The Natural Health Service: What the Great Outdoors Can Do for Your Mind by Isabel Hardman

Why We Get the Wrong Politicians by Isabel Hardman

CRAIG

Hello, and welcome to Desperately Seeking Wisdom, with me, Craig Oliver. This is a podcast for people who want to live a simpler, more fulfilled life, but aren’t sure how to get there. A little while back I hit the buffers, and I decided to look for a different, better way of living. So, for Desperately Seeking Wisdom, I’ve been talking to some wise people. People who’ve managed to change or have had change forced upon them. What was the wisdom that got them through it? What would they say that would help others, who like me, were struggling?

This week's guest is the award-winning journalist, Isabel Hardman. Isabel faced an extreme trauma in her life, and later had a public breakdown while covering the Conservative Party conference. I wanted to understand how working in the sometimes brutal world of Westminster politics, she'd found a way not just to cope, but to thrive. She's big on nature as a healing power, calling her book The Natural Health Service. I spoke to her in St James Park behind Number 10 Downing Street, somewhere both of us found solace when we were in the thick of it.

CRAIG

OK, well, we should probably paint a picture of everybody. We’re actually sitting in St James’s Park and there are a couple of squirrels coming up and some pigeons, and lots of nice trees and stuff, look -

ISABEL

It’s lovely.

CRAIG

St James’s Park was actually a place for me when I was in Number 10 that I used to sort of fall out the back of Number 10 and if I needed to sort of like, chill out or get myself together, which sort of fits in with a lot of the way that you think about things.

ISABEL

Yeah, it - I mean, it is a good place to bump into someone from Number 10 but they're never in a good mood when you see them, I have to say, ‘cos they are trying to think through some problem as they do a ferocious circuit before heading back in. But for me, um, when I started to come back to Parliament from sick leave, I still wasn't very well. In fact, looking back, I came back too early and, er, one of the things I did to try to keep myself going during, you know, what are very long and intense political days, was I’d just come for a walk here for like, 15 minutes and try to notice the nature around me.

I mean, it is an extraordinary part of the city, isn't it, with pelicans, and I got really into the red ducks that live here and all the wildflowers that grow on the banks of the, um, of the lake and so on, and it just sort of, you know, it does reset your mind, doesn't it? And you go back to work feeling a little bit more alert, feeling like you've sort of almost kind of flushed the toilet in your mind, I think, is a, a really lovely way of putting it. [That’s a good analogy] You’ve got rid of all the bad thoughts and you’re just ready for, you know, a load more back at your desk. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

Exactly, well, look, I can see some ducks landing and quacking and stuff. [Yeah] But look, we'll get into all the nature stuff, um, in detail in a bit, but I just sort of thought we’d talk a little bit - we're actually recording this in the middle of conference season, which for a political journalist or anybody involved in politics, conferences are sort of notoriously stressful, [Mm-hm] busy, you're eating loads of crap food, probably drinking too much, not getting enough sleep, but also having to cover a lot of ground in terms of stories and that kind of thing. [Yeah] How’s conference season going for you this year?

ISABEL

Well, I'm dry for conference season, so there's no drinking too much, and I have actually been trying to eat really healthily as well, which is a real challenge as you know ‘cos everything is greasy, um, in conference, but it just helps me keep going a bit better, um, than the sort of windowless room where you're eating cardboard fringe sandwiches, and so on. But just done Labour Conference, which was really interesting.

Um, for me, it's the first conference season I've actually looked forward to since, um, 2015. So it was 2016 that I had my breakdown at the Tory Party conference, and I think lots of people listening who’ve have either been to Tories or not, would probably say, ‘Well, it's quite a normal thing to have a breakdown at a Conservative Party Conference’, you know, ‘That would drive anyone to the edge’ but I'd been getting sick for, um, probably about eight months by that point and I just hadn't been looking after myself.

And I was pushing myself and pushing myself, thinking that working harder and harder would make me get better, and you know what? Sometimes it does help to distract you but also, how many people really think that it's a good idea to run a marathon a broken leg? You know, we're sitting here while the London Marathon is being set up, actually. There aren't gonna be any runners with injuries to their bodies as serious as the injury I had to my mind, and yet I was trying to push myself through, you know, the work equivalent of that 26.2 miles that people are gonna be doing at the weekend.

CRAIG

I, it - I’ve listened to you - a couple of your books. I was listening to them on audiobook this week and you describe how you know, you've been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but you're clear that, you know, you don't wanna be - say about that and that's totally understandable [Mm] and I respect that, but do you just wanna explain why you don't want to talk about that, but you do want to talk about the realities of, um…?

ISABEL

Yeah, I mean, there's a number of reasons. One is that the cause of post-traumatic stress disorder is a trauma, and so to talk about it is to relive the trauma. Um, and it's best to do that in a sort of therapeutic setting, rather than in public where people might say unhelpful, perhaps even unkind things and you know, it's, it’s not that long ago that actually happened, it was 2016, so there's still a lot of kind of healing that needs to be done, and I'd, I'd rather pay someone to listen to me talking about it, than have the sort of general public listening.

But beyond that, because it's a specific event, it’s not actually that helpful to other people. I mean, there's a sort of, I think there's a voyeurism from some people [Yeah] who kind of want to know the gory details, um, but actually, most people haven't been through what I went through. A lot more people have been through mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder caused by lots of different things, or depression or schizophrenia, and I think that's the more helpful thing actually, is not for me to sort of prolong my mental struggles by talking about what I went through, but actually to talk about the, the symptoms of the illness I contracted as a result of that, which so many people have, and which lots of people don't get adequate treatment for, or really know how to sort of manage in terms of the sort of day to day living side of things.

CRAIG

So how much of a gap was there between the event and the breakdown? And sort of quite interested in that [Mm] ‘cos quite a lot of people that I talk to, that it's sometimes delayed reaction. [Yeah] Was that the case with you?

