Work saved Emma Thompson from depression

Actress Emma Thompson says work saved her from depression during difficult times.

The Oscar winner, 50, has opened up about her life and how she began suffering from depression.

“I think my first bout of that was when I was doing Me and My Girl, funnily enough,” the Telegraph quoted her, as saying on Radio 4′’s Desert Island Discs.

Thompson went on: “I really didn”t change my clothes or answer the phone, but went into the theatre every night and was cheerful and sang the Lambeth Walk.

“That’’s what actors do. But I think that was my first bout with an actual clinical depression.”

When asked about a five-year period during the 1990s, when she starred in seven films, was nominated for five Academy Awards and split with her husband Kenneth Branagh, she replied: “I don”t think I did stay sane, actually. It was tough. I think I probably should have sought professional help long before I actually did, for all sorts of reasons.

“Yes, divorce, ghastly, painful business but also fame, in some ways a ghastly, painful business as well. You become slightly more public property in a way that’’s not necessarily always comfortable.”

According to Thompson, scripting the movie adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, wherein she starred alongside Wise and Kate Winslet, helped her beat another period of severe depression when her first marriage broke down.

Thompson explained: “The only thing I could do was write. I used to crawl from the bedroom to the computer and just sit and write, and then I was alright, because I was not present.

“Sense and Sensibility really saved me from going under, I think, in a very nasty way.”

She said acting as “an escape from myself, which I”m ashamed to say I enjoy very much.”

Asked what she was escaping, Thompson said: “Oh, you know, the voices in my head. The constant “must do better”, “must try harder” plus “you”re too fat and not really a very good mother”.

“That punitive conscience is part of my psychiatric problem.”