A Place In The Sun presenter Leah Charles-King says despite desperately trying to get help for her bipolar disorder, doctors said it was all in her head.
The Channel 4 presenter has spoken candidly about her mental health as she claimed her GP 'shunned' her multiple times when she reached out for help. Leah, who joined A Place In The Sun in 2021, previously praised the show for changing her life after a series of serious mental health lows.
The TV personality also started her career in music as part of the R&B pop girl band Kleshay in the 90s. "I went to my GP and they said it was basically all in my head," Leah told Express.co.uk.
"'There's no way you can be bipolar, you're too articulate. You're too self-aware', they said. 'You're too aware of your feelings and emotions and the state that you're in.'
"They told me: 'You can't be bipolar, because people with bipolar obviously are crazy - and you don't appear to be crazy right now. "You're just depressed - keep taking these antidepressants'," she continued.
Despite being told by her doctor that she wasn't bipolar, Leah knew something wasn't right due to the intensity of her emotions.
"Before, I was depressed and I didn't want to get out of bed, couldn't get dressed. I couldn't even brush my teeth, I couldn't change my clothes, I couldn't even make a meal," she recalled.
Leah noticed similarities between her own symptoms, and the symptoms in an EastEnders storyline featuring Stacey Slater's bipolar diagnosis. The TV personality was hardly sleeping or eating, but still felt full of energy and wanted to go on nights out constantly which was out of character for her.
"I wasn't somebody who ever was a binge drinker or went on benders or stayed out all night and left my partner to go across town at one o'clock in the morning to have a party on the other side of London - like, that's not my vibe.
"[Yet] suddenly I was doing all these things and felt compelled to, and no one else was keeping up with me," she exclaimed.
She went back to her GP armed with the evidence and urged: "I know you're saying that I'm depressed, and before that made sense, but now it doesn't make sense because my symptoms aren't the same. I'm doing all these things that are so out of my character."
Despite several return visits to the doctor's office, she says she was "shunned away" every time, and all the while her symptoms were "just getting worse and worse and worse".
Things came to a head when she found herself on the brink of jumping out of an eighth-storey window to end her struggle. "I was so impulsive within this mania and I was just so fed up of all the mental and physical pain and anguish that a mental illness like bipolar could bring that I'd had enough," she recalled.
Despite her struggle to get a diagnosis from her GP, Leah is now an ambassador for the national mental health charity Bipolar UK, which is the only national charity dedicated to supporting people affected by bipolar.
If you or someone you know has been affected by this story, Samaritans (116 123) operates a 24-hour service available every day of the year. Alternatively, you can find more information on the Samaritans website here: https://www.samaritans.org/
A Place in the Sun airs on Channel 4 every weekday from 3pm.
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