It was through writing that Irish author Marian Keyes, 60, was finally able to express her own tumultuous battle with mental health.
During an intense four-year depressive episode from 2008 to 2012, Keyes’ biggest struggle was with suicidal thoughts. In the same period, she wrote her 13th novel The Mystery Of Mercy Close (2012), featuring Helen Walsh, a female private investigator who also struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts.
Over a Zoom call from her home in Dublin, Ireland, Keyes says: “I did find it therapeutic-ish. I was tired of trying to explain the weirdness of how I felt, and I couldn’t find any other people who felt like I did, though subsequently I have.
“I’ve spent time in a psychiatric hospital and even then, it wasn’t so much the depression that people didn’t get as it was the fear.”
