Champion of mind matters still susceptible to depression

Alastair Campbell had a breakdown in his late 20s and has learned strategies for dealing with recurring depression, writes SYLVIA THOMPSON

‘I HAD A FULL-ON breakdown when I was 28. It was a mental explosion. It was like the insides of my head were smashing into 1,000 different directions,” says Alastair Campbell, former press secretary and later director of communications and strategy when Tony Blair was British prime minister.

A consummate political analyst and activist, Campbell continues to have a high profile as a public speaker, sports and political commentator, not least because he was previously political editor and chief political columnist for the Daily Mirror. He also wrote the book, The Blair Years, which chronicle the period from 1994-2003.

But Campbell is also well known for speaking publicly and writing about his nervous breakdown in the mid-1980s and later bouts of depression. His novel, All in The Mind, and his BBC2 documentary, Cracking Up, won considerable praise from mental health charities for helping break down taboos surrounding the condition.

He received Mind Champion of the Year award in 2009 and is an ambassador for the Time to Change campaign to encourage people to talk more openly about mental illness.

The cynic might say that Campbell has even been able to turn his weaknesses into successes but, speaking on the phone from London last week, I was immediately struck by his awareness that it’s okay for people like him – and Stephen Fry and Ruby Wax – to talk about their mental health problems while ordinary people continue to suffer due to the stigma attached to mental illness.

“I had a problem with alcohol – a lot of my journalism colleagues at the time said that I wasn’t drinking any more than anyone else, but I was probably drinking on more occasions – and I had to confront that. And then I had to face depression and I still get bouts of depression,” he explains.

One of Campbell's strategies for living is exercise. He took up running in 2002 at 45 and did the London Marathon for the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research. He chose the charity because his best friend and former Mirrorcolleague, John Merritt, died of leukaemia in 1992 and Merritt's daughter died from the same disease six years later when she was nine.

He has since switched to triathlon and is now captain of the Leukaemia Research triathlon team. “I do some physical exercise every day. Once I finish today, I’ll go out on the bike for a couple of hours. Other days, I run for 30 to 40 minutes. I feel odd if I don’t exercise every day,” he says.

“When I was drinking, I wasn’t doing any exercise and I was a definite workaholic. I still get a lot of satisfaction from work and I have a great capacity for work, but now I think more about the need for rest, exercise and I take more care of relationships.”

Quoting a recent talk he gave on happiness at Birmingham University, he says, “Work gives you a great sense of achievement, but for most of us, the real achievement in life is to have family and friends. When I had my breakdown, I was living with my partner, Fiona Millar, and it was very hard for her because I was doing that thing, ‘Everybody else is mad and not me’. She put up with me and stood by me.

"Now, I count my blessings. I have a very supportive partner, a few very good friends and, at that time, a boss who gave me back my old job in the Mirror.

“I also had a psychiatrist who really made me realise that I had to stop drinking. And I had the same GP for 30 years and another psychiatrist who I still see when I get depression. You’re halfway there if you’ve got family, friends and good doctors.”

Campbell says that he wrote the novel,. All in the Mind, as a more creative expression of what it's like to have depression.

“When I’m feeling okay, I’m so relieved that I don’t even want to think about it, but when I’m depressed, everything is such an incredible effort – even speaking is an effort. I hate taking medication for it but every now and again I will,” he explains.

He says that speaking so openly about depression hasn’t blighted his career. “The press has been easy on me about it – and I get tough press on other issues. It’s been entirely positive for me. It hasn’t hindered my career – I’ve a profile, lots of professional opportunities – but I can see how it would for other people. A lot of mental illness can be hidden but feeling like you have to hide it, makes it even worse,” he says.

Campbell is coming to Ireland next month to speak at an international conference on addiction, mental health and recovery. So, do people talk to him a lot about mental health problems?

“Yes, people want to tell me their stories and ask advice and when I made the film and wrote the book there was a real increase in that, especially now that we are all so accessible with Twitter,” he says.

“But, I usually say, ‘This is where I’ve been and this is what I’ve got out of it’. I’m not a professional, but I do campaign against the stigma and isolation. People feel ashamed that they can’t cope but that just makes the bad feelings even worse.

“We need to be as open about mental illness as we are about physical illness. The problem now is that really serious issues like mental illness are not glamorous or sexy enough to be written about.

“I do some work with Rethink who tell me that to get coverage of mental illness, they have to get famous people and that in itself, reinforces the stigma.

“We need to think about it just like physical illness – some days you are good and other days you are bad. Well, the mind is the same. I think the statistic that one in four of us will be mentally ill at some stage in our lives is a conservative estimate.”

Alastair Campbell is the guest speaker at a conference on addiction and recovery that runs from Thursday, November 10th, to Saturday, November 12th, at the Ritz Carlton Hotel, Powerscourt, Enniskerry, Co Wicklow. The conference is organised by Toranfield House, a behavioural health and addiction centre based in Enniskerry. See toranfieldhouse.com, e-mail Jackie@toranfield house.com or phone 01-2762300 for details.