Crime-writer Elizabeth George: ‘Writing has helped me manage depression’
Award-winning American author Elizabeth George has a lot to celebrate, as her popular series featuring Inspector Thomas Lynley, the upper-crust British detective, and his working-class sidekick DS Barbara Havers, reaches its 30th anniversary and 20th book.
The books were adapted for a BBC series starring Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small, in the Noughties.
But for George, who turns 70 next year (and has no plans of retiring), writing has fulfilled an even greater role in her life, helping her cope with depression.
Indeed, she reveals that writing has, in many ways, been her saviour, helping her through the deep bouts of low mood she’s suffered since she was a teenager.
“I’ve always been prone to depression but I discovered that the creative act is a really good way to fight off depression,” she says. “As long as I stay creative, I don’t get the kind of serious depression that I used to get.”
There wasn’t the awareness there is today about the mental illness when George, the daughter of a conveyor belt businessman and a nurse, was growing up, in the San Francisco Bay area.
“I didn’t come from the kind of family that confronted that sort of stuff. My mother told me later in her life that she knew that as a teenager, I was suicidally depressed. I think they were just hoping I wouldn’t do anything about it,” says the writer. “In those days, you had to power through it. We are talking 1965. They didn’t have the different medications they have now and didn’t understand the chemical imbalances. I had a serotonin imbalance. Now they have all kinds of ways that they fight depression, through medication, though talk therapy and getting involved in activities.
“The depression was like a greased spiral, which would start out as a mild sense of malaise and sadness and get bigger and bigger as I slid down,” she continues. “I would then look around me to see if I could find the cause. For a long time, I blamed it on having to live in southern California.”
She’s looking forward to a break after writing her latest Lynley story, The Punishment She Deserves, in which the detective investigates the death of a local deacon in the medieval town of Ludlow, Shropshire.
Before becoming a novelist, George taught English for 13 years, which kept the depression at bay, but she would be riddled with anxiety at the end of each term, unsure how she was going to get through the summer.
She sought counselling – George spent 20 years in psychotherapy – and also got a master’s degree in counselling and psychology, which she found hugely helpful. But it wasn’t until the Nineties that a psychiatrist explained to George the importance of the creative act to the way her mind works.
“He told me I needed to keep my brain occupied, so it wasn’t in a resting state. In between books, I would get incredibly depressed and didn’t know why. He said that between books, I’d have to do something else. I started creative scrapbooking and learning Italian. You can do things to alleviate a great deal of suffering you might otherwise have.”
The Punishment She Deserves by Elizabeth George is published by Hodder & Stoughton
The Press Association
Latest posts by The Press Association (see all)
- 5 new books to read this week - November 23, 2024
- 3 easy Mary Berry recipes to make this season - November 22, 2024
- In Pictures: Party stalwart kept New Labour in touch with traditional supporters - November 21, 2024
- 6 easy indoor exercises to try this winter – and why they are good for you - November 19, 2024
- Martin Clunes: I can’t afford to retire – I’ve got too many horses - November 19, 2024
