Ruby Wax HARDtalk


Ruby Wax

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it was mortifying to give evidence. Now it's time HARDtalk.

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Welcome to HARDtalk. Mental illness is the invisible scourge of modern

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life and it comes with a stigma. To admit to depression or any other

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illness of the mind has been to risk being labelled as weak,

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self-indulgent or mad. My guess today was to change that. Ruby wax

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made her name as a comedian. Depression took her into

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neuroscience and psychotherapy. Mental illness raises difficult

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questions. Had she finally enters? Ruby wax, welcomed the HARDtalk. You

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have made one heck of a career shift from television star to student of

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the brain in neuroscience. Does amusing and entertaining people no

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longer matter to you? I'm still entertaining them but I am now

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talking about the brain. I think people now crave information and

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what could be more interesting than the ?3 thing that is sitting on your

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head. Brian Cox can study the stars but there is nothing more

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fascinating. Now I take it on tour and I explain the journey. Nobody

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else. Your admission, if I can put it that way is to try to explain to

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people how the brain works and how that can be linked to issues of

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mental illness. In an entertaining way. I had a show about mental

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illness which I have toured for seven years to various countries and

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that was a bit about mental illness. This one is about everybody's brain

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because I should tell you how that started. The other one. The other

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shows started because comic relief said they they could -- asked of the

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could take a photo for me. I thought it would be small but it ended up

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being a gigantic spoken -- poster which said it is this woman has

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mental illness, please help. I decided that I will make a show and

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make it look like it was my publicity poster. You literally

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became the poster woman for mental illness. You were mentally ill,

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let's get that out of the table now. You suffer all of your life from

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sometimes very severe depression. The thing about oppression and why

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it has a stigma is that you don't have it all the time. This is why

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people think that if it comes and goes, perked up, you can pull out of

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it. It is an episodic illness. Luckily, I was not working when I

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had it because that would be impossible. People say to me, does

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it have anything to do with working in show business? I say one in four.

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That is Mr Somalia, that is somebody in a mud hut. That is around the

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world. It is not about sadness. It is about a deadness. It is no

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movement or feeling, it is like being filled with cement. It is a

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disease of the brain. You have talked about the dead shark eyes in

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people who have depression. Do you think you can look at people and

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know pretty much was sure whether they are suffering from depression.

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Completely. That is why when I am with my people. Because we can see

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it, we don't have to endlessly say, I am fine when somebody asks you how

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you are. We know we are on the dark side. That is how you feel about

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people who share this affliction? You don't have to explain endlessly

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about why it is so difficult to get up. They know. Teachers should have

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photographs of ice in their -- eyes in their office silicon spotted in

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children. It is not pubic tea or sadness, it is an illness. You have

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ideas about how the public better deal with mental illness and

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depression. Before we go into that, I want to take you back as it seems

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to me what you have done by writing about it extensively in memoirs and

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a book that is specifically about the workings of the brain, what you

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have done is examine yourself very closely. I wonder when you look at

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your own life from the beginning until now. Do you feel that you

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understand yourself and you completely? This is what

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neurosciences. There is no self. We're not like a plane crash with a

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black box. There are many selves and everything is constantly changing.

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That is something that I would like the public to know. That is what

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I've learnt at university at Oxford. This mass is changing and we are not

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slaves to our genes. The fact that I went to Oxford and I did not

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graduate nursery school is more proof of neural plasticity than I

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can prove. I was not a bright kid and when you get older and curious,

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it is about curiosity rather than saying this is what I am. We love to

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label ourselves. I'm a victim or a bruiser. Everything is possible. You

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grow more information. That is the idea of the brain is played out

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there can be reshaped and moulded is a powerful one. You have stressed

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the ability to change and you say that we are not slaves to our genes

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but are we to some extent -- some extent slaves to our upbringing and

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environment and the way that in the early years our parents raise us. I

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have the ablest of madness. You can't top my parents. The Oscar

