Archbishop of Canterbury opens up about 'black dog' as he reveals he suffers from depressive episodes
Justin Welby has opened up about suffering with a "black dog" as he reveals for the first time that he has suffered with depressive episodes.
The Archbishop of Canterbury revealed that he has only recognised that he experiences the bouts of feeling "hopeless", which have not been formally diagnosed, within the past year.
Asked in an interview for GQ Magazine whether he had been depressed, he said: "I think if you had asked me a year ago I'd have said no, and ten years ago I'd have said absolutely not.
"But what was that phrase Churchill used? 'Black dog'. There is an element of that. I think as I am getting older I am realising it does come from time to time.
"I have those moments - you would know this - when objectively everything is fine, but you think you are, beyond description, hopeless."
The Archbishop's daughter, Katharine Welby-Roberts, has written about her own struggle with mental illness, anxiety, and suicidal feelings.
She was diagnosed with depression at the age of 19, and also suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome. Welby described her as "brilliant".
Earlier this year she said that she had been unable to turn to her father for help when she had suicidal thoughts.
“At that stage, my relationship with my parents wasn’t very close. There is only so much you can do when your daughter isn’t talking to you. They weren’t aware of how dark my mental health had got," she told the Sunday Times.
He also told interviewer Alastair Campbell, who has campaigned about mental health issues, that he had "never seen anyone" about his own depressive episodes, though he had help with relation to post-traumatic stress disorder following his work in conflict zones.
"At the moment [depression] seems to pass," he said.
While Canon of Coventry Cathedral between 2002 and 2007 he worked in Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, and met with religious and political leaders in Israel and Palestine.
Welby and his wife Caroline lost their baby daughter Johanna in a car crash in 1983, an experience which he later described as a "dark time".
Both his mother Jane and her former husband Gavin Welby, who the Archbishop believed to be his father until last year, have suffered from alcoholism.
His mother, now Lady Williams of Elvel, has been in recovery since 1968.
Following an investigation the Telegraph last year revealed that his biological father was in fact Sir Anthony Montague Browne, Winston Churchill's last private secretary.
The Archbishop also spoke about the experience of having two alcoholic parents, saying that he remembered "really bad moments" from his childhood.
"It is unbelievably chaotic, frightening, disturbing, living with alcoholism. It is terrifying.
"At the same time you are conflicted because you love them and you wish they were not like that," he said.
He added that he still thinks of Gavin Welby as his father.
