InterviewBlog | Mental Health In conversation with Katharine Welby-Roberts
Mental Health In conversation with Katharine Welby-Roberts
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 26.09.18
KATHARINE WELBY-ROBERTS writes and speaks about issues around mental and emotional health and how the church can beter serve people with long-term suffering. Her first book, I Thought There Would be Cake, is a raw, personal and often funny exploration of how to navigate depression and anxiety and allow yourself to be loved. Katharine is a wife, a mother and a dog owner. Jo Swinney, a fellow depression survivor, spent an afternoon with her by the fire, putting the world to rights.
js Did you first hit mental health issues as a child? In your book you write about having a group of school friends inexplicably turn on you. Was that an initial cause, do you think?
Looking back, I was just a really sensitive child. I don’t think there was any particular cause, and that can be the thing about clinical depression: there isn’t a cause necessarily, other than having a malfunctioning brain on a biological level. Events like having my friends ostracise me certainly exacerbated my sensitivity. We also moved a lot and I never really worked out who I was. I think I would always have got depression though, and the depression exaggerated those experiences.
When I was a teenager I used to have this world in my head. I’d never feel things. I’d completely shut down. I’d live in this fantasy world, having a conversation with someone but in my head being elsewhere. The only reason that no one