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winners. Why? Hysterical. Bringing the world with them to bring into

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our kitchen. Civilised people don't bring St Denis building! She wanted

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me to take a shower outside of the House. She and your father escaped

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before the Nazis took over Austria and they came to the midwest of the

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United States. You are a Midwestern girl but you are living with parents

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that never mentioned what went on. I did not know what they played mental

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volleyball with me. If they had explained with me. You can say

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people are traumatised from the war but they were not really, they got

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out early. I have met people from the Holocaust. They say, listen, if

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you are saying before you go and you're not traumatised, that will

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reflect in your personality after the war. To have both parents, we

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used to call them scud missiles because they would shoot over from

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America. I tried to get into Europe and my parents try to get out. May

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maybe the fearfulness they felt throughout their lives because of

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what they knew of what they had its gates -- skate and the loss of

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community and homeland, did that fearfulness mean that you never

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really felt their approval or affection all of? It could be that

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they were very jealous because I was a child of the 60s. Imagine, you are

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totally persecuted and then the party starts. I can imagine. My

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mother was very beautiful. She lost her heyday. She was running. I can

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imagine they were quite envious. I forgive them, for god sake. I know

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they were mentally ill and in those days there was no label. They decide

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your mother was having a change of life. For 87 years? That are so

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important in a sense my understanding of you. You say you

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now accept and know your parents were mentally ill. Did they make you

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a mentally ill? If you don't have the gene. If it is not expressed,

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you can have parents that are hailing from the trees, you won't

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get it. If you do have the gene lacking, I am making it simple, and

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there is an abusive parental upbringing. I would say, bingo,

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chances are big bets on the could happen. Trauma is something else.

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Depression certainly happens when it is a combination of upbringing and

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nurture and nature. You were a child that was insecure in the US, quite

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shy, did not have a whole lot of friends and yet something clicked

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with you. You found a way of reaching out to people and becoming

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popular. It seemed to revolve around making people laugh. That is a

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safety net. I always think that with my background I would have ended up

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a comedian or a serial killer. There was not a chance. Because I found

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this way of expressing myself I could relieve the poison and also

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entertain people because if you whine all of the time people will

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turn away. If you are funny, everything is acceptable. That is

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why I could do a show about mental illness and I did it for people in

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institutions and they accepted because I was honest about mine and

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they knew I was one of them. I want to get to reaching out to people who

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have mental illness in a moment, I am fascinated by this career that

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you got into an made a huge success of which was about comedy. You did

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some stand-up and you are in sitcoms and you became a major television

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star, doing interviews which were amusing and entertaining. You create

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a persona because your first one does not have a chance. Especially

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if the parents always say you are sad. Or who will marry you? These

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voices were sometimes, either you go under or you put the throttle into

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first gear. In the prove everybody wrong, my life was a act of revenge.

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You have the job of a rottweiler. Which is great. It also means you

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can crash into a wall. None of us know the tipping point. Would you

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have been a success if you are a happy person? Lyrup comedians with

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perfectly normal backgrounds. It is a rhythm. It is why somebody is a

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mathematician. Comedy is about hearing jazz rather than a steady

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beat. Didn't have to be unhappy to be a good comedian? It has to do

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with rhythm. You don't have to be unhappy. You are unhappy. At 16 I

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knew that I would not be prom queen but I knew that comedy would be why

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weigh in. I could get all of the attractive boys. That was my

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seduction. It worked when I came to England. I was a pathetic actress

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but I was funny. Do a funny when you not feeling low. With depression,

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when you feel low you are low and when you're okay you are however you

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are. You were a driven person. You call yourself a rottweiler. You have

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written things that suggest that you will not a nice person at the heart

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of your suggesting you have written things like for example, whatever

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your success, if I see someone with more than I have, I get the kick in

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the stomach, the stabbed in the heart. Envy, Korean security. Note,

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envy. The desire to be better and get more. We live in the kind of

