'I spent 30 years searching for secret to happiness - the answer isn't what I thought'

In a powerful personal , Fergal Keane reflects on living with PTSD, depression and his search for balance in life. What he has discovered along the way is a deeper study of happiness that can apply to those with serious mental health challenges, but also to those simply in need of a lift.

Listen to Fergal read this story

There was a moment, nearly two years ago, when the change inside hit me with force. I was walking with a loved one on the eastern edge of Curragh beach in Ardmore, County Waterford, a place of warm refuge since I was a child. We paused beside a river that flows into Ardmore Bay. I was listening to the different sounds the water made - the swift rush of the river, the surf crashing on the shoreline.

Suddenly there was the sound of air being displaced by dozens of wings. A flock of Brent geese came sweeping over the cliff, riding the wind towards the sky. I felt a lightness inside, and such gratitude that I laughed out loud.

"So, this is how it feels," I thought.

To borrow and turn around the words of the novelist, Milan Kundera, I felt a wonderful "lightness of being".

That moment came back to me this week. I was thinking about the Blue Monday phenomenon - the January day that is said to be the saddest of the year.

As anyone who knows clinical depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will tell you, there are no specific days of the year for sadness. It can be the brightest day, in the loveliest place, and you still feel like your mind is trapped in permafrost.

But Blue Monday did prompt me to reflect on happiness. What is it anyway? What does it mean in my life?

Not long before that day of the beautiful geese, I had come out of an emotional breakdown. It was March 2023, and I felt as if I had gone 12 rounds with a heavyweight prize-fighter. But the person I'd fought was myself. As I had done for decades.

I had experienced several hospitalisations over the decades, stretching back to the early 90s. I fought a relentless battle with shame, fear, anger, denial - all these things that are the opposite of happy. There were grey, terrifying days. Every branch bare, even in deep summer. And nights waking drenched in sweat, waking to obsessive rumination, bad dreams leaking into the dawn.

Add in recovery from alcoholism at the end of the 90s, and I've done plenty of research into the dark nights of the soul.

By the time of the 2023 breakdown I had gone past the point of hoping for happiness. In those days I would have settled for a little peace of mind. In 2019, I had stepped back from my job as the BBC's Africa Editor due to my struggles with PTSD.

Two years later I wrote a book on the subject and made a television documentary for the BBC. Yet, even after all that, I experienced another breakdown.

Professor Bruce Hood, of the University of Bristol, speaks of the human tendency "to blow things out of proportion…[focusing] on our own failings or inadequacies". He runs ten-week courses at Bristol on the science of happiness and talks about the need to find balance because, as he puts it, "our minds are biased to interpret things very negatively".

This certainly resonates with me. A caveat, however: Professor Hood's area is addressing feelings of general low wellbeing, and he's clear that focusing on the science of happiness will not necessarily be a cure all for someone with a condition such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) .

I have a specific diagnosis. In 2008 doctors first told me I had PTSD based on multiple instances of trauma as a war reporter, but also rooted in the circumstances of childhood in a home broken by alcoholism. Depression and anxiety were both major parts of that condition. As was addiction to alcohol. I escaped also into the exhilarating energy, camaraderie, and sense of purpose that went with reporting conflict.

I would also stress that what works for me as I try to find happiness, may not definitely work for everyone else. There are specific mental health conditions that require equally specific treatments. With PTSD, a combination of therapies helped me greatly, along with the fellowship of others who had similar experiences.

Medication also ameliorated the physical symptoms of anxiety and hypervigilance. A dropped plate, a backfiring car could reduce me to a pale, shaking, sweating wreck in seconds. Likewise, the nightmares which could leave me thrashing in my sleep.

I am privileged. I have had access to the best treatment. There are so many in our society who do not. According to the British Medical Association more than one million people are waiting to access treatment. It's also important to recognise that there are numerous social, economic and cultural factors that influence our ability to experience happiness.

There is an ongoing study of genetic predisposition to depression and addiction. The World Wellbeing Movement (WWM), a charity promoting wellbeing in business and public policy decision-making, says that one in eight people in Britain live below what it called the Happiness Poverty Line – this is measured using data supplied by the annual reports of the Office for National Statistics, and based on the question – on a scale of 0 to 10: 'Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays":[]}