Ruby's Room: Ruby Wax talks to Jo Brand about her experiences.

Hello and welcome to Joe's

room

. I've taken over Ruby's house this week to bring you my own web show about mental health issues, so today it's all about you, today, I mean, we know each other pretty well, but there's kind of There's Quite a few gaps that I haven't filled in in my head about you, so I'm going to go back to my days as a psychiatric nurse and because I worked in the psychiatric emergency clinic, so what we were doing when people came in from the street, we didn't know about Adam , we were just doing what's called a kind of mental status examination, which is what I mean, we didn't do the proper examination, the doctors did, but it was kind of a loose story what we would normally start with is just talking a little bit. about your family in your early life you are an only child, only child, raised in America, yes, yes, at two years old, your immigrants were Austrian, they were expelled from Austria.

So my mom had Nazi stamped on her passport when I found it and what was your mom like? My mother would approach people on the street and say: Am I crazy? Would you say I'm crazy? She's crazy so you know if I suggest it we go back to where I guess people went back to the way they once reported her, if they had psychiatric nurses then they would know they could see that my mother was sick. It wouldn't have been like that because when she was, can I just? skip ahead, yeah, when she was in her last days, you know, before she went into a coma, I took her to a psychiatrist, I told her, this is not for you, mom, this is not for you, this is for dad, because my dad had had a big heart attack, so I took her and she said it was fine as long as it wasn't me, because I'm not crazy, so I took her to the psychiatrist.

She was talking about my father and then she turned to my mother and said: Mrs. Cera, how old are you? and my mother was smoking a pen at that time because her mind was going and she said: I may have been wrong for about 53 years so she quietly wrote him a prescription for Prozac and we sprinkled it on his food. she. I don't know how that was legal, but we did it and she became the sweetest woman in the world. How did your father do? Should we take Kate with that? What was his prey? He was too and I didn't have the same way, no, no, completely. otherwise true, how was he crazy?

He really liked punishment. Your time, yes, but when I learned to talk, everyone liked me before I could talk. You know, because it was kind of a cute thing they put on the mantelpiece, but when I started talking. They didn't like it, so when I went off center, what do you think they didn't like that you talked because it irritated them or I said no, no, you know, because they saw them and didn't hear them. Kind of a Victorian approach, yeah, so I started. yelling shut up and you know when I learned and then he took the belt when unhappiness or anxiety or whatever came up we come to a point yes, I start to marry this same thing yes, when I started to realize that my parents were weird, You know? because for me it's perfectly normal to go to the coast, yes, to be chased down the street on Saturdays and to have my hair pulled out, you know, to be thrown out of a speeding car.

I thought everyone understood that, so when I went to high school I realized that. My parents were like the Munsters you mention. I'm 13 on Thursday. I knew something was strange. What was your parents' marriage like? Did they get along? No, they hated each other and then they used me as a volleyball. My mother went crazy. he's like a dictator, you know, I thought that was bad, but your father is worse and then my father drove your mother crazy, when you're 50 you'll be crazy; It sounds like the beginning of a comedy routine. m I'm holding back because you know I can make this funny in a second, you know what I mean, so it's really hard because I got funny because it was so out of character, of course, you know that and I think that happens to a certain extent. mode. not at all, so as you grew up, what kind of feelings were you aware of having that you found difficult to deal with?

I had these days and they would take me to the hospital and tell me what's wrong because I went dark, you know? and it was like your eyes glazed over and I went to bed and I thought I was high or I had a temperature but I had these episodes where I would go into hibernation so they always thought I was glandular or something else they were trying to find. it's so physical yeah he tries so we didn't know what it was yeah yeah but then you found out it was something different and when someone said you know you might be clinically depressed I screamed because they finally gave me a label.

Was I prescribed any medication? Yes, I took medication immediately. You know, you start Prozac because he was a baby, so yeah, but my hair fell out. I didn't know it was Prozac, but one in a hundred thousand, so I went that and then. and then it became more sophisticated and it happened separately, of course, now it's very sophisticated and I'm into things I don't even know the name of, yeah, yeah, I know in terms of your depression and your own stuff, all that. time now and you feel good when I get excited then I have depression again how fast it happens very slowly it approaches you like there are triggers but I can't see the triggers do you think your depression is entirely some kind of physicochemical thing?

I think when you're young and there's too much hostility and too many punitive voices, I think you start the changes in your brain chemistry and you're very quick, you know everyone has a propensity for that. I mean my Edie. He'll say well sometimes he says oh I didn't understand this one you know I'll have one and he didn't understand it because it came very slowly and then you hear the voices you know they're not outside but they tell you They're not good and then they come very quickly so There is no time to think, but they are not a real voice, now your head, but it is unity, yes, yes, so they come very loud.

Do you see someone regularly checking in on how you're feeling? and if you know what you see, it might be a good idea, but there will also be someone who is a depression specialist. It seems to me that you need a proper re-evaluation of things and be attached to someone who is a depression specialist and from there, thank you dr. Jill, all right, how much do I owe you just for a cigarette? Okay, mmm, I'm having a good time. Many thanks to Ruby for baring her soul and giving me T. I hope you found this helpful.

I think it's important for you to realize that you are not alone in this. and let everyone discover that the black dog descends upon them from time to time. See you. I'm going to a healthier part of town.