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society because magazines hold these images, we live with the disease

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called entitlement. Now everyone thinks they have a shot. That is why

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you have people in the X factor with the talent of a toothpick. Everyone

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wants a shot at it. I don't think it was any different for me. Everybody

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goes was show business for some reason because you get a lot of

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money. I did not have more than anyone else. Over the edge as far as

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mental illness? No, in as far as deciding for yourself that while I

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have this career, it is actually doing the great damage, I have got

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to stop trying to entertain people and make them laugh. I need to

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reassess and what you decided to do was go to university and take the

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study of the brain very seriously. I want to see what made you change. I

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wanted to leave the party before the party left me. There is nothing more

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tragic than somebody in show business who is so addicted that

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they cling on for dear life and say, please make a documentary about my

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gallbladder. You did for a while. I do not want to go through difficult

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stuff, but you did for a while. That was my farewell to show business.

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You have to go that low before you can get off the heroin of being in

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television. So with sharks in a cage with Richard E Grant? It was

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humiliating. Some people don't mind eating bugs, or showing their

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insides inside of a house. That is when I knew this was going to

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happen. This is important, why on earth did Ruby Wax say 'yes' to

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Celebrity Shark Bait? Because I was so addicted to being famous, it

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becomes an addiction, you don't even have to do anything for a living.

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People say one line, you want a cup of tea? You want a lie down? You are

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infantilised. You haven't got the muscle to even do a job. You say it

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was the lowest of the low. That's not why I left. At a certain age you

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had better jump to the next invention of yourself. Unfortunately

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we live so long, it just goes on and on and on. I should be dead by now.

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You have to do something else to keep the brain going. You

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consciously thought you were going to change and reinvent yourself. And

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get smart. When I was young, because of the trauma, I couldn't remember

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things, so I didn't really read, I was terrible in school, because when

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you live with that kind of stress, the first thing to go is the memory.

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By the way kids should, teachers should know that when they push

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their kids for exams, the first thing that goes down is the memory.

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So this was a chance, I now knew I was liberated, I could go back and

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fill that void and suddenly become academic. You did. Reading your

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book, 'Sane New World', which interestingly has a lot of science,

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and you go into some detail about the way the brain works, the

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circuitry, the key chemicals. But it's funny. But it is very personal

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and it informs about the way the brain works. Going back to the

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plasticity and the flexibility of the brain, you seem to be saying

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that we all have the capacity to rewire ourselves, to change the way

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our brain works. I think a lot of people will be puzzled about how we

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could do that. Well, it's very difficult unless you put it in, kind

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of, simple, kind of, stick figures. Be as simple as you like because

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that works for me. There's a theory that states you come into the world

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and you're not hardwired, you don't necessarily have to go out the way

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you came in. That your experience and how you think about life

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actually changes, first of all, the neuron connections, which actually

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are who we are. If I do something over and over again my neurons

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connect. If I don't constantly change that I'm at the mercy of

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every time this happens I react that way. Some women say all men are

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bustards. "I'm always a victim." Yes, sweetheart, you went on a

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serial killer website, what did you expect? We have to see how stuck we

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are. So you change behaviours by? Becoming aware, watching how you

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think, not making a judgement and leaving a gap before you do your

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usual trigger or reaction. You start to watch it a little bit. So it

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gives you a chance to unwired those heavy habits. I think I'm getting

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this. You're saying by being very conscious of the way you respond to

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challenges, the way you apply... Without giving yourself a hard time.

