Glorious Rock Bottom: 'A shocking story told with heart and hope. You won't be able to put it down.' Dolly Alderton

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For a moment I stopped breathing. I was certain that my heart was trying to escape from my chest. It wanted to burst through my ribcage and out on to the floor of the shop where it would inevitably become infected with some hideous disease." What day is it?’ I asked him, as I vacantly emptied cereal into a bowl for my daughter. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

Before we talk about books on depression, lets talk mental health—specifically, poor mental health—is an issue that is crucial to get people talking about more openly. Do you see talking about your own personal experiences as at the heart of that? Let Down Your Hair is a modern day reimagining of the beloved fairy tale Rapunzel. This book revolves around social media in the modern world, and the main character’s journey as she dev So they do basically know me, and what I’m like. They may not know every single secret in my head, or everything in my head. But I think that if people think they know you, that’s a good thing. And so while I hate feeling like this – or not feeling, as perhaps I should say – there is also a voice in my head telling me that this state of clinical depression is inevitable given the circumstances, a small voice that gives me a tiny sense of optimism that has always been missing from previous depressive episodes.It is heartbreaking to see such a lovely boy so sad and changed so much, and to see my bubbly daughter changed into a rag. What can we do? We need urgent help.” I have met Meghan a few times and I think if you put any family under the microscope, things will come up. I find the media stories are based on a style of journalism that is on its way out, or I thought was on its way out: a nasty pitching of two women against each other who I think get on really well. Like me, our boiler is old, clapped out and very erratic. I need to protect it from draughts to keep its pilot light going. Now, boilers only work when the pilot light is on, and humans aren’t that different, really. When Alastair Campbell left Clift’s studio, he kept his make-up on. “My cab driver asked me about it. I then did my whole boxing session with it still on.” Steve Wallington went for a break during the shoot. “A man walked past,” says Clift, “and said: ‘What’s on your face?’ ‘My most difficult thoughts,’ Steve said, and this guy just opened up, about how he’d lost his wife, about being a father, and how hard it was, as a man, to find people to talk to.” Bryony Gordon

It has always been a sign of strength and dignity to keep it all inside, and our Royal family have always been the embodiment of that, God bless them. But Prince Harry just redefined strength and dignity for a new generation. I was 30 when I found the first bald spot on my head. I'm not saying I handled it well but I can't imagine how I'd have coped with the news as a teenage girl. Like the main character of Bryony Gordon's novel, my hair was something that people always commented on. I wasn't at Rapunzel levels but it was the thing I got the most compliments for. Cut to a few years later and it's gone along with my eyelashes and eyebrows. My 16-year-old self would never have left the house. I am totally in favour of alopecia awareness in literature. We need more stories that show it doesn't have to be the end of the world. That's what Let Your Hair Down was meant to do.My history of alcoholism and addiction meant I could pass the eating off as something harmless by comparison. Did it matter that I was throwing myself at cheese and onion crisps given some of the states I used to find myself in? If that was the worst I was doing, then shouldn’t I just go easy on myself?

I have since discovered that A-fib is remarkably common. Last week, the British Heart Foundation released data that showed there had been an “astonishing” 50 per cent rise in cases in 10 years, up to 1.5 million. The increase is thought to be because of improved awareness of the condition, due to the huge risks of blood clot attached to it. But the BHF estimates that 270,000 people remain undiagnosed and unaware they have A-fib. You haven’t touched alcohol for 16 months, after an addict ion to it. How has day-to-day life changed?There’s that special kind of laughter when you start off crying, but then somebody says something to make you laugh at the same time— What do you think about the way that Meghan Markle’s entry into the royal family has played out in the media, especially the apparent fractures between her and Kate? I could have been infected by the surgeon who removed my appendix in 1989. I could be in a café and someone could sneeze and the sneeze could contain tiny globules of blood that could land on my eyeballs without me even knowing, your eyeballs being one of the most permeable parts of your body. And who was to say that the disease wouldn’t evolve and become airborne? Scientists, probably, but I wasn’t one of them and I didn’t know any and so off my imagination went, coming up with more and more elaborate ways for me to die before I had reached my thirteenth birthday.

I bumped into a friend at the weekend and she cried on me. Another friend told me she felt frozen in time, unable to move forward for fear of some other terrible pandemic-related news coming along to mess everything up. Introducing the YA fiction debut from bestselling author and journalist Bryony Gordon in a modern twist on Rapunzel and one girl's quest to find a different sort of happy ever after. But sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. It was all coming out in the wash. Jess was forensic about pinpointing what had happened in the days leading up to a binge. Had I taken too much on, had I had an argument with someone, was I about to get my period? Once we could see what emotions were driving the bingeing, she could put tactics in place to prevent me from using food as a coping mechanism. I had needs and, as much as I cringed at the therapy speak, I had to meet them in a healthy way. We often receive calls from those in similar circumstances because CAMHS is so stretched,” she says. “As hard as it is when you have been told to wait a long time for the help that a child needs, we would encourage this grandmother to maintain a relationship with CAMHS. It is important to keep a log of all the interactions you have with CAMHS and other services, so that agreed actions can be documented and followed up.” If this all sounds bleak, then I have good news. As a person who has a history of depression, I find quite a bit of comfort in being able to make sense of why I feel like this. In my time writing about mental health, and working on my own head, I have learnt that depression is a strange survival mechanism, a way of alerting you that your life is not working as it is.Matt’s book came out in 2015, and I was just starting to write about my own mental illness at the time, and I felt that the book gave me the courage to talk about my own stuff. I keep it on my bedside table. You know how they have the Bible in all hotel room drawers? Well they should have Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive. Sorcha is pretty obviously vicariously living through Barb. She is getting her to do things that only appeal to her and that Barb has no clue about such as getting her an appointment with a woman called Anna G who Sorcha seems to look up to. What is more, is that Sorcha also doesn't really know what she is doing and is a complete novice at everything brand-management based. This is accentuated by them going to visit a brand that Sorcha set up an appointment with, but knowing nothing about what their building looked like, or what their values were, which led to a bit of embarrassment.