"Who Do You Think You Are", Series 14: #10 Ruby Wax

[Barnes612]

You may find this interesting. It's about 'memory' being passed through generations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510

[Rena]

You may find this interesting. It's about 'memory' being passed through generations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510

Thanks for posting the link, I found it interesting. This memory link might explain why I sometimes disagree with historian and other experts when they explain what happened long ago and I just know that they're wrong 

[IgorStrav]

I found this programme unbearably moving.

Ruby evidently had a very distressing and dysfunctional childhood, has fought against it all her life (very successfully, she has been a great comedy writer and actress in her time), reinvented herself in later life to talk about her mental issues which has doubtlessly helped other people.

During the very sad discoveries, she said herself that she is on medication and this is how she managed to deal with her findings (in fact I was quite worried she seemed to be alone abroad whilst finding out these things - should she/did she have someone with her to help and talk to).

I cannot imagine how devastating all these things would be, to finally find out.

Very very brave of her, I do hope this has helped her.

[ThrelfallYorky]

Yes, I must admit that the programme rather modified my attitude to her.

[Mowsehowse]

I found this programme unbearably moving.

Ruby evidently had a very distressing and dysfunctional childhood, has fought against it all her life (very successfully, she has been a great comedy writer and actress in her time), reinvented herself in later life to talk about her mental issues which has doubtlessly helped other people.

During the very sad discoveries, she said herself that she is on medication and this is how she managed to deal with her findings (in fact I was quite worried she seemed to be alone abroad whilst finding out these things - should she/did she have someone with her to help and talk to).

I cannot imagine how devastating all these things would be, to finally find out.

Very very brave of her, I do hope this has helped her.

I so agree.  To watch her stroking the headstone, and to know where the recommendation to try Yad Vashem would lead.....
Remembering how I felt when I discovered that my great grandfather had died in Theresienstadt, and that his wife had then perished in Auschwitz made me tremble for Ruby.
Yes, an unbearably moving programme.

[Romilly]

(Can I add a little nosey query ?    What has she done with her eye-brows ?   Being always high up on her face makes her look permanently startled .... is this plastic surgery gone wild ?   Or is her often strange look all part of her own mental illness ?)

I too found myself becoming preoccupied with her eyebrows... (I would hazard a guess that she's had them waxed (!) and dyed). A shame, because the subjects covered were often tragic and traumatic ones.

I have previously read several articles where Ruby commented on her parents, and it does seem strange that she never asked them more about their lives before they went to the U.S, - but some families just don't communicate much! It also occurred to me that mental illness in families might very well have been viewed as a huge social stigma in her parent's generation, and her mother might well have not wished to pass this knowledge on for these reasons.

Romilly.

[KGarrad]

Mental illness still carries (to some) a social stigma today.

My mother-in-law has always been adamant that she didn't want me "poking my nose" into her family, when I offered to research her tree.
We are 90% sure it's because of mental illness of someone connected to her within the last 100 years or so?

[Mowsehowse]

Mental illness still carries (to some) a social stigma today.

My mother-in-law has always been adamant that she didn't want me "poking my nose" into her family, when I offered to research her tree.
We are 90% sure it's because of mental illness of someone connected to her within the last 100 years or so? 

Highly possible.
I have encountered a similar reaction..... turned out to be illegitimacy in that family's past.

[Liviani]

I found this episode very validating to myself.

The main reason I got into genealogy was because of the prevalence of mental illness on my mother's side (and myself also). There is a history of suicide, my 2x great grandfather shot himself and there are other branches of the same family being admitted into asylums with delusions or similar.

I really found this episode moving and could relate to a lot of what Ruby was saying in regards to mental ill health and her desire to find anything similar in ancestors.