ISABEL

Yeah, I think it's actually part of the diagnosis that the symptoms carry on for a prolonged period after the bad thing happens. So, you know, bad things happen to all of us in life. Um, some of us are sort of luckier or unluckier than others, and all of us have a response to that, which, you know, if it's a bereavement, for instance, which wasn't in my case what happened, er, but it was a bereavement, you have grief. That's not a mental illness, that's an entirely natural reaction.

But it's if your symptoms of not being able to cope with everyday life are prolonged for months, years, that's when you've actually got something that, that is a disorder that needs help, um, in a, in a sort of a, a therapeutic setting. Um, and so for me, it was, um, a sort of series of traumatic events that, that culminated in s- in something really bad happening at the start of 2016, um, and, er, amazingly, um, and I, I'm still amazed every time I say this, er, the day after the worst night of my life, I actually got up early, cycled into work and covered the budget.

Um, and just pretended to my colleagues, like nothing had happened. And, you know, we all do that with like, small personal problems, um, but I think I was in a state of shock, which then continued for quite a few months, until I realised that I was then actually not coping and I wasn't concentrating at work. Er, I found it really hard to focus when I was in the House of Commons press gallery, which again, some people listening might say, ‘Well, God, they're so boring. No wonder you couldn't focus’ but I'd been doing this job for like, six years by this point, and I absolutely loved being a political journalist.

And to not be able to follow arguments, er, to react sort of angrily to, to very small events, that wasn't who I was. And so that was when I started to get quite worried, and it was, you know, it took months, um, before I admitted I needed help. So I went to the doctor in June of that year, er, saying I was suicidal. Started to get some medication, but that didn't help, it was the wrong type. It actually made me worse and more anxious. I was put on more medication to deal with the extra anxiety, which sort of sedated me to the extent that I gained like a stone in a month, and I've always sort of basically been the same weight and shape since I was like 20.

Um, and also, I just couldn't get up in the mornings, even when I had like, a double espresso, um, and you know, er, had my partner's children jumping on me. I was still really sluggish for about an hour. Um, and that was the - that was the background to me then going into the Conservative Party Conference, when -

CRAIG

And, and how did it manifest itself? You're at conference, what was going on and yeah, how did the - how did the breaking point [Yeah] happen?

ISABEL

So by that point, and this had been the case for about three months, um, I think just going back to the Brexit referendum, actually, massive night for apolitical journalist, obviously massive night for you, I’m sure [It was quite a big one] there's some trauma stretching back for you from that night. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

Definitely a moment of trauma.

ISABEL

Um, I was in the car on the way to the ITV Studios, er, to do my first half of the night there and then I was switching at like, one a.m.to BBC, and despite me being objectively very excited about what was gonna happen that night, I just had all these crazy thoughts in my head, like in a washing machine. And I, you know, I got through the night and I was there when - I was there when your boss announced he was stepping down and all that kind of thing. And you know, just reacting live on TV, I managed it, but my mind was not, it was not in a good place then. By Conservative conference, that washing machine was on sort of fastest spin possible and -

CRAIG

So what sort of thoughts?

ISABEL

Thoughts about what had happened in the past, sort of reliving all the past events. Um, thoughts about - there's something called a rumination which is when you're going over and over and over in your mind about a problem. Never reaching a resolution. Now, when you're well, that's how we deal with problems, isn't it? We think here's a problem, h- what am I going to do about it? Am I going to do this? Am I going to do that? And eventually you think, ‘Okay, I'm gonna settle on this, and off I go’.

But with rumination, you're just here's the problem, here's the problem, here's the problem, here's the problem. And then, what if this happens? What if this happens? And that's it. And so, that was this kind of really loud sound in the back of my head throughout Conservative conference, and I was having panic attacks which had, you know, kept me in my room for most of Labour conference the week before.

Um, looking back, I was very sort of shaky and jerky when I was around my colleagues, even though I was still trying to pretend that everything was fine. Um, and it got to the stage where one evening, I was - I think it was the Monday, so there was still two days to go of Tory conference. I was writing the Evening Blend, which is our nightly, er, email briefing, rounding up all the political events. I'd been writing it for like, five years by this point.

Everyone read it. I knew when David Cameron read it, because you used to call me and be like, ‘Aargh!’ about something. [Start shouting] Yeah. [LAUGHTER] You know, it's all water under the bridge, obviously, but [LAUGHTER] I still remember it. Um, but that normally took me like half an hour to write. I, I’d got pretty efficient by this point in getting everything together.

After an hour, I'd written a couple of words. Couldn’t actually think in sentences by that point. Wanted to harm myself, wanted to disappear. And so ended up calling my partner, um, and just saying, ‘I can't do this’. Like, ‘I’m, I'm really frightened’ and he was really frightened, and, er, I pulled out of everything I was supposed to be doing that evening, and ended up getting emergency treatment and was sedated. And then so the next day onwards, I wheeled my suitcase home from Birmingham and went on sick leave, and -

CRAIG

Did your colleagues or friends, or people close to you, they must have noticed [Oh yeah] that something was happening, and how did they react? What was the - what did colleagues make of it?

ISABEL

They were so good to me. They - as soon as I told my boss, Fraser Nelson, that something really bad happened, um, he was just brilliant. Er, you know, he offered me compassionate leave, er, he was really understanding when I kept having to like, disappear from work, or not meet a deadline. And I'd, I’d never missed a deadline before. Well, I mean, I'd often filed 15 minutes late but I think that's a pathological problem that all journalists have. But I'd never let people down in the way that I was doing quite regularly by that point, and The Spectator were, were brilliant as were pretty much all of my other colleagues -

CRAIG

Had they worked it out, though, ‘cos a that moment, ‘cos you say things like, you know, that you’d be angry or you’d miss a deadline, or couldn't do something. Were they [Yeah] saying, ‘What's going on?’ Or would they confront you about it would it go -

ISABEL

Yeah, no, they, you know, Fraser was, was sort of repeatedly saying that you, you just take the time you need and don't worry about it, and all that kind of thing. But I was putting a massive, brave face on it and it's, you know, it's really often the case, when you've got a, a really severe mental illness that, firstly, you don't have the insight into how bad you are, but you’re also desperate to lie to colleagues about how bad it is, as well, you know, because you don't want to frighten them. Um, you don't want to lose your standing. You know, Westminster’s all about status, isn't it? And to sort of be like, ‘Oh, I can't think and I can't follow stuff in the House of Commons’, that feels pretty career-ending.

