'They just sat with me': Julie Goodwin recalls how strangers helped in one of her darkest moments

Former MasterChef star Julie Goodwin has long been open about her battle with her mental health.

Now, the food and lifestyle star, 54, has spoken candidly about one of the darkest moments she's ever experienced in her battle – and how a conversation with a helpful couple saved her life.

Speaking on Nova Podcast's Head Game with host Ant Middleton, Goodwin, who has depression and anxiety, said at a low point she had "nothing left".

Watch the video above.

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"I just had nothing left. It's a sickness, right, severe depression is a serious illness," she explained.

"The only way I could shut off my brain late at night, was to drink wine, so I was doing too much of that.

"So I was self-medicating, and that's a terrible, terrible way to sleep, because you wake up with your heart hammering."

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Recalling a particularly dark moment, she said, "I had made a decision that everybody, everybody, my colleagues, my children, my husband, my family, everybody would be better off if I just racked off and let them all be.

"I was stumbled upon by a couple of strangers who recognised that I was a person that needed some company, and they sat with me and talked to me."

"This is why I wrote the book, because what I want is for people to recognise the earlier signs before they get to this point."

"They just sat with me for a couple of hours and talked to me … eventually I said, 'I'm going to be all right now, I'm going to call my husband', and when I told him what had happened, he took me straight to the hospital.

"Then I became a client of the mental health system, and that's what I remained for quite a long time. I was in and out of hospital five times."

At the time she was juggling her business and radio gig and said: "Anyone listening to me on the radio would have had zero idea."

Goodwin, who won MasterChef back in 2009, previously released a memoir where she talked about her mental health, titled Your Time Starts Now.

She recently gave an update on her mental health to 9honey and said: "I'm good, I really am. But it's a concentrated effort to remain good, you know."

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"I've learnt so much over the past few years about what I need to do to be well and now I just put priority on those things," she added.

"You've just gotta talk about it.

"You have to talk about it because when you internalise that stuff, my god, it's like setting off a bomb on your insides and, you know, not everyone survives that."

If you or someone you know is in need of mental health support contact Lifeline on 13 11 14. In the event of an emergency dial Triple Zero (000).

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