Harry Potter author JK Rowling has admitted she contemplated suicide while suffering from depression following the breakdown of her first marriage.
The writer was prescribed cognitive behavioural therapy after suffering "suicidal thoughts" in the aftermath of separation from her first husband, Jorge Arantes, a Portuguese journalist, according to reports.
She made the comments in an interview with Adeel Amini for a student magazine at Edinburgh University.
She said: "Mid-twenties life circumstances were poor and I really plummeted. The thing that made me go for help...was probably my daughter. She was something that earthed me, grounded me, and I thought, this isn't right, this can't be right, she cannot grow up with me in this state."
She said her usual GP was away and a replacement doctor sent her away, telling her to speak to the practice nurse if she ever felt "a bit low".
"We're talking suicidal thoughts here, we're not talking 'I'm a little bit miserable'," she said.
"Two weeks later I had a phone call from my regular GP who had looked back over the notes . . . She called me back in and I got counselling through her.
"She absolutely saved me because I don't think I would have had the guts to go and do it twice."
Rowling, 42, is now one of the richest women in the world, with a fortune estimated by US magazine Forbes at £504 million.
"I have never been remotely ashamed of having been depressed. Never," she added. "What's to be ashamed of? I went through a really rough time and I am quite proud that I got out of that."