CRAIG

But also being labelled as well. I think, you know, people put a, you know, put you in a pigeonhole don’t they, and say, ‘Oh, that person’ - I mean, it's interesting that I - listening to your book, um, you talk, you describe yourself as having been mad, but - and that's okay because you know you're talking about yourself but [Yeah] other people would look at that and think, you know, ‘Oh, that person is mad’, and therefore they're in that box and - [They’re unreliable] with - they're unreliable, we can't go near them, or [Yeah] we have to be careful about them. [Yeah] That's what you're worrying about, [Yeah] I guess. [Yeah]

ISABEL

Yeah, absolutely, and you don't want to… I think prior to all of this, I didn't want to be seen as someone who was sort of vulnerable or, you know, unable to cope. I think, particularly, actually, as a woman, you don't want to, you know, you - women are… female representation in the lobby is getting much better, it has just changed dramatically, even in the decade that I've been there. But you do come in with an awareness, certainly when I joined, that you're in a minority.

I mean, it was, I think it was only 30 percent when I came in, and, um, it’s - you know, there's loads of female pol eds now but they weren't, I don’t think there were any when I, I joined. So you sort of feel like you're having to be a bit of one of the boys, and having a mental breakdown, [LAUGHS] it’s, you know, it's not a masculine quality either, is it? There's a lot of pressure for men to hide mental illnesses and so… yeah.

CRAIG

I w- I was struck, um, listening to your book, um, you know, why we get the politicians we deserve, and quite early on in that, you talk about the number of MPs who basically have dysfunctional childhoods, and -

ISABEL

Well, you’ve worked with all of them, haven’t you? You sort of - yeah -

CRAIG

[BOTH TALKING AT ONCE] worked, yeah, a lot - and lots of people I recognise it in, and it’s an extraordinary thing. [Mm] And also that sense, I think, that when somebody breaks down, or does something which is extreme, there is a, quite a finger pointing sort of, ‘Well thank God I'm not them’ and they, they get dismissed. I think there’s - you see a lot of people who get slightly driven mad by politics, and then have a reaction, which often can be quite extreme. [Mm]

And I think at that moment, on some level, those people quite often hope - people say, ‘Oh, God, I didn't realise’, or ‘I didn't know it was that bad’, but actually often experience the finger pointing and saying, you know, ‘What the hell's wrong with that person?’

ISABEL

Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think one of the things about our discourse on mental health now is that we’re, you know, we like to say in the abstract that the stigma has lifted and we're totally okay with people with mental illnesses. What we actually mean is we're okay with people who are a bit sad. Er, we don't really feel okay when someone's, you know, lost their grip on reality, when they're having psychotic symptoms, you know, delusions that the government's out to get them, or behaving erratically in other ways. And it’s sort of, ‘Oh, we're okay with you being mentally ill but, but not like that’ and I -

CRAIG

So depression is sort of understood, er -

ISABEL

I think that depression and anxiety are sort of understood up to a - up to a point, except when someone's grumpy then it's like, ‘Oh no, but you know, you can't be grumpy, you’ve just got to be sad and need a hug, and then everything will be okay’. So there's a very sort of superficial understanding of mental illness and, you know, you must have seen in Parliament, the number of Tory MPs, and you know, slightly more distanced from New Labour MPs who just get sick when they're there. It's a really unhealthy place. I’m, I'm sure - well, you tell me, Number 10 doesn't look like the sort of place where you're gonna be having like a yoga retreat at nine a.m.

CRAIG

No, and I think that what happens, and you don't wanna whinge about it, or whatever, and I think there are lots of environments where people are under pressure and have far worse problems, but I think there is something about the political environment where the screw turns quite hard, [Mm] and when it does, particular types of people who are attracted to it come apart, [Yeah] and they, then they're not necessarily expected to, and they're in an environment where they're expected to be strong and radical [Yeah] and, you know, [Yeah] doing great things and making tub thumping speeches and being sure of themselves.

And actually, you find that not very far beneath the surface, there's an awful lot of insecure people who've got more problems than they perhaps want to [Yeah] admit to [Yeah] including myself, by the way. I think I found that in, in, um, you know, politics, suddenly, the, the kind of pressure, a particular kind of pressure, and suddenly stuff started coming out, or you sort of felt like, you know, that, that, cor, I really thought I was gonna be better than this, or able to deal with it.

ISABEL

Yeah. Yeah, the pressure is immense, isn't it? And you - you don't expect yourself to react in ways that, that you end up doing, because you can't think forward to a time when you're that tired and that annoyed with someone being that unreasonable with you as well. [LAUGHS]. You know, there's a lot of other people sort of behaving with completely different agendas as well, I suppose. And that's something you don't get in journalism so much. That's what you get in politics, is you've got people against you in a way that you don't in journalism. That's a, that's an Egyptian goose. Oh no, pink footed goose has just flown over us, just for -

CRAIG

Yeah, and it had been very close, [Yeah] and I was um, I mean, nature is all around us. I mean, there's a wasp that's been sitting on your mic, er, microphone stand for a while, [Oh!] and there's, er, yeah, [That’s lovely] no wind, [LAUGHTER] So there's lots of nature. [Yeah] Well, we will come to, come to all of that in a moment. One of the people that we've spoken to for this podcast is a guy called Bruce Perry, who's a psychiatrist in, er, America and he's written a book with Oprah Winfrey, which is called ‘What Happened to You?’

