A Place In The Sun star Leah Charles-King reveals mental health struggles - including depression misdiagnosis

Leah Charles-King stood in line at her GP's office, her eyes wet with silent tears and her hands trembling. Clutched in her hand was a handwritten plea - “If you send me home, I’m going to kill myself. I’m suicidal and I need help now.”

“It was that straightforward,” the TV presenter said, renowned for her work on Channel 4’s A Place In The Sun. Just a couple of days prior, 30-year-old Leah had put on a cheerful performance on a live ITV show. However, beneath the surface, a mental health crisis had been brewing for years. She had been through periods of intense highs, marked by impulsivity and a lack of rest, followed by deep lows since her early 20s.

Now, in an interview with the Daily Mail, Leah has opened up about her mental health journey, from a misdiagnosis of depression to eventually learning she was bipolar.

“I wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat, yet I was brimming with energy, racing thoughts, very impulsive,” Leah said. “I would also experience periods of suicidal thoughts and depression. I could sense something was off because of how erratic I was.”

Her GP initially diagnosed her with depression and prescribed antidepressants. However, they didn’t seem to alleviate her symptoms - and with very good reason. Leah didn’t need treatment for depression, as she actually had bipolar disorder. The day she handed her desperate note to the GP's office staff, an ambulance rushed her to the hospital.

There, a specialist confirmed the bipolar diagnosis. Shockingly, Leah learned that the antidepressants she had been taking might have worsened her symptoms. While depression is associated with profound sadness, negativity, and low energy, bipolar disorder involves cycles of these symptoms interspersed with manic episodes characterised by intense energy.

People with bipolar disorder may also exhibit impulsive and potentially harmful behaviors, like excessive spending.

According to Simon Kitchen, CEO of Bipolar UK, despite the distinctiveness of the two conditions and their distinct treatments, “nearly 70 per cent of people with bipolar tell us they’d had a previous diagnosis of depression.”

Diagnosing bipolar disorder relies on professional assessment. The challenge is that misdiagnosing bipolar as depression can lead to inappropriate medication, exacerbating mood swings.

“Antidepressants can be beneficial for some bipolar patients, but for most, they are ineffective and can worsen mood swings,” added Guy Goodwin, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Oxford University. “[Antidepressants] activate brain networks that are predisposed to switching beyond normal mood into hypomania - the drug causes the switch.”

He explained that antidepressants can activate brain networks predisposed to hypomania, causing mood shifts beyond the normal range. Despite this, a 2022 survey by Bipolar UK found that 55 per cent of 2,458 individuals with bipolar disorder had been prescribed antidepressants.

The charity also highlighted cases where patients were wrongly labeled as having treatment-resistant depression, leading to stronger medications due to the ineffectiveness of antidepressants.