the cold water. P.S We were going to wear dry suits for the dive so there was no point for the pig scene. She asked us if we thought she was being exploited.

The day came for the shark dive; large person of lesbian persuasion gave us instructions on the do’s and don’ts of shark diving. She had ‘Shark Lady’ printed on her red jacket, She tossed large chunks of tuna into the sea to get blood in the water. She said “its perfectly alright I’ve done it for 25 years it’s perfectly safe.” then we noticed she only had two fingers.  It turns out Milky Breasts wouldn’t get in the water – she was too scared – her breasts would have dragged her to the bottom. So they threw in Richard and I.  We’re at the bottom of the cage and suddenly something about 20 feet long glided at us, looked at us with dead eyes and swam away disappointed looking for A-list celebrities. It was at this point I set a sail from show business. I always know when to leave a party before the party leaves me.

If you don’t move on, it becomes a  pathetic sight when you see a presenter, fingernails  in the commissioner’s ankle begging” I’ll do anything, do a documentary on my gall bladder operation please. I’ll do anything you you want me to eat my mother in law? Toss her on the barbeque. “ or even worse I’ll work with Janet Street Porter?  That’s a joke I love Janet.

So that’s why I decided at that point I needed to sweep together some of my brain cells before they completely left the building, so I thought I’d go back to school and study neuroscience. I crashed a course filled with 21 year olds.  I felt like a freak so I told them I had a skin disease that one where you age really fast? 

Then they let me go out with them until they figured out, I really was old.  In the end they liked me cause I was the one with a car.

 Also around this time I suddenly became poster girl for mental illness. I wouldn’t have told anyone I was outed by Comic Relief. They give some of their funds to mental health charities and asked if they could take my photo cause they knew that something wasn’t right. I said 'Ok' and thought it was going to be a tiny photo of me somewhere. But no they put a gigantic poster of me all over London of me with ‘This Woman has Mental Illness please help her.’

So I wrote a show to make it seem like that was my publicity poster

I wrote it and for 2 years I toured mental institutions. I think they loved me they weren’t always facing front. The bi-polars gave me reviews saying, “I laughed I cried.” If you can make a schizophrenic laugh you’re half way to Broadway.

After UCL I really wanted to understand how our brains work because everything we are in is this 3 pound piece of meat the size of a big mac. I always believe in shopping for the best so I went to Oxford for the last 2 years to find out how we run this thing called us. I just graduated in September which wouldn’t have happened if I still was on TV so I have to thank those who made it impossible for me to keep going, they know who they are.  I just wrote a book called Sane New World about the brain and how to use it which is in your party bag right now.  It’s next to 50 shades of grey. She deals with the lower half of people and I deal with the upper half.

And irony of ironies about 2 months ago I received an email which is luring me back to the glamorous shores of televisions. The email offered me the chance to become the face of vaginal dryness.

I’m going to read the email out.

Dear Penny (she is my P.A)

Hope you’re well. I just wanted make contact with you regarding an upcoming project which may be of interest to Ruby Wax.  

One of my clients is Dr Wolff – the German cosmetics and medical company, we’re campaigning for a moisturising cream aimed at (pre) menopausal women suffering from vaginal dryness.

We’re hosting a round-table event  to discuss issues around this topic including the effects of vaginal dryness on sex and relationships. I wanted to see if Ruby would be interested in speaking at/attending the event at all? We’d also love to have her on board to provide a quote for the press release, and a possible radio day.

Do let me know if this sounds of interest at all, and we can discuss it in more detail.

Best wishes,