{"id":629210,"date":"2026-04-26T05:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/629210\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T05:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T05:17:09","slug":"mental-illness-is-a-liar-in-you-head","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/629210\/","title":{"rendered":"‘mental illness is a liar in you head’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comedian and radio presenter PJ Gallagher has spoken about his struggles with depression and anxiety<\/a> and recalled the night he finally confronted the problem – with a lot of help from one of his best friends.<\/p>\n

The 51-year-old Dubliner, who co-hosts Radio Nova\u2019s breakfast show, has previously been praised for his advocacy for mental health<\/a> issues and in a new interview on RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s Brendan O\u2019Connor Show, he said, “part of the illness is that it lies to you.”<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n2024 documentary PJ Gallagher: Changing My Mind saw the comedian exploring mental health issues in Ireland<\/p>\n

“I was very unwell, very unwell with depression,” he said. “I had repetitive depressive disorder and I had a particularly bad bout. I could go years without one and most of them were pretty manageable but I had two that were life-threatening and I wasn\u2019t handling the last one I had at all well.”<\/p>\n

The comedian said that he hit rock bottom in the early hours one morning and turned to his friend, Irish writer and actress Stefanie Preissner, who has worked on RT\u00c9 shows Can\u2019t Cope, Won\u2019t Cope and The Walsh Sisters.<\/p>\n

“I remember having this clear thought one day that I wouldn\u2019t see the end of the day,” Gallagher said. “I had woken up at half four in the morning and there was a message from Stefanie saying – \u2018no time is too early, no time is too late. If you need me, call me\u2019<\/p>\n

“I called her and ended up at her house and it was a pivotal moment. I decided I can\u2019t stay like this. I was so resistant about going to hospital. I thought as soon as someone knows how I feel, I\u2019ll never recover from it – I\u2019ll lose my job, I\u2019ll lose my friends . . . “<\/p>\n

He added, “Part of the illness is that it lies to you. It says \u2018no one will talk to you again. You will lose your job; everyone will be embarrassed to be around you . . . \u2018 the illness is a liar that lives in your head.<\/p>\n

“You would never let anyone talk to you the way you talk to you when you\u2019re not well. You would never talk to anyone else like that and you would never let anyone talk to you like that.”<\/p>\n

Gallagher, who reprises his role in The Young Offenders and appears in the new series of Uncharted with Ray Goggins, was on O\u2019Connor\u2019s afternoon show to take part in a regular item in which guests talk about five songs that have had a profound impact on their lives.<\/p>\n

\"Brendan
\nBrendan O’Connor pictured with PJ Gallagher<\/p>\n

He chose tracks by Damien Dempsey, Tom Waits, The Fat Lady Sings, a song from Christy Dignam\u2019s solo album<\/a>, and the theme tune from TV series Minder, which he dedicated to his Nova co-host Jim McCabe.<\/p>\n

He also recalled how he became involved in Dublin\u2019s booming music scene in the late eighties and early nineties, attending gigs in long-gone Dublin venues such as the Baggot Inn, McGonagles and the Underground.<\/p>\n

“I was just coming into my formative teenage years and it was a really important time for Irish music,” he said. “You had all these bands, local people who you felt were like you.<\/p>\n

“Bands like An Emotional Fish and The Stunning started to come on the scene, A-House were the coolest people I\u2019d ever seen, The Frank and Walters were coming out of Cork . . . “<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nGallagher rose to fame on RT\u00c9 sketch show Naked Camera<\/p>\n

He continued, “There just seemed to be this real happening band thing, everyone was in band. Even if they couldn\u2019t play an instrument, they were going to get a bass guitar and join a band.”<\/p>\n

Gallagher was also asked how his twins, son Milo and daughter Stevie, who he shares with his partner, Kelly Doolin, were doing.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m wrecked!” he said. “They\u2019re perfect but we\u2019re destroyed, really tired.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re just out of the woods now. We\u2019re in the place now when you start to enjoy them and they\u2019re funny and their personalities come through. It\u2019s really nice now – I don\u2019t care what anyone says, the first two years are really tough.<\/p>\n

“I always said becoming a dad would be the one thing I would never do. I had such negative ideas of what a family was and how they worked and I was actively running away from it and then it just happens and two come along at once – and it\u2019s just wild.”<\/p>\n

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please see RT\u00c9\u2019s list of helplines<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Comedian and radio presenter PJ Gallagher has spoken about his struggles with depression and anxiety and recalled the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-629210","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}