And his sort of great insight that I thought was fascinating was that the big question we always ask of other people is what's wrong with you? But if we could only get to a stage of saying, ‘What happened to you?’ we might have a bit more understanding and - [Oh, that’s interesting] some sense of understanding, you know, what are the types of people who get into politics and why they behave [Yeah] the way they do [Yeah, yeah] might help us a bit more.

ISABEL

Yeah. Yeah, I, I found that fascinating when I was researching my first book, actually, just, as you say, the number of people with, er, not just broken families but actually, er, quite specifically parents who had addictions. So I interviewed Liam Byrne and Caroline Flint, um, and others have spoken out, like John Ashworth and, um, there's quite a few children of alcoholics in Parliament, actually, who have talked about the impact that their very dysfunctional upbringings had on their politics, on their operation in politics.

So Liam Byrne, for instance, says that as a child of an alcoholic, you become obsessed with making sure everything's okay, because you sort of want to stop things sliding into catastrophe, and that made him a really tough person to work for - he admits that himself, er, but it also made him great at doing the tough, detailed jobs like Chief Secretary to the Treasury, because he was just obsessed with making

everything perfect.

And I thought it was interesting when a note came out, not the famous note, er, to do with Liam Byrne, but a different note where he'd written a, a briefing for his staff on sort of how to look after Liam um, in one of his departments.

CRAIG

I remember this.

ISABEL

Yeah, and people thought it was hilarious, because it's like, oh, what, you know -

CRAIG

Literally when he had his [Yeah] cappuccino or latte, or something.

ISABEL

Er, ‘Oh, what a diva’, um, but actually, within the context of having an alcoholic parent, makes complete sense because what he's basically saying to his staff is, the- this is how you’ll feel safe, because this is how I feel safe, because I know my dad needs this at this time and I know my dad needs that at that time, and, you know, if we just know where everything is, then we're all gonna be okay. It was his attempt to sort of help them feel in control.

CRAIG

Yeah, and I think it's interesting that a lot of people, when you sort of scratch the surface, you do hear that they've had dysfunctional parenting, you know, as you say, through addiction or mental health problems, or whatever. And when - a lot of therapists say that in that environment, those people, the parenting roles sort of get reversed, [Yeah] and that person becomes somebody who feels that it is their job to sort things out and look after things [Yeah] and actually, you know, that's how they kind of think that the world is alright, and they [Yeah] can organise it. [Yeah] And that seems to me to be - not all MPs, but you know, [Yeah] what you're talking about, there's quite a lot of that going round.

ISABEL

That's the really interesting thing about David Cameron, is he just didn't have that background. Like, you look at Boris Johnson who had a very dysfunctional upbringing and you can sort of see how he is today, and how he got into politics, and why politics is something that thrills him, as - whereas David Cameron had quite a, you know, secure, happy, living in an old vicarage upbringing, which I thought [Yeah] actually played to a lot of his strengths when he was in power, that he was able to compartmentalise things.

CRAIG

Yeah, I mean, I think the, the truth is that as you get to know people, and it's not fair for me to go into huge amounts of detail, but I do think as I got to know him, that things aren't always quite as straightforward [LAUGHTER] as they sort of [Yeah] first appear, but certainly, I think that his great skill was to be able to, as you say, compartmentalise, which was also the kind of thing that people used to beat him with.

So, so, um, [He was chillaxing] you look - you look like you're too calm, and this - you're not really that bothered. And it's interesting, I remember Barack Obama, him talking to Barack Obama about this at a G7 summit, and they went to the gym together in the morning, and, you know, he was having a particularly rough time, and Barack Obama said, ‘They take your strength and turn it into your weakness’, and I thought that was quite an interesting thing to say about politics, [Yeah] is how are you undermining somebody [Yeah] and how do you [Yeah] how do you find a way through that?

Another person that we've spoken to on this podcast is George Alagiah, the news presenter who has bowel cancer. Um, and he was saying he’d never wish to have cancer, but he's not sure he’d give the years back since he's had it [Wow!] because he feels he's learned huge amounts. [Mm] I wonder if you feel the same about having had a breakdown? Or do you just think, ‘No, God, I just wish it'd never been part of my life and I could have just…’

ISABEL

Yeah, it's really difficult question to do with mental illness. Um, because I still feel like my illness is not part of me, in a way that someone with bipolar would actually find that much harder to answer, because often the sort of creativity that comes with it sort of makes them feel like they are who they are. For me, it's been a real inconvenience, um, and, um, the reason I call myself mad in the book is that it's part of my way of saying, those things that I did, they weren't Isabel, they weren't intrinsic to me.

Um, and I think it's been, you know, it's, it's got in the way of relationships at work, even though my colleagues have been great, you know, if you've had a bit of a meltdown in front of a colleague, it's, it's quite hard to repair relations after that. Um…

CRAIG

Whatever, even though they understand that you had mental health issues?

ISABEL

Yeah, [LAUGHS] but they still remember that you had a meltdown, don’t they? I mean, you know, I think if I was sick on their shoes, they’d probably remember it, to a certain extent. Um, I think it slowed things up, um, but it has taught me a lot, and I tell you one thing that actually it made much easier was motherhood, weirdly, because lots of women I know find motherhood a huge shock and almost a disappointment, because you expect it to be all sorts of cuddles and you know, wonderfulness, and it is, but it's also huge loss of control, and a huge loss of freedom, and a huge loss of identity.

Now, I'd had all of those things five years before I had my son, and I'd got used to my plans falling apart at the last minute, I’d got used to actually being on my own quite a lot. Mother- motherhood is hugely isolating. Um, I'd worked out ways of keeping myself sort of busy and okay, even when I couldn't really get out very much. And so I dreaded motherhood, and I hadn't expected to be a mum, so that it was a lot of just kind of fear in the build up to that, and I was very depressed and had sort of perinatal psychiatrists working on me and, you know, lots of extra support, which in the end I didn't need because when I had my son, it was all the wonderful things that I hadn't thought about that I noticed, rather than all the things that I’d dreaded about the chaos and the sleep deprivation, and, you know, my God, I've never had sleep deprivation quite like that.

