Comedian Ruby Wax chats to Ray D'Arcy about the illness and recovery that inspired her new book, and Irish dates for the show I'm Not as Well as I Thought I Was. Listen back above.
Childhood trauma finally caught up with Ruby Wax, but she resisted using "the t-word" for as long as she could. The comedian sank into an unexpected bout of depression after working on a project about solutions to modern-day stress.
Joining Ray D’Arcy on the line from London, Ruby tells Ray about gaining a new perspective on traumatic events in her early life and how it's inspired her latest book I'm Not as Well as I Thought I Was.
Ruby also stars in the theatre show based on the book, coming to Ireland in October.
Checking in to a mental health clinic was not on Ruby Wax's radar when it happened in 2022. After years of raising awareness and writing a book about the pursuit mental well-being, Ruby says she hit a wall:
"I ended up in a mental institution. Not a joke. It did happen. I hadn’t had mental illness for 12 years."
Ruby says she resisted the treatment at first, because it didn’t fit with her self-image. "They said ‘You have to have therapy’ - and I don’t do therapy - because they said ‘You have a trauma’. And I said trauma is an Oprah word – I don’t do trauma."
Ruby worked with a specialist in Eye Movement De-sensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), a mental health treatment for reducing distress associated with traumatic memories. She says the therapist first laid down some conditions:
"She made me tell my story, you know, work with me. But she said ‘You can’t be funny.’ Because I had made my family life hilarious. That was my comedy material. Because my parents were so warped, that I didn’t even have to edit it – it just went straight on the page."
Stripped of the ability to mine dark humour from her childhood, Ruby went on an "internal journey" and rediscovered long-buried childhood experiences. She came face-to-face with the fact that her parents (who had fled the horrors of the Holocaust) had monitored her every move and effectively imprisoned her at times:
"I found out, which I wasn't aware of, that I was locked in my house, where I grew up in Evanston. Not locked, literally – I went to school and I was allowed to see certain people, but everything was checked. You know, they were refugees. They brought the war into our kitchen in Evanston. I guess they were fearful. I didn’t realise it wasn’t normal to not leave your house."
Ruby doesn’t hold back in describing the cruelties she experienced at the hands of her parents. She says she craved their approval, but it never came:
"I think all kids who grow up with narcissistic parents want to get in the headlights somewhere. They wanted me to be a reflection of who they were, but they loved me until I could speak, and then I was a great disappointment. Also, she was beautiful and I wasn’t; so I was a disappointment."
Comedy became an outlet for revenge, Ruby says. She jokes about how one of her teachers said she reminded her of a serial killer – an assessment Ruby doesn’t entirely disagree with, except that she chose words instead of violence:
"There were some famous murders around at the time – the Mendoza Brothers – except just me. Because I had that killer tendency, but then I turned it into comedy. That’s I think a little bit of what comedy is sometimes. It’s machine gun fire."
Having managed her mental health for decades, Ruby was caught unawares in 2022. Her busy schedule distracted her from the looming crisis, but stress or no stress, her illness was unavoidable, she explains:
"This time, because I was so busy, I didn't notice. I should have seen the signs. I didn’t get ill because of these journeys, I got ill because, you know, it’s that time of the decade. It decides when it’s going to hit you, not you deciding when to have it."
Ruby says there’s not a whole lot she can do to completely avoid depression. Mindfulness helps to an extent, but she accepts that there is an underlying condition that she needs help with:
"I’ve been at the peak of my career, in the summer, where everything’s perfect and you still get it. So there’s no rhyme or reason. It’s like getting cancer or diabetes or anything. Something goes wrong, there’s a glitch and it’s not my fault."
Ruby talks about advances in the treatment of depression and her hopes that more resources will be ploughed into much-needed neuroscience research. She talks about her own studies in cognitive therapy at Oxford University, where one of her professors taught her the therapeutic value of self-compassion:
"He said the very fact that you can sit and listen to your brain – which is a horror show most days - that’s self compassion. If you can listen to yourself and not kick your own ass, because you’re actually allowing the thoughts to go through. You’re not getting carried away in stories. So the narcissism stops - that ego stops."
I'm Not as Well as I Thought I Was by Ruby Wax is published by Penguin Life. Ruby is performing the show of the same name in Ireland 17th – 22nd October.
If you’ve been affected by anything in this interview, go here for information on helplines.
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