A moment that changed me: I hated my job in advertising – then a mug of home-made stew set my life on a whole new path
A moment that changed me: I hated my job in advertising – then a mug of home-made stew set my life on a whole new path
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Signed off with depression, I began gardening. Being able to grow my own food brought me hope and a career change. In 2012, I had taken to hiding and sobbing in a meeting room at the London advertising agency I worked for. I held a senior position at the company and, if I had been found, it would have been deeply embarrassing. But most days, I woke up feeling as if a lead weight was pressing on my chest; I would spend my commute overwhelmed by an inexplicable feeling of sorrow. Every ringing phone in the office felt like an electric shock. Hiding in the barely used meeting room, hoping for respite had become a regular occurrence.
![[Kathy Slack on a weekend away in 2012, shortly before she was signed off work.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/70b4ff06a6215d9c3dcca72210310a5945fea3a7/0_0_4000_3000/master/4000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
But respite didn’t come. Despite my picture-perfect life – high-flying career, happy home and good health – my mind unravelled. I was signed off work with depression and, initially, spent weeks curled beneath the duvet with the curtains drawn, unable to face life, and consumed by shame. The good fortune of understanding bosses and private health cover meant I had access to drugs, therapy, doctors – whatever I needed. But real healing, hope and even a whole new career eventually came from an unlikely place: a vegetable patch.
![[A white, blue-rimmed mug full of broth and vegetables]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c3f262e4dcd611b1d138c65f83fc4ba9e613fb39/0_0_1500_1875/master/1500.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
My ever patient mother first coaxed me into the garden, where I sat among the dilapidated veg beds and put my hands in the soil. I watched the bugs, the weeds and the lettuces that had gone to seed. And there was silence. The constant chatter in my mind was quelled.
Over the course of a few weeks, I returned to the patch, eventually sowing some old lettuce seeds my mum found in a drawer, and marvelling at the alchemy of nature that transformed these lifeless kernels into food. I found a packet of radish seeds too, and within weeks I was picking actual radishes, which gave me the added satisfaction of eating something I’d grown.