But I've also had sleep deprivation when I've been mad, [LAUGHS] and that's a lot worse, even than that feeling that you could actually fall asleep standing up in the middle of the day, that you have four weeks into, you know, having a baby.

CRAIG

So the reason we wanted to do this podcast is that, you know, we wanted to talk to people who, you know, have had change forced upon them or wanted to change their life, [Mm] and the wisdom that sort of helped them do that, or the wisdom that they got through it. It seems to me like, that you've had change sort of forced upon you a bit, [Mm-hm] because of the mental, [Mm] mental health issues. And where you got a lot of your wisdom and strength from was from nature, and so [Yeah] you've written a book called ‘The Natural Health Service’ -

ISABEL

And I obviously wouldn't give that back. You know, I feel like I've helped other people, which is great. [Yeah] And I've helped bring together research on how nature can help mental illnesses far more severe than mine, and I've helped make the case for that. And I think, er, my book was not, you know, obviously, when I wrote the book, I had no idea that there was something called Coronavirus but it was published, er, I think it was either a week, it was about three weeks into lockdown, it was published, and so it was just when people were starting to realise that going to the park was quite important. Um…

CRAIG

It's, it’s a very common experience of lockdown and one that I definitely had and remember very early, that sense of going outside and noticing nature in a way that I just really hadn't before.

ISABEL

It was in real technicolour, wasn't it, [Yeah] for a lot of people, for the first time.

CRAIG

And, and it was suddenly like everything got its - I remember actually looking at leaves and thinking, ‘Are they normally this green?’ [LAUGHTER] And -

ISABEL

And do birds sing like this?

CRAIG

Yes, you’re suddenly aware, because there weren't planes flying overhead or -

ISABEL

And you weren’t glued to your phone, [Yes] and all that kind of thing. I, I had this really interesting experience where I did a daily nature challenge in the first few weeks of noc- locked down, um, where I suggested a different sort of nature-based activity for people to, just to keep them occupied, and one of them was, look out of your window at the nearest tree and try and work out what kind of tree it is.

And I had quite a few people reply saying, ‘I looked at this, and I thought, “Oh, that's nice”, but I don't have any trees out of my window, so I can't take part’. And then they said they looked out the window and realised that there was a tree there, [Yeah] and they’d just never noticed it before, even though they've lived there for like, five years or whatever. So, we almost had to sort of reset our focus, a lot of us, didn't we, during lockdown?

CRAIG

And it’s, it’s - it sounds like a bit of a cliché, but is that because people were being forced to be more mindful and in the present moment, and nature helps you do that?

ISABEL

I think that people were having a not dissimilar experience to what I had at the start of my sort of attempts to recover, er, which was, ‘Oh my God, I'm in this situation. What can I do to look after myself because I can't cope?’ And I had a GP being quite clear with me that I needed to get out and go running and do other sort of outdoor exercise, and be outdoors rather than be inside and stewing on my sofa.

Er, I think when it came to lockdown, we had a lot of discussion on, you know, in the media, social media and in my book, um, about what we could do to keep going when our normal lives had just collapsed, hadn’t they? [Yeah] You know -

CRAIG

So I, I had a sort, er, situation where, you know, a relationship I was in ended at the beginning of lockdown and it had an impact on me, and also lockdown was happening. And I decided, okay, I'm going to sort of go and sort myself out a bit here and I’m gonna work out the things I need to do to make myself feel a bit more balanced and happy, and okay. And almost by accident, I think that the nature thing came upon me and I, I sort of noticed that on a day-to-day basis, you know, you don't notice nature changing, but it happens sort of incrementally.

And then you realise that over time, something's nothing, then it builds, it peaks, it fades, and then it [Yeah] goes. [Yeah] And then you kind of realise that that is the - that pattern is sort of the natural order of lots of things, [Yeah] and that is how nature works and it's - won't be forced, but it is quietly insistent and happens in its own time, and that to me actually made me think actually how I hadn't really been plugging into that way of things or [Oh, that’s so interesting] understanding that, or how that worked. Is -

ISABEL

And so did that help you deal with, you know, all the mess and rubbish of the end of a relationship, then?

CRAIG

Yeah, I think so. And I think it, what it - I started reading quite a lot of people at the time, who were saying, ‘Look, the problem is, is when you resist, the problem is, is when you resist reality, or you try and hold on to something that is naturally fading and going anyway, and if you can just tune into that pattern, and look, this is how nature works and operates. Look, you literally see a tree with no leaves, then it gets his leaves and comes into bloom, and then [Mm] it fades into autumn, and then the same pattern happens again’.

And I found that actually quite a h- a helpful thing, [Mm] and the other thing I suppose, and, er, I was interested in, is it's not that fussed about you.

ISABEL

Absolutely, yeah.

CRAIG

So I saw - in your book, you talk about the oldest tree in Britain and you describe it as being indifferent to the history going on around it, [Yeah] and I thought that's a really interesting word because it, it - nature isn't that interested in us, is it?

ISABEL

No, I mean, it, it is when we sort of chase it and hunt it and so on, but I was talking to a psychiatrist at Bethlem Royal Hospital who'd been doing forest bathing or sort of, you know, tree focused walks or whatever you want to call them, with some of the patients. And you know, if you're in Bethlem, you're really sick. Er, not only are you really sick, you may actually have been through the criminal justice system as well because you've like, to set fire to your house or something like that.

