This lovely man is the best listener ever. And Ruby, I can’t get enough of her.

...also when Ruby talks about "mental health wards"and the ones she was on...well she was on private expensive hospitals and not the normal mental health ward and she also did not experience sectioning or forced medciation presumsbly. She really has no idea how most of the mental health system worls and what makes it traumatic which seems to think is in the other patients when its actually many of the staff and the whole environment and its complete unsuitability for providing a therapeutic atmosphere. In my expereince there may well be the odd scary person who acts out and is intimidating but mostly its not and its just people who are in dsitress but who have few outlets or support whilst in there and very little space and input from various therapies or basic OT.There is literally nothing in the form of support groups or inpatient therapies offered,things like mindfulness or occupational therapy or exercise room etc. I appreciate Ruby in that she is spreading some knowledge about how our minds work and how stress effects us and our nervous system and how to regulate it with mindfulness for example but otherwise she has no idea what is on offer to the moejority of people and she still insists on using these terms like schizophrenia,personality disorders,etc as if they exist independently froma persons expereince and are the sum total of who a person is and also are not responses to traumatic expereinces and coping mechnisms like addcition has been more and more understood as a response to self medicating pain. Also these places she talks about that are on the National health are very rare indeed and are only available to a tiny section of people and are by far representative of the moajority of mental health care. It really is very confusing with Ruby as in many ways she enlightens the conversation on mental health and at the same time brings more misinformation and stigma by talking about these disorders as if they are real discrete "illnesses"rooted simply in brain pathology. Its a shame she is never talking to other activist in the mental health field including some other psychiatrists and psychologists and those who have forst hand expereince of going thorugh the system and have been greatly harmed by it and who would challenge her and offer alternative and well researched and thought out responses to many of the things she fails to recognise or acknowledge. I do not see her as the "poster girl"for mental illness and think this is unfair to all those who have been damaged by mental health services and who are stuck on low incomes or in other dire situations because they do not have the reosurces and access she has.She hardly represents the maojoirty of people who deal with MH servics. She has alot to offer in explaining the brain and neurobiology to an audience who might not know this stuff but otherwise her own experiences of expensive stays in rehab or MH units are far from typiccal and her use of stigmatising language and labels like personality disorder and schizophrenics is also harmful. I really wish she could do a panel with others who work in the system and who have survived it and listen to what they have to say and her expereinces are limited and extremely privileged

I'm so sorry but he/the interviewer is not in the moment. Ruby thank you for carrying the interview through

One of the moajor things I disagree with Ruby on is the fact that she sees depression and other diagnosis as very clear cut "disorders"and thinks there may well be blood tests or other forms of diagnosis that use biological markers other than now simply a subjective assessment based on an interview or interaction and a list of symptoms. Yes I believe in suffering from depression as being distinct from grief or other forms of "sadness"or pain due to life events. BUt I agree also with this other guy who said how much we over diagnose depression and pass people off with pills when they are having symptoms due to life circumstances and traumas and stresses which happened when younger or intergenerational trauma. Ruby has been "lucky"in the sense she has had access to expensive rehabs and therapists and as she said she was given a cocktail of drugs which were worked out in a better way then how most are prescribed antidepressants. The lack of access to other forms of treatment and therapy with or without pills is one of the biggest problems and also seeing people in the context of the life experiences. There maybe some people who are simply helped by popping a pill in the way Ruby joked about with her mother but I honestly have seen very few people just respond like this as if its a cure all for all their ills. I am sure "antidepressants"help some people but they are rarely a sole soltution but Ruby so ignores other factors like social and stress factors. To say depression exists outside of any environmental factors to me just doesn't ring true except in some exceptions when it maybe genetic or hormonal factors. When she describes her mother or relatives as insane with the cleaning etc I do find very stigmatising because that sounds like OCD to me and a coping mechanism for extreme anxiety and trauma.It sounds to me like Rubys family and lineage have got tramsgenerational trauma running through their family line which she seems to ignore completely. She briefly mentions epigenetics but only briefly. She also uses terms like narcissism and neurosis to describe these comedians but this is also very value laden judgements and ignores entirely the fact that what gets called narcissim or neurosis are responses to early life expereinces and traumas. She seems to ignore the role of trauma almost competely unlike Gabor Mate the doctor who has done extensive work in addcition and trauma and who sees trauma as central to many illnesses incluing what is labelled mental illness and also citing the societies we live ina as the cause of many of our anxieties and stresses and unhealthy ways of living that are considered "normal"

A little bit awkward at times, but Ruby has so much compassion and honesty the audience and interviewer were unprepared. It could be an English thing though. I think she found this one tough going.