Katharine Welby, daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury, gives her first interview about depression in
When the news broke that her father was about to be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Katharine Welby found herself in floods of tears. “I ended up crying and crying,” she says, but not because she didn’t want her dad to get the job.
“I was excited for him and for what he could do for the Church,” she says, although she was also “scared” by the impact it would have on her life and that of the whole family. But that wasn’t the reason for the tears.
“I was overwhelmed. My head is permanently full at the moment. There isn’t very much leeway. It gets to a point where it is too full. I cease being able to function.”
Her weeping was caused by depression. The illness is “a constant struggle” in her life and creates moments of crisis in which she wants to “run away and hide in a hole”. In the past, it has brought her to the brink of suicide.