Marian Keyes has spoken of the crippling depression that led her to the brink of suicide – and how her husband saved her at one of her darkest moments.
The best-selling author retraces her rollercoaster life on the BBC arts programme Imagine, from wild partying and alcoholism in her 20s to mental health struggles in her 40s.
Marian, 58, tells her life story with unflinching honesty, most movingly when she reveals how watching Come Dine With Me pulled her back from the brink.
Lifting the lid on her depression she reveals: “I never experienced anything like this. I stopped being able to sleep. I stopped being able to eat.
“I couldn’t have conversations. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital because I thought I’d feel safe there. But I felt even more frightened.”
The much-loved author recalls the moment she walked into their study to say goodbye to her husband Tony Haines while in the grip of suicidal thoughts.
She explains: “Every day was an enormous effort not to hurt myself. That went on for 18 months.
“There was one particular afternoon and I had it all planned.
“But I thought I better tell Tony, because it’s only fair, because he’s my husband, to tell them that this is it. So I went into the study, and I said, ‘Look it, I’m doing it now. I’ve run out of endurance.
“I haven’t got any more. And you’ve been lovely. And thank you and I love you.’ And he said, ‘OK, but look, first, why don’t we watch an episode of Come Dine with Me and we’ll see how you feel then’. And by the time it was over, I thought, ‘Actually I can’t, can I?’
“I love the way he didn’t start weeping or pleading or scolding me.
“Like diversion, you know, let’s look over here and try something else.”
Marian distinctly remembers the depression suddenly lifting one August day as autumn approached.
She said: “I realised it was going to be September the next day and I was so happy, I love autumn. And I really did think ‘I’m back’. It was just lovely.”
Her real-life struggles with depression and alcoholism have given the author an enormous well of empathy which has translated into darkly comic and confessional writing.
She remembers how she began writing a few months before being treated for alcoholism in her 20s in the Rutland centre.
Shortly afterwards she met Tony, who ended up giving up his own job to work as her personal assistant.
Marian explains: “Tony... was OK with me being the breadwinner. He wasn’t threatened by it, he was comfortable with it. But so many other people weren’t.”
And while her books have sold millions of copies worldwide, the literary phenomenon bristles at the term “chick-lit” and says she views it as an insult.
She says: “It’s almost a slur, and it matters to me because if you’re ashamed to pick up a book in a bookshop and buy it that’s a worry.
“Books about the lives of men are not diminished or demeaned in the same way.”
- Imagine: Marian Keyes will be shown on BBC One on Monday February 7 at 10.35pm.
If you or someone you know has been affected by the issues raised in this article please contact:
- Samaritans helpline 116 123
- Aware helpline 1800 80 48 48
- Pieta House on 1800 247 247
