16 April 2024 , 10:13
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Leah Charles-King fought for years to find out what was wrong with her.
The A Place in the Sun presenter - who was once a singer in '90s girl group Kleshay - suffered from a catalogue of distressing symptoms before hitting rock bottom and fearing she couldn't continue.
Leah had periods where she felt 'suicidal and depressed', and her GP put her on antidepressants - but they didn't seem to help. Leah got to the point where she did not want to live anymore, but was thankfully saved by a friend who talked her down from an eighth-storey window. Two days later, she wrote an urgent suicide note to her GP and took it into the surgery.
Leah has bipolar disorder, a mental health condition characterised by extreme mood swings (Getty Images)
Like thousands of Brits, she was misdiagnosed with depression by her GP (© Channel Four Television Corporation)She told the Express: "If I didn't get help today, I knew what I was going to do and so I wrote this note and I plucked up the last bit of strength that I had to go into what I believed was my final battle. I remember standing in this queue in tears - silent tears - and when I got to the front of the queue to reception, I just passed this note across the desk [saying] 'I'm suicidal and I need help now. If you send me home, I'm going to kill myself'. It was that blunt and obviously, it was all panic stations."
The singer-turned-property-expert was taken to hospital by ambulance where she was told she wasn't suffering from depression, but rather bipolar disorder - a mental health condition that is characterised by extreme mood swings. While depression typically leads to intense sadness, bipolar can alternate between extreme highs and lows - and antidepressants can make somebody's illness much worse.
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A study by Bipolar UK in 2022 found that 55 percent of 2,458 people with bipolar disorder reported being given antidepressants. The charity is now campaigning for GPs to 'think bipolar before ever prescribing antidepressants for the first time'.
"It's overlooked so much by GPs who just assume that it's depression," Leah said. She is now an ambassador for Bipolar UK and is passionate about normalising the conversation to end the stigma around mental illness.
As well as taking part in The One Show's Bipolar and Me report, Leah said that landing her role on A Place in the Sun has been a huge help in her recovery. "The show's been completely life-changing for me. For somebody who's been in TV for a long time and felt I was very overlooked for many years, I'd just been waiting for that break," she said.
Leah became part of the Channel 4 family in November 2021, and has since been helping buyers find their dream properties around the world. Speaking of joining the show, she said: "I've been watching the show since it began and I feel especially privileged to be working on such an iconic programme."
If you're struggling and need to talk, the Samaritans operate a free helpline open 24/7 on 116 123. Alternatively, you can email jo@samaritans.org or visit their site to find your local branch.