I wrote a book of my experiences, Mad Girl (“It’s going to be an upbeat book about depression!” I told my editor cheerfully,
before promptly suffering another breakdown.) In the depths of despair once more, I started running, albeit briefly, just until I looked like I had been in the glare of a
nuclear bomb.

The plot had a few twists which I quite enjoyed as they added something a little extra to the story. We get to see the reason behind Barb and Jess’ friendship break down, and even get a look into the truth behind Barb’s mother who died during childbirth. It’s been like this since… well, for at least a year I would suppose, not that I had any sense of time passing, of life progressing or moving forward. Some days are gloopier than others. M: I think Mental Health Mates has played a massive part in people being able to talk openly about their mental health.I could have been infected by the surgeon who removed my appendix in 1989. I could be in a café and someone could sneeze and the sneeze could contain tiny globules of blood that could land on my eyeballs without me even knowing, your eyeballs being one of the most permeable parts of your body. And who was to say that the disease wouldn’t evolve and become airborne? Scientists, probably, but I wasn’t one of them and I didn’t know any and so off my imagination went, coming up with more and more elaborate ways for me to die before I had reached my thirteenth birthday. So they do basically know me, and what I’m like. They may not know every single secret in my head, or everything in my head. But I think that if people think they know you, that’s a good thing. Eventually, Bryony gathers the strength to challenge the role her aunt has forced on her and finds out some surprising news.

Christmas was coming and joy was everywhere but I couldn’t share in it. I helped to decorate the tree in the solemn belief that it was probably the last time I would ever do so. The smiling carol singers and the laughing Father Christmasses on the television seemed to make my misery more acute. Everyone’s happiness seemed obscene given what was going on in my head. I simply could not comprehend how normal life could continue when I felt so abnormal. About six months ago, I collapsed in the kitchen whilst making my daughter’s breakfast. I am not a person prone to fainting fits, so it took me by surprise, not least because it was accompanied by a sudden spike in my resting heart rate, my smart watch informing me it had gone from 52 beats per minute to 170 in what felt like a split second. I came to on the floor, with a butter knife in my hand. All I remember thinking was: thank God I wasn’t carving a roast. Taylor Hawkins, the prodigiously talented drummer with the Foo Fighters, died last week at the age of 50. He leaves behind a wife and three children. Though a cause of death has yet to be found, a toxicology report showed traces of 10 different substances in his body, including marijuana, antidepressants and opioids. Will signing up for an advanced meditation class be good for my pilot light, or might it be better, right now, to listen to a podcast about it while going for a walk? Will getting drunk help my pilot light? Will crawling into bed in the middle of the day and drawing the curtains help my pilot light? Whenever you want to do something, ask yourself: is this going to preserve my pilot light of self-esteem, or is it going to help blow it out? If it’s going to preserve it, then do it. If it’s going to blow it out, stay well away. Is beating myself up going to help my pilot light?Of course, a pandemic is challenging. Nobody can deny that. But the restrictions that come from it have meant that most people have been unable to usefully challenge themselves on a day-to-day basis. This means things that previously seemed like an annoyance can start to feel like an impossibility. You interviewed Prince Harry about his struggles with mental health for the Mad World podcast in 2017, and in the new book you say that you got stopped on the street by people who had heard it and appreciated what he had said. Does this still happen? Gordon, Bryony (24 April 2011). "How the other half lives". The Daily Telegraph. London . Retrieved 11 July 2014.

The truth of the matter is completely obscured: not only is there someone out there who knows what you are going through, but there is someone out there who is going through the same thing. I bumped into a friend at the weekend and she cried on me. Another friend told me she felt frozen in time, unable to move forward for fear of some other terrible pandemic-related news coming along to mess everything up. I was like, ‘You were wrong! You were part of a we, but you didn’t know it.’ But she created the we inside her books.My husband and I had to eat together, at the table. We had to spend time together that did not involve looking at our phones or the television. I had to stop overwhelming myself with work I didn’t need to do. I had to prioritise the things that gave value to my life – running with my friend Emma, reading, baking and cooking with my daughter. Strangely, the more I cooked, the less I binged. It was almost as if I was trying to take care of myself again.