Is anyone genuinely surprised by the findings of this week's report suggesting t

hat mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is effective in treating depressi

on and anxiety? Almost four years ago, I went to my GP, Jonty Heaversedge, becau
se the anxiety that had dogged me all my life had reached a frightening level. J
onty
who, serendipitously, happened to have written a book about mindfulness
got
me a place on a six-week, NHS-funded MBCT course at the Maudsley hospital in so
uth London. And
there is no less cliched way of saying it
that course, and the m
editation practice I've done every single day since, changed my life.
I was always an anxious child, hurtling from one terror to another. I was afraid
that the house would burn down. Or burglars would come. Or that a dress my mum
liked me to wear would suffocate me as it was pulled over my head. For as long a
s it fitted me, the presence of that dress in my wardrobe haunted me.
And it didn't stop there. Darkness, water, wolves and ghosts, illness, poison an
d death. Standard child fears, perhaps, but I devoted serious time to them. Afra
id to sit on toilets in case a rat emerged from the U-bend, at school I also had
to leave the cubicle door unlocked for fear of being accidentally locked in all
night. A book that showed Joan of Arc burning to death at the stake had to be p
ut on a high shelf though I still had to work on not glancing up at the shelf. I
bit my nails. I joggled my legs. I jumped when the toast popped up. At night I
would lie awake and stroke the dark nylon fur on my panda's nose and whisper to
him that everything was "all right". But who was I trying to reassure
him, or my
self?
If I sound like a miserable specimen, there were upsides. A fierce and (to me, a
nyway) entertaining imagination, a sense of humour (I never minded being laughed
at) and a healthy dollop of optimism meant I would have called myself happy. Wh
ich, largely, I was. I quaked and hoped and goofed through my teens, emerging in
to adulthood as someone who gave a good impression of being, if not exactly rela
xed, then able to cope. Getting through university, working in the theatre, fall
ing in and out of love and then, finally, having my babies and even achieving my
dream of becoming a published writer all of these were actively happy experienc
es that, in some vital manner, calmed me down.
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"Why are your novels so dark when you're so bright and happy?" people sometimes
asked me. I understood the question but the answer? Wasn't I just lucky to be al
lowed to explore my deepest fears in fiction, a safe place where I dared to peer
over the edge of the abyss, and could even use what I saw there? This saved me
from being a neurotic, anxious pain in the neck
didn't it?
I had a blip in my 30s. Writing my third novel, with three small children, a sup
portive partner and a mostly calm and happy life, I woke one dark middle of the
night gasping for air. The fear was inexplicable and intense. Over a few months,
I had several episodes of tachycardia (an abnormally fast heartrate), one time
ending up in A&E because my heart would not calm down. Finally, given a totally
clean bill of physical health, I was asked if anything was stressing me. I had r
ecently trained as a counsellor for Childline, and some of the calls were grim.
It was suggested that I stop and, reluctantly, I did. And so did the tachycardia
.
And then, of course, my late 40s. A few years of intense stress over drug-taking
in our family, followed by a sustained attack by the press on the book I had in
tended as an honest discussion of that subject. Overwhelmed by guilt and respons
ibility for the damage I'd inflicted on those I love, I started to believe every
thing I'd been told: I was a Bad Mother, a Bad Person, a Bad Writer
my every rea