So you're in there for a long time, and it's not something that can really be solved with like, Rescue Remedy or something like that. So for psychiatrists to still be focusing on taking those patients out, and spending time amongst trees, and doing gardening and going running and so on, actually for me was quite striking because it wasn't just a, oh, this is a middle class thing for people with a sort of, you know, mental version of yuppie flu or whatever. This is actually - this is a really important intervention in really serious illnesses.

And this psychiatrist said that one of the things that a lot of the patients that he was working with said was they like the fact that the tree wasn't interested in them, because the tree didn't know anything about their illness. The tree didn't see them as this patient who'd been sectioned on this date, who was going to be, you know, reviewed on this date, and whose sectioning had, you know, followed this incident. The tree didn't have anything, any preconceptions about them at all. [And did-] The tree didn't even need them to be funny, ‘cos the tree was just there photosynthesising without them.

CRAIG

Yeah. And there's, and there, and there is definitely something isn't there, that about mental health issues, or unhappiness, or depression or whatever, where you become very self-focused, [Totally] and that you believe that, you know, in some ways, you're acting as if the world is just revolving around you, but actually, in nature, you see that actually you're just part of a much bigger system. [Mm, yeah]. And if you come or go, it's not really gonna make a huge amount of difference.

ISABEL

No, absolutely. That's the - a- and as you say, the, the way the seasons just keep going on, even if you feel like your life has ended because of lockdown, or because you've lost your mind, or whatever, you know, I think, April - March and April were quite fortuitous times to have a lockdown, actually, because trees were coming into leaf and blossom was opening, and birds were starting to sing. And so people were, they had more time to notice that wonderful sort of, I feel like there's a kind of singing in the air at that time of year anyway. Er, a sort of…

CRAIG

Well, the, the weather was amazing, wasn’t it, at the beginning of…

ISABEL

The weather was beautiful, so it was it was okay to go out, and I think we'd got used to it by, you know, by the Christmas lockdown. I just remember, I used to live in Richmond, er, on the edge of the park and by the Christmas lockdown, every time I went for a walk in Richmond Park, it was like the M25. You know, there were just people walking round and round and round, ‘cos they’d got so used to being outdoors. Normally, in the park in winter, it's so quiet that they can do repairs to the pavements and stuff, but there were just too many people, they had to delay all of that ‘cos it was so busy.

CRAIG

So if you look at things like pantheism, or William Wordsworth poetry, or whatever, he's obsessed by nature, and he quite quickly goes to a kind of spiritual dimension. And I always think there's like a, alarm bell goes off in people's heads where you say spiritual, [LAUGHTER] but they're, they’re like, [Mine too] oh God, are you gonna - are you going to be slightly bonkers, or whatever? But I think what he, he meant was that there - that there is some kind of force, or something happening, that we don't fully understand, that is beyond us.

And that doesn't mean to say that we're all gonna be, go to heaven or hell or whatever, but that we are part of something that [Mm] can actually provide something that's beyond the kind of [Mm] rational thing. Do you accept that or do you think - ?

ISABEL

Yeah, but I think also, just on a sort of flesh and blood level, we've evolved alongside and within nature. And it's only in, you know, the past century and a bit that we've really started to deliberately cut ourselves off from it to the extent that we have. You know, that, er, most of us live in cities now. Most of us are not farmers. Um, and I'm not saying that the life of a farmer is particularly blissful. In fact, the - you know, the suicide rate within farming is much higher than the general population, but, um, but we tend to go to greater efforts to cut ourselves off from nature in the way that we plan our towns, the way that we just organise our personal lives, um, than we did in previous, you know, generations, previous centuries.

One of the things I had quite a lot when I was writing the book, when I published the book, and so on, was people saying, ‘Why have you gone to all this effort to write a book about something we already know? You know, we all know that going for a walk is good for you’. And I was like, well, I mean, maybe you do, but really? Er, is it really obvious to all of us? I think all of us actually go to great efforts to avoid all of this stuff, you know. [Yeah] Kids are taught to be frightened of nature, to be frightened of being dirty. Um, to be frightened of - I know this is controversial, but to be frightened of spiders, or even moths.

CRAIG

So are you -

ISABEL

I can understand being frightened of spiders, but moths, they're so beautiful! [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

- your, your son is far too young at the moment, but is it something that you want him to be able to - to -

ISABEL

No, he’s not too young. [No?] No. He’s - well, he’s -

CRAIG

So how do you do that?

ISABEL

So - well, we've got an allotment. We’re very lucky, we've got an allotment and he is, er, every Saturday, er, he still gets me up gloriously early and so we're out walking the dogs first thing, um, and looking at all sorts of nature and he gets very excited by birds and all sorts of other things. But then we go to the allotment for a couple of hours and he's really into that; he's really into digging in the soil and [Good] at the moment we’re planting bulbs, which, um, I have to say he does with a lack of delicacy at the moment. [LAUGHTER] Sort of he throws them and then shouts, ‘Pah!’ [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

Like he’s bombing the place.

ISABEL

Er, just basically bombing the place, but he loves it, and we had a worm the other day that we were looking at and he was really fascinated by. So for me it's really important that outdoors, dirt, wildlife are so normal to him that he doesn't see them as being something you have to like, go to a great effort to visit in the zoo or abroad, or at a nature reserve or something like that, but that they're healthy parts of his life that he sort of needs. And I'm hoping that I'm, you know, indoctrinating him in those ways. [LAUGHS] Poor kid.

CRAIG

So, so reading ‘The Natural Health Service’, I was like, I'm convinced, you know, then that ne- nature's got a lot to teach us and the beauty and vibrancy and all that kind of stuff. But then there's also a little bit, a bit of me saying, ‘Well, nature is also blood and shit and dirt and disease [LAUGHTER] and all that kind of thing too’ so -

ISABEL

And it’s terrible, isn’t it? It’s cruel.

CRAIG

So we focus, [Yeah] we focus on the positive, but there is a side to it which is indifferent, you know, disease, culls, [Yeah] large numbers of things, [Yeah] and so there is that side to it, too. I mean, I just wondered if you wanted to reflect on that.

