Denise Welch reveals she ‘self medicated with drink and drugs’ during her ‘worst episode of severe depression’ – and recalls ‘shaking and crying’ moments after TV appearance

Denise Welch shared a heartfelt message to mark World Mental Health Day as she began her own battle with depression and anxiety on Thursday.

The 66-year-old Loose Women presenter posted a clip of herself from 1999 singing Petula Clark’s Downtown on Celebrity Stars in their Eyes.

Alongside the clip, Denise told how she was in the grip of one of the worst depressive episodes she had ever experienced, which left her ‘self-medicating with drink and drugs’ and ‘shaking and crying’ shortly after the TV appearance.

She said: ‘Today is World Mental Health Day. Not everyone ‘looks depressed’. I was in the throes of one of my worst clinical episodes of major depression ever when I recorded this.

‘I was self-medicating with drink and drugs, had been up all night with debilitating anxiety and fell into my mother’s arms backstage, shaking and crying.

In 2021, Denise revealed that she is still struggling with her ‘endogenous’ depression, but her last major episode was in 2019 (pictured in 2024)

“The ability to mask is incredible. If someone says he needs help, don’t say, “but he looks fine.”

Denise has previously reflected on her ‘terrifying’ post-natal depression about which her frontman son Matty Healy wrote a song in 1975.

Denise described how she didn’t look ‘ruddy’ during pregnancy but had panic attacks after giving birth, couldn’t breastfeed and tried to climb out of the window of her flat.

She told Good Morning Britain in 2023: ‘Medics couldn’t see anything was wrong at the time. I was a typical thriving mom, loving every minute of it.

‘Five days later I had a panic attack and breastfeeding had stopped. I went from full breastfeeding breasts to nothing.

‘At the time I was told that this only happens when a partner or baby dies. That day my mother found me trying to crawl out of the window.’

She added: “It was honestly the most terrifying thing. People don’t want to die, they want to stop the pain.

“If I didn’t have my family, I don’t know where I would be. Matty grew up with mom who was sick and when he was older he wrote She Lays Down.

Alongside the clip, Denise opened up about how she was in the middle of one of the worst depressive episodes she had ever experienced.

Denise and Matt Healy, 34, and her second and last child Louis Healy, 23, an actor. She shares them with ex-husband Tim Healy

‘I still get emotional when I think about it. I lay down on the floor and prayed for something that would help me love my child. Depression takes away the ability to love.”

Denise then tearfully explained that her “darkest moments were at the beginning,” when she was trying to understand postpartum depression.

She said: ‘The main thing was that I couldn’t love my child and that does affect me. When you have this baby that you wanted so much, and you have no love.

‘Because what depression does is it depresses every single emotion, so it doesn’t pursue happiness, it strives for normality – it pursues the ability to be happy, to be sad, to care, to be jealous , to feel anger, because with depression, you feel nothing. 2:58

“And that’s why you feel like life can’t be worth living unless you have a family like mine that says every day, ‘You will get better.'”

In 2021, she revealed that she is still dealing with her ‘endogenous’ depression, but her last major episode was in 2019.

For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritan branch, see www.samaritans.org for details.