Miranda Hart has reflected on coming to terms with being diagnosed with Lyme disease after years of unexplained symptoms.
The 51-year-old comedian, best known for her eponymous BBC show Miranda, has released a revealing autobiography that provides a frank account of the past 10 years of her life, including her health issues. I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You also offers a rare insight into her private life, including the revelation that she got secretly married after falling in love aged 49.
Writing about her life before she received her diagnosis, Hart said that she felt like an “outsider” and “silenced” by others because she was “tired all the time” and dealing with anxiety attacks, but had no medical explanation for it.
“I was debilitated but also lucky in so many ways – I feared being perceived as complaining,” she wrote. “I realise now why so many experts and therapists became so after their own recoveries – I think in particular of the help I got from the Optimum Health Clinic, and why they, among others, call it ‘chronic invisible illness’. The invisibility is part of the problem.
The TV star reflected on processing the news of her diagnosis, after years of unexplained symptoms, at her parents’ house during lockdown.
“I sat down on a chair and cried a little,” she wrote. “But…I was so overwhelmed by the size of this news – the way my life story suddenly needed to be rewritten – that I remained open-mouthed and quiet.”
“All the years of knowing there was something wrong and being silenced, all the years I would apologise or push on because I had been told it was a weirdly manifesting anxiety attack, all the years my illness could have been prevented (90 per cent of those suffering from Lyme disease can recover fully), the missed opportunities, the losses, the aloneness, the fear of wondering ‘What next?’ It was too much to settle on one feeling. I let myself sniffle for a couple of days and then I ‘pulled myself together’”.
Lyme disease is a bacterial infection which can lead to severe physical and mental problems if not diagnosed at an early stage. It is typically spread to humans via infected ticks, which will have already bitten an infected animal such as deer, mouse, vole or hedgehog. Other insects also carry the disease.
Hart wrote that it was easier to describe her illness to others when the world learnt about long-Covid, which involves long-lasting symptoms of extreme fatigue shortness of breath and problems with your memory as well as more long-term risks.
“After long Covid this is more understood; I can say I have long Lyme and people understand a little more easily. Year on year, the ‘chronic fatigue, ME, long post-viral condition’ bracket is getting more visible. I hope so, for it is a very real, severe, physical illness,” said Hart.
Elsewhere in the book, Hart reveals she found love during this difficult period of her life.
“Someone put a ring on it,” she told The One Show, without revealing her husband’s identity.
“I got married at 51, and it’s just so lovely. He’s my best friend, we have the best fun and I’m just thrilled to be a young bride at 51,” she added.
“The fact that I met someone during a pandemic, during chronic illness when I couldn’t get out of bed or get out of the house, and I really really wanted to meet someone, I didn’t want to do life on my own any more, and I kind of admitted that to myself and I tell that story in the book.
“The fact that I could meet somebody is not some kind of rom-com story, but it’s hope, there is always hope, things can always change.”