N-Dubz Tulisa: Stress from mother's mental illness led me to self-harm

In a new documentary, Tulisa Contostavlos, from the band N-Dubz, tells how she became depressed and unhappy as a child because of her mother's schizoaffective disorder — which she has suffered from since before the singer was born.

Contostavlos, from Camden, tells how she saw her mother forcibly sectioned in psychiatric care when she was five years old and explores how that affects their relationship now.

She said: "I was very unhappy, a very depressed child. It never went away fully until I got music. To me the honest truth was I didn't know anything else — watching my mum go in and out of hospital, get ill, get better — it was just normal for me."

She added: "I have to look out for her and take care of her. You can't say that me and my mum have a traditional mother and daughter relationship because it's not."

In the documentary, which is being shown on BBC3 tonight, she explains how her mother's behaviour can vary from day to day.

"I'll come home one day and she'll be crying and really emotional," she said. "Other times she might be very aggressive, it's very manic and all over the place. One minute she's like this and one minute she's like that."

Contostavlos is one of 80,000 young people in the UK who care for a parent with mental health problems.

She says that as a child she found it difficult to cope with the strain and at times resorted to self-harm.

Reading from her 2005 diary she says: "Mum has had one panic attack and one seizure. When she had the seizure, I spent the whole day at the hospital.

"I want to help, but it stresses me out so much." The singer shows the blood-spattered diary and says: "I've self-harmed here and wiped my blood on the page."

Schizoaffective disorder affects a sufferer's thinking processes and moods. They can swing from deep depression to extreme elation in the course of one "cycle" or episode, and experience schizophrenia-like symptoms such as hallucinations or delusion.

Contostavlos has a one in 10 chance of becoming mentally ill herself because of her genes, compared with a one in 100 chance for those whose parents aren't affected. She said: "The risk of me ever suffering from mental illness, that is quite a lot for me to take on board. I'm not sure if I'm pushing myself to the limit at times."

Contostavlos joined N-Dubz as a teenager when her cousin, fellow band member Dino Contostavlos, invited her. The band released their debut album in November 2008.

Tulisa: My Mum and Me goes out on BBC Three today at 9pm.