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You can change the physiology of your brain. People around the world

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will be interested in this, you seem to be saying your approach is much

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more behavioural and changing the way you see things and think about

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things than it is about drugs. I am on drugs. Did you ever use drugs? Of

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course, I'm on antidepressants. You are? Of course. It is like saying to

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a diabetic, "Are you kidding, you're on insulin?!" It is a disease of the

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brain, if it was Alzheimer's, you wouldn't say, "Come on, you can

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remember what happened yesterday." You can't even do cognitive therapy

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and mindlessness if you're in a depressed state. When people say

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exercise, that's ridiculous, you're in a box and you can't move. "When

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I'm better I will find something preventative," I will think. The

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drugs and the therapies work together? Drugs don't work for

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everybody, therapy doesn't work for everybody, I'm putting all my eggs

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in... Not all in one basket, something is going to work. Here's a

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personal question, you describe the degree to which your parents and

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particularly your mother's behaviour did a lot to shape your early mental

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development. You've got kids of your own, how have you used what you now

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know about the brain and the mind to try to shape your kids in the best

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way? I can feel the urge and urges that maybe were passed from my

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mother or father, which are quite aggressive, I feel myself even

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wanting to strike them and the words they used to say, "How dare you, you

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know what I've given you". I can feel it, but because I understand

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it's not really me, it's a habit. It worked in the past because of my

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aggression making me knock down doors. But when I feel that urge I

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don't act on it, thoughts aren't facts. I realise it's a trait. But

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if I pull myself back and actually be kind to myself and realise that

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it is just a tape recording, you can't whip yourself because then

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you're stressed about stress. Do you think you're a good mother? I made

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sure my kids never saw me, when they were young, when I was seriously

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depressed, I didn't want them frightened. So my husband would say

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'mummy is on holiday', or making a documentary, I was lucky. They

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didn't have a fear of it. There are people who listen to you and your

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missionary efforts to get people to understand depression. And the

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brain. And the brain, all of our brains. All of us are suffering now.

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I understand that. It is not just people acknowledged as mentally ill,

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it is about everyone who one way or another have issues. Negative

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voices, the frenzy of not finding any breaks. Your belief that

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depression is such a pervasive thing. One in four. One in four, you

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said, that has actually frustrated and annoyed some people. Janet

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Street Porter. I know Janet. I don't know if you have discussed this with

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her, but not so long ago she wrote a powerful piece, not directed at you

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personally, but basically she said she is sick of the misery movement.

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"How many of these high-profile sufferers of mental illness are

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middle-class, highly successful and comfortably off?". 'There's

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something slightly repellent about this epidemic of middle-class

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breastbeating', she said. By saying that, do you know the highest

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suicide is for young men under 30? By putting even more shame on top of

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this, and she's from Yorkshire, tell her to knock on somebody's door, it

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will be their mother or their cousin, are they breastbeating or

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complaining? They're not even coming out of their house because someone

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put shame on it. Kids cutting themselves, highest suicide rate

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ever. I want to bring this back to you personally. You have spent so

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many years thinking about the brain and the way that our minds work and

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about how to try to repair minds that aren't functioning well. What

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about yourself? After all this talk of living in the moment, the

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mindfulness that you try and keep, are you really at peace with

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yourself now? No, there is no bliss. There is no phone call from Oprah.

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That doesn't exist, it's a fantasy. You can't get to a point where you

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can leave your mental illness behind? Your mind will never be

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empty, when it is, you're dead. There's all these fallacies about

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being in the present, you're not always meant to be in the present.

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If you were, you would be a head of lettuce. With all this incoming bad

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news and needing to be twerking as well as Miley Cyrus, being

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beautiful, where there's an onslaught, we can find our own

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breaks. We don't stay in that break, but we have to know our tipping

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point. I can't be Bill Gates, I'm not going to kill myself for it. We

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have to say, this is where I'm going to rest. When you rest, you've got

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more energy to go back in again, a kid shouldn't be up all night

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studying, he should pull back for 20 minutes, sit there, eat something

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but enjoy it. Listen to music but listen to it. I hope we eventually

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go to survival of the wisest rather than survival of the fittest. That's

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a nice thought to end on. Ruby Wax, thank you very much for being on

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HARDtalk. Thank you. Thank you very much.

:23:45.:24:10.

As you may well have seen in news headlines, there are a number of

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severe flood warnings already in

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