'But everyone actually wants to die, don't they?'

Actress and cabaret performer Yora Rienstra (35) knows up close what depression can do to a person's life: her grandmother was manic-depressive. That is also why she agreed when she was asked to do the solo performance PAAZ play, even though she didn't really want to be on stage by herself again after seven years of cabaret. 'But I found Myrthe van der Meer's book very fascinating and it is an important theme.' She talks about it using a few text fragments from PAAZ, a performance about depression that you can laugh at anyway.

You tell the doctor what happened, where it hurts and then wait for his verdict. The difference [from a regular doctor] is that after his examination, the doctor looks at you seriously and says: 'This is not an arm, but a leg.'

'If you have a physical ailment, broken your arm for example, it is clear what is wrong and what needs to be done: six weeks of plaster and then it is done. But with depression, someone is often in a situation where they don't know what is going on. You may have thought your arm was always bothering you, but it turns out it's your leg.

Normal

What I really like about Myrthe van der Meer's book is that you totally get into the world of someone who is depressed. As an outsider, it is difficult to grasp exactly what is going on, what is going on inside someone. People are quick to say, "Oh, boy, don't be so worried," or, "Everyone feels like shit sometimes." And when you are depressed, you can think such things yourself for a very long time. Besides, your own thoughts are "normal" until you find out that what you are thinking may not be so normal at all. I think it is clever of Myrthe van der Meer to have been able to write down that process in a way that is recognisable to others. So my character Emma sits at the doctor's and thinks: but doesn't everyone actually want to die? That's quite normal, isn't it? Until that doctor says: "Well, no. It's not." Only then does something change. Turns her perspective and only then does she realise that her thoughts are very different from those of most other people.'

It is Friday 10 July. I will go back to work at the beginning of August anyway and I have exactly two days left to live. My last certainties.

'For me, the idea of dying is frightening, but for Emma it feels like a liberation. Everywhere she looks she sees death. The performance revolves around the struggle of not knowing how to live with your depression or mental illness.'

When I think of suicidal people, I think of totally lonely souls who have no one at all to warm to, but I have a friend.

'Depression can happen to anyone, but there is a big stigma attached to it. People have all kinds of ideas about what kind of persons depressed people are, what they look like, how they walk. I had that too. At one point, when I was staying in a psychiatric ward for research for PAAZ, I was talking to a very nice woman. She looked good, had nice clothes on. What a cool nurse, I thought. But so she had been admitted.

Openness

In my grandmother's case, her disorder was genetic, but depression can have so many causes. All sorts of people sat there together: people who had previously experienced something traumatic, who were schizophrenic, had bipolar disorder, or Asperger's. Young, old, rich, poor - all walks of life come together there. It's not like you can necessarily tell by looking at someone. That's also the confusing thing, and one reason why people think it won't be so bad. If you can still get dressed and you're not in bed all day, there's not such a big problem, is there? For me, that is also what drives me to play this role. Everything that deviates from the normal is so quickly put in a corner of silence, or not talked about. But openness is SO important. This play shows what goes on inside someone.'

Freedoms come in all shapes and sizes on the paaz. The basic freedom is: no freedom.

'To prepare for this role, I admitted myself to a psychiatric ward for twenty-four hours. I wanted to experience what it was like. With a van of the GGZ Transport Service, I was picked up at home. 'Did you bring stuff you could do something to yourself with?' the nurse asked. 'How do you feel, so you are confused?' I was shocked; I thought they didn't know I am an actress and assumed I was really depressed. And I didn't dare say anything at first. But the nurse just wanted to make it seem truthful.

Wobben

Even once in the clinic, I was otherwise treated exactly like anyone else who is admitted. When you enter there, you are not allowed anything; you are not allowed to go outside, not to go into the garden, not to go upstairs. You are only allowed to stay in your room or in the supervised areas. Only after a while are you allowed to 'wobble': walking under supervision. And still later you are allowed to go into the garden on your own, or outside if you have visitors.

I did not last there, despite the fact that the patients were fantastic and very open, and the nurses were really trying their best to make people better and do well for their patients. In the evening, we all sat inside, and I felt tension. It felt unpredictable and I found that scary.'

 I'm on the paaz and not getting better. I just won't die.

'Emma is basically saying: ím not getting better. She sees others getting better, but doesn't feel that things are getting better herself. She's just not dying. That's very distressing, because she tries to do something about it, she takes her medication and sleeping pills, but she doesn't sleep and it doesn't get better. Other people are allowed to go home, but she is still there.

My grandmother, a very nice woman, I experienced both manic and depressive. When I was about 14 years old, she fell into a depression she couldn't get out of. For seven years, she just sat looking ahead, saying almost nothing. You couldn't get in touch with her at all. The bizarre thing was that when my grandfather died, she was manic and completely up became. The excitement suddenly brought her out of her depression.'

I know that every day that things are going well means that the moment I slide off again is another day closer.

'That's what the psychologist says to Emma: "We're going to teach you to live with depression." But living with depression? That's obviously not the solution for her. She doesn't want to learn to live with it, she wants to get better. It is a crucial sentence because it is about accepting that you have an illness you can learn to cope with, but from which you may never be cured. They told me at the paaz that nine out of ten people who leave there come back again. Heady stuff. So some people who are not cured have to learn to live with their depression, so you can deal with it and it doesn't keep taking over you completely.'