THERE’S no doubting Ruth Davidson’s courage. Speaking out about her struggle with depression and self-harming when she was younger took guts because, as she would be all too well aware, it was risky. Despite talk about the stigma of mental health issues being a thing of the past, that sadly isn’t true. For some it is still seen as a sign of weakness, a fault line in a character that can’t be grouted, an episode or on-going affliction that speaks to something not quite right. Even though people who have come through it, like Ms Davidson, are often stronger and more resilient as a result, those who don’t understand depression view the person who has had it, or other mental health problems, like a house built on sand.

The positive reaction to Ms Davidson’s revelations was a cheering glimpse of a nicer world than the one in which she works. To hear her being applauded was heart-warming, and one hopes she feels buoyed and encouraged. From former political rottweiler Alastair Campbell, a fellow sufferer, to the chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, she was praised for her candour. By being so honest, she has helped dispel the fog of shame and embarrassment that bedevils the subject. Knowing that a public figure like her, endowed not only with brains but ebullience too, has survived such a terrible period of torment will be an inspiration. As her meteoric career has shown, it is possible to recover and not only get on, but excel.

Yet while Ms Davidson has taken a step for humankind on the road to greater compassion and awareness, you wonder how wise she has been. Altruistic? Undoubtedly. Disarmingly frank? You’d expect nothing else from such a straight-talking and outgoing personality. Far-sighted and well-judged? Only time will tell.

That’s the problem with confessions. Full disclosure gives an adrenaline rush, a sense of liberation. That’s fine and good for the counsellor’s office or the family sofa. But when people make public the things that also make them most vulnerable, they have opened a door that cannot be closed. In some arenas that’s unlikely to cause difficulties. Emma Thompson’s admission of battling depression, like AL Kennedy’s, was admirable. Across the arts, unfortunately, it is all too common. Indeed, perhaps because of that it does not affect the trust placed in that person and their work.

For those who hold public office, or positions of great responsibility, however, such confessions are a throw of the dice – a dice that can keep on rolling long after the revelation has been forgotten by almost everyone. There is a fine line between healthy openness and over-sharing. If the nation had known about Winston Churchill’s black depressions, the terror of the darkest days of war would have been deeper still. Would his military chiefs have trusted his orders or backed his instincts, knowing he was sometimes beset by crippling self-doubt?

Churchill is at the extreme end of a spectrum where privacy around his personal life was essential for public morale. Ms Davidson is not in a situation remotely like his. But she might be one day. For all her certainty about never running for Prime Minister, at some point in the next 20 years she might start to view her prospects differently. Stranger things have happened. Perhaps the political sphere will by then be transformed from a swamp of alligators into a paddling pool where the task has become less all-consuming and treacherous. Or maybe the media, whose camera lens is always open, might finally have learned to give people a bit of personal space.

Those possibilities probably fall into the realms of fantasy. Nevertheless, whatever unfolds in the future, Ms Davidson will be known as someone who once, under intolerable pressure, and at a very impressionable age, became seriously unwell. Of course she is not defined by that period. As her willingness to tell people about it shows, she is healed, albeit remaining wary for any symptom that suggests she needs to take care.

The worry, rather, is that the environment in which she operates is not a kind place. Unlike other people, figures of state are expected to be tough and resilient. We don’t like them to call in sick, or show signs of being highly sensitive. Our security, to an extent, depends on them projecting an appearance of impossible, unnatural confidence and assurance. When Theresa May appeared to be under severe emotional strain after the snap General Election and the Grenfell Tower fire, she was rumoured to have sought help from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Was there an outpouring of concern for her welfare among her colleagues or the press? Of course not. The only sound was the whetstone as blades were sharpened.

There’s a pernicious double standard at play here, but it will take a dramatic cultural shift for those preconceptions and prejudices to disappear. Ms Davidson has done her bit to challenge this already, and all credit to her for that. I just hope that she doesn’t one day look back on her tell-all interview and wish she’d spoken less freely.