Professor Green: Antidepressants made life ‘better’

Professor Green’s life has been "so much better" since he started using antidepressants.
The 34-year-old rapper – whose real name is Stephen Manderson – has been battling with his mental health for several years, and admitted a big change in his life began when he started a course of SSRIs (Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), which he says have made life "so much easier" for him.
He said: "I actually feel like a bit of an idiot for not trying them sooner. They don’t work for everyone but exercising, behaving better, sleeping well, spending my time with good people – they all sound like really obvious things to do, but they’ve made my life so much easier and so much better."
And taking the medication has even helped him to quit drinking.
He added: "Alcohol and antidepressants don’t work well together so it’s made it easier to stop drinking, which is quite nice. I don’t know if I’m gonna be on antidepressants forever, but I do know that I’m gonna give them a proper chance to work. They’ve made it really easy for me to make decisions – the ‘noise’ that I used to have is gone. They’re not happy pills or numbing, but they give me clarity."
The ‘Read All About It’ hitmaker admits his battle with himself was driven in part by a need to fuel his "creativity", but he’s now realised that he doesn’t need to be "tortured" in order to create.
He said: "For a long time I would do things that were self-destructive because I was used to using that pain to drive my creativity. It’s that stupid clichéd tortured artist thing. But I’ve realised that I don’t need it. I’m writing the best songs I’ve ever written, doing the best work behind the scenes on the next documentaries I’m making and coming up with ideas left, right, and centre. And it all comes from just a few changes in my life."
But that’s not to say the ‘Just Be Good To Green’ rapper is completely clean, as he admits he may still smoke from time to time, under the right circumstances.
Speaking to Fabulous magazine, he said: "I’m not gonna sit here and say I’m a perfect human and I’ll never smoke or have a spliff again, because I probably will. But I think you pick your moments. If you mean to enhance and not escape then I think it’s fine."