son for existence undermined. I stayed as strong as I could while the storm rage
d, but months later, when it had all subsided, I fell apart.
I drove off shopping one morning and, only yards down the road, was overwhelmed
with panic. My husband had to come and rescue me. I tried to shake it off but it
happened again and again
once, scarily, causing a minor prang on a country road
(to the kind man in the Volvo with the labrador in the back: despite your prote
stations, it was my fault and I'm sorry).
Appalled by this untrustworthy and surely?
dangerous new self, I proceeded to lo
se my nerve about everything else. Live TV and radio, something I'd previously l
oved, seemed suddenly fraught with risk. What if I felt trapped and had to tear
my microphone off and flee the studio? Theatres were unbearably claustrophobic;
cinemas barely less so. I could not even think about the tube. Buses had seemed
a gloriously safe alternative to cars, but I found myself watching the doors bet
ween stops just in case. In the classic mode of chronically anxious people, I be
gan to avoid all situations that felt threatening. Stranded in a sea of possible
triggers, the piece of land I was standing on clinging to
grew smaller and smal
ler. It was when I realised I could not even ride the escalator in John Lewis wi
thout a mounting panic that I knew I had to get help.
Julie Myerson
'Sitting still became a boon and a comfort, even a luxury, rather than a threat
or an irritation' Julie Myerson on the benefits of MBCT. Photograph: Murdo Macleo
d for the Guardian Murdo Macleod/Guardian
Which is how I found myself sitting in a circle in a small room at the end of a
long corridor at the Maudsley one rainy Tuesday evening in January 2010. Two rea
ssuringly stern yet affable psychiatrists in suits
Dr Florian Ruths and Dr Stirl
ing Moorey faced 20 or so of us, and guided us through a series of exercises.
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I think we lay on the floor and did a 45-minute "body scan" meditation. It was u
ncomfortable, boring and a bit embarrassing. My foot itched. One or two of the m
en dropped off and snored.
The first sitting-down meditation was excruciating. A whole 40 minutes sitting i
n a chair and doing absolutely nothing, while Dr Ruths talked us through it. I w
as bored, restless and (of course) had to fight an impulse to run from the room.
As we sat in our circle and shared the reasons that had brought us all there, m
y memory is that I was the only one suffering from anxiety (as opposed to depres
sion), and also that I definitely came across as the "maddest"
there was no one
else in that room who had trouble staying on a bus.
Some people in the group shared expansively, some less so. One or two never spok
e. But the sense of kindness, openness and acceptance was inspiring and comforti
ng. We were sent home with daily homework: progress sheets to fill in and variou
s guided meditations on CDs. I did mine diligently I wanted, very badly, to get
better. But I was also beginning to remember why I'd resisted the idea of medita
tion for so many years: it was difficult, dull and uncomfortable. What was the p
oint?
Quite how this changed but change it did, and profoundly so
is hard to say. Some
how, somewhere, across those six weeks, something happened inside me in my head?
my body? my soul? and I began to understand. Sitting still became a boon and a
comfort, even a luxury, rather than a threat or an irritation. And the present m
oment, right here, right now, began to seem a very comfortable (and comforting)
place to be, bereft of dread and full of the possibility of peace and calm.
Most importantly, I seemed to be developing a whole new relationship with my tho
ughts. It wasn't that they'd really changed; they were still the same old wolf-

and fire- and death-fearing thoughts, but I could see that they were simply that
: thoughts. I did not have to judge them, act on them or indeed do anything very
much about them. Sometimes they were interesting, sometimes less so, but they w
ere no more than "events" that arose in the mind and then dispersed again. They
did not, as I'd previously imagined, have the power to undo me. Only someone who
has suffered from chronic, debilitating anxiety will understand quite how exhil
arating this realisation felt. I had made peace with the workings of my mind. I
was no longer afraid of myself.
It didn't feel as if I had done much to make this happen, apart from turning up
and being prepared to sit there. But that, of course, was everything. Still, it
felt oddly effortless, as if something in my head had been subtly rerouted. And
it turned out that there was far more space in there than I'd ever realised. Lik
e finding a whole new room in your home that you never knew existed (imagine the
excitement), I could wander around my mind and luxuriate in the boundless space
.
Once the course was over, I continued
and still continue to meditate. Every day,
without fail (after coffee but before getting dressed), I sit, usually for 10 m
inutes, or if I can, for 20. Sometimes I love it. Other times it feels harder. N
ow and then, the capricious cacophony of my mind still amazes me: all those thou
ghts and worries and ideas and fears swirling around in there.
But the point is that it doesn't matter. As our teachers memorably told us, ther
e is no such thing as a "bad" meditation, apart from the one you don't do. Mindf
ulness is not about trying to change things, but accepting them as they are, non
-judgmentally, with as much kindness and gentleness as possible.
And I now do just about everything I had
ving on fast roads still eludes me but
is that I don't waste any time worrying
reassure my panda: everything's going to

ceased to be able to do. All right, dri

one day. The most telling thing, perhaps,
about it. As I once so kindly tried to
be all right.