Ruby Wax (2023) I’m Not as Well as I Thought I Was

I like Ruby Wax. I don’t know her, of course. I only know her projection on telly. She admits she had it good. She was the go-to person for the BBC to make quirky documentaries, which gave her the chance to meet other eccentrics. Then she hit 50. The unwritten rule was she was a woman and therefore too old. She admits she was hurt  and jealous of her replacement, no, not Myriam Margolyes—that came late, like Bradley Walsh, that’s never off the telly and even getting gigs for his son—we’re talking about him of the raised eyebrow, who’s name I’ve forgotten.

Wax carved another career out of her first careers. She went to Oxford. Got a Master’s degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to understand it. She wrote million-seller books. She became the poster person for understanding and fixing broken minds.

She felt a familiar feeling. A familiar tale of broken families and bad parenting that fuck you up. And she compares depression with possession.

‘The word for prayer in Hebrew is “fill up”.’

The reader knows she succeeds. This is how she structures her success, with dairy entries and interpretations’ of interpretations taken from 2022.  

Her bucket list of wellness includes:

‘A month-long silent retreat as Spirit Rock.’

‘Humpbacks: I thought, “Throw yourself into the deep end, Ruby, and go swimming with the biggest whales you can find.”’

‘A Refugee Camp’.

‘A Christian Monastery.’

Wax also finds herself sectioned and suicidal in a mental-health hospital. Funnily enough, it’s quite funny. Ruth usually is. She admits it’s a form of self-defence. If we don’t hear from her in the future that means she’s lost it. Read on.