ISABEL

Yeah. and it's also something that I've been a bit, er, anxious about recently, um, has been the Chelsea Flower Show, which is lovely. Um, and there's been a big emphasis on mental wellbeing during that, which is great. And it's great hearing people, lots of people, including, I was quite surprised, Craig David turned up on the Chelsea Flower Show, which I wasn’t expecting, [What day of the week was it?] [LAUGHING] to talk about - yeah, [So that’s a pop joke there, but yeah] ‘Went gardening on a Wednesday’ [LAUGHTER]

So yeah, apparently, he, he he gardens every day of the week now, which is great, um, and he says it's good for his mental wellbeing. So, who knew? Um, this is all great but gardening is actually quite hard work and it can be quite annoying at times, and I've been gardening since I was like, eight and have been like, an obsessive gardener and I still get really frustrating things happening, like my hostas are being eaten at the moment and they just look, they just look horrendous, and when you’re -

CRAIG

And it's easy to think in those moments, like, what's the point of that? Why does that have to happen?

ISABEL

Yeah, yeah. But it's part of the - to - for me, it's part of the sort of enjoyment of it actually, is stuff not working out. So the reason I'm worried about the sort of Chelsea link is that gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show are, you know, they’re the London Fashion Week of gardening. They’re, they're not really anything to do with reality. There's a lot of stuff at London Fashion Week you would not wear. Most people's gardens are never gonna look like the Chelsea Flower Show gardens, particularly the vegetable things that you see at Chelsea where there’s these perfect lettuces.

And even the old boys on my allotment site who have been gardening the same plot for, you know, decades, who just can grow these absolutely monstrous onions without any effort, they still have problems, they still have successes and failures every year. They still, you know, come to me scratching their heads saying, you know, ‘Ooh, the rabbits have got at this’ and, you know, part of -

CRAIG

But it’s kind of th- it is the way of things, isn’t it?

ISABEL

It is the way of things and actually being able to deal with that lack of perfection is really important in life, because life does not go according to plan. It's important in particular mental illnesses, you know, I'm thinking of eating disorders in particular. Um, it's just also… it's important in, in dealing with our mental illnesses as well, wh- for me, I'm never gonna be recovered, I don't think I'm gonna be cured from PTSD, but I am going to get to a point where I've learnt how to deal with it and I think being in nature helps with that because you have to learn how to deal with nature as it is.

It's not, it's not gonna behave in the way you want it to. I mean, another passage in the book is where I, um, I go riding and I get thrown off by the horse that I'm on, and really spooks me and upsets me, and I have to learn to trust the horse again. And actually, for me, part of that was really important because I was struggling with trusting anyone at the time, let alone a horse. Um, but also, part of it was just sort of being like, well, that's part of horse riding, is you get thrown off from time to time, particularly if you're riding a mare because, you know, they have hormonal issues. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

I wanna draw it back to the politics ‘cos I think it's interesting that, that, you know, you've been drawn to - you’re a journalist but you're drawn to politics, and I think that, that, that un- as the more you understand about mental health is- issues and psychology and, and that kind of thing, it seems to me that politics isn't brilliantly enlightened about it, in lots of ways. [Mm] And so we talk about things like parity of esteem in the National Health Service, but actually, a miniscule amount of money is put on mental health issues.

Um, and, and it's a real issue, and it's, it, and it, we're sort of in the foothills of understanding, [Mm] but the reality is, it's just [Yeah] got a huge place to go. And I just sort of wonder, looking at it, that you're, you're enmeshed in this, you're literally on the day-to-day flow, you're writing a, you know, blog every day about, you know, what's happening, what the minutiae in, of, of everything. Is there a part of you that looks and gets frustrated by politics? Or do you think, ‘Actually, I, I enjoy it and it's part of the fun of everything’ and…?

ISABEL

Um, I mean, on a sort of policy level, yes because for far too long - and you know, you're expert in spin here, Craig - um, I found there's way too much spin around mental health because politicians think that they can talk about mental health, and then they’ve sort of ticked the box, and actually the amount of work that's involved in investing in, you know, just even one particular type of therapy is vast and has never really been sort of faced up to by any politician.

Um, and so I get frustrated when - I, I got particularly frustrated, actually - Theresa May gave a speech on mental health and I was quite excited ‘cos she'd done quite a bit of stuff in the Home Office on mental - on mental health. Um, as Prime Minister she gave a speech on mental health and sort of seemed to think that that was it. Like, ‘I've given my [Tick] mental health speech, and now mental health is okay, and I can move on to the next thing’. [LAUGHS] And I think that sort of bugs me, but you know, one of the great privileges of being a journalist is that you get to, um, expose this stuff, you get to call it out I guess.

CRAIG

I think that's right, but it is also true that we are in a kind of culture where, you know, we have incredibly hungry journalists, hungry for information, hungry for new. I mean, when I was in Number 10 I remember somebody phoning me up and saying, could I give them the story 10 seconds before everybody else got it so they would have a Tweet exclusive. [I wonder who that could have been?] Oh, I'll tell you afterwards. [LAUGHTER]

Um, but - and I just thought this is insane. You know, we're literally so hungry for information and chasing things, and politicians inevitably react to that because they're like, ‘We've got to have something to say for [Yeah] you know -

ISABEL

And they get a reward for it. [Yeah] So [Yeah, pretty-] you know, like a dog, they behave that way. [Yeah]

CRAIG

Yeah, and they're reluctant to say, ‘You know what? This is big, it's complicated, it’s difficult. It isn't just gonna be magically changed overnight. [Yeah] We are gonna have missteps, we’ll go in the wrong direction. I've learned from this.’ In fact, they’re in an environment where they just feel incredibly defensive because they think they'll be eaten for breakfast if they change their mind.

And I thought Coronavirus was a great example of that, was that actually new information was coming in every day and completely changing the picture, [Yeah] but the government wanted to look as if it was completely in control and knew what it was doing. [Yeah. Yeah] And the reason it wanted to do that, partly was because people wanted them to do that. [Yeah] Anyway.

ISABEL

Yeah, no, I, I agree. Um, yeah. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

Yes. That was a long question [Very wise] and a short answer. [LAUGHTER] So, I wanted to talk a little bit about, um, you’ve got, um, a partner who has mental -

ISABEL

Husband now. [A husband?] Yeah.

CRAIG

Husband? Yes, of course, you got married. [Yeah] Congratulations. Um, who has mental health issues and you talk about living with that. How, how is that, in general, without prying too much. How does that work, how does that…?

ISABEL

Yeah, I mean, it - it’s great in lots of ways because we understand that - what we understand each other's warning signs in a way that I don't think if one of us hadn't also had a mental illness, we'd be quite so sort of attuned to.. But it means that when you're both in a bad place, you can't really pull each other up so you have to, you know, turn to friends and family for help instead. So has its upsides and downsides.

And I say, I, I think it's really important for people who've got a partner who has a mental health problem, not to feel like they've got to be like, you know, Florence Nightingale, because actually it is really hard. I know I'm really hard to deal with when I'm unwell, and I think it's fine for John to be able to say that, and he would be totally fine with me saying, as I have done in the book, he can be a grumpy bastard when he's depressed.

And, um, that's something I found really interesting, actually, was that some people, for both of us have sort of been attracted to the fact we've got a mental illness. So I noticed that there were sort of young women who seem to think, ‘Oh, John, he's got a mental illness, you know, if only I can make him happy, then he'll be better’.

CRAIG

It’s a bit like Heathcliff in ‘Wuthering Heights’ or something, yeah.

ISABEL

[LAUGHS] Exactly. Yeah, he’s not quite like Heathcliff, but [LAUGHS] just to clarify. But I did sort of feel like saying to them, ‘Well, you can have him when he's grumpy’ sort of thing, [Yeah] you know, ‘Then you'll change your mind’. Um, and he, you know, I would get men sort of messaging me, being like, ‘Do you want to talk about how you're feeling?’ and stuff like that. [LAUGHTER] And I was like, ‘No! Firstly, I have a therapist. Secondly, I don't even know who you are. And thirdly, why is that attractive?’ [LAUGHS] It was like, what?

CRAIG

I was gonna say, that’s got to be the worst chat up line I’ve ever heard.

ISABEL

‘Tell me about your trauma over a drink’. [LAUGHS] No, thanks.

CRAIG

And I just wanted to ask you something we've been asking everybody in this. If there was one, one piece of wisdom [Mm] that you would offer people, having learned everything [Mm] that you have, what would it be?

ISABEL

So because I'm so focused on outdoor exercise and outdoor activities, I think I've got two bits of advice, actually. One is for people with a mental health problem, one is for people trying to look after someone with a mental health problem. And for people with a mental health problem, find something that is outside that you enjoy. So a lot of our lives as grownups are taken up by doing things that we know we have to do, like our tax returns and stuff, and that is good for us because then we don't get the taxman after us.

But when you've got a mental illness, don't just do something ‘cos you know people say it's good for you. Like, if you hate running, don't run. Like, do something else. Go for a walk, go swimming. Don't make yourself more miserable with an exercise that you hate.

CRAIG

But it should be a physical thing?

ISABEL

I think, well, physical in different ways. It doesn't have to be the case that you're like, running marathons or whatever. I mean, I, I did take it to the extreme and do the marathon but, um, even if it's just a one mile run, or if it's just a walk, or if it's just sitting still outside. Whatever it is that helps you be more aware of the present moment, I think. Um, but particularly exercise does help because it releases certain chemicals, um, that help us lift our mood.

And then the advice I'd give to people who are desperate to help a friend or family member with a mental illness is, ask them what would help them, because what drove me mad was people going, ‘Have you tried this? Have you tried that?’ Firstly, if I had tried it and hadn't worked, that would make me feel even worse, because I was like, ‘I can't even do this properly’. And secondly, if I hadn't tried it, and I didn't want to do it, I'd feel guilty about that as well.

‘Have you tried hot yoga?’ No. ‘Have you tried saunas?’ No, no, I hate both of them. Go away. Actually, turn to that person and say, ‘What do you think could help you?’ Because you’d be quite surprised by their answers. That's what my doctor said to me, she said, ‘What do you think you enjoy?’ And I said, ‘Well, it's running and riding’. And she said, ‘Well, let's get a plan to do those’. Rather than, ‘Hi, I'm your doctor. This is what you should be doing’. You know, doesn't work. So.

CRAIG

That's great advice. I think, um, Evening Blend is probably calling. Um, [Yes] Westminster is waiting for you, but it's been a pleasure too - look, there's loads of ducks coming over now.

ISABEL

They are actually sort of patrolling towards us, aren’t they? [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

They have been supremely indifferent, but now are showing an interest. So…

ISABEL

Yeah, I think they know I've got some flapjack left over from my son in my handbag, so there we go. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

Isabel, great to see you and thank you.

A huge thank you to Isabel Hardman, and all the animals in St James Park in London. I really recommend reading her books. If listening to this has raised any issues for you around suicide, please to the Samaritains website for further help.

Please like and subscribe to this podcast and tell people about it. You can also find transcripts and further reading at our website: desperatelyseekingwisdom.com. Next week's guest is the ITV News presenter and bestselling author, Tom Bradby. He faced extreme insomnia and a major breakdown. Tom is so open about his experiences and what he learned, it’s a must listen.

TOM

It really helps to develop a meaningful sense of fatalism in life. Now, that is not the same as saying you give up on trying to do the things you want in life, but we have a deluded sense about how much of our destinies we control.

CRAIG

I’m Craig Oliver and this is a Creators Inc Production.