DAME KELLY HOLMES has spoken of her battles with depression and self-harm.

Holmes specialised in the 800 and 1500 metres events and won a gold medal for both distances at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. She set  British records in numerous events and still holds the records over the 600, 800 and 1000 metre distances.

The 50-year-old has now revealed the personal anguish she went through at the World Championships in Paris in 2003.

Speaking to Judy Murray, mother of British tennis ace Andy, during Sky’s Driving Force series, Holmes admitted that her physical state had infected her judgment and self-harming became a release for her misery. She was at her lowest point.

She said: “I went into the toilets and just broke down. I literally hated everything about myself because my body was always letting me down. I just tried so hard to keep it going.

“I saw a pair of scissors on the side. I picked them up ended up cutting myself for every day I’d been injured and that had been quite a few days.”

“As a female, you’re wearing a crop top and shorts so you end up thinking amongst the black cloud and midst you want to jump into a hole and not see tomorrow, which is exactly what I felt.

“I’m still getting ready for a world champs and I’ve got to go out in public so I was putting make-up over scars,” she said.

“Mental health is a thing that you don’t think about. It just impacts your life like nothing.

“I was at the depths of despair but I didn’t know who to talk to. On one side of me, I was dying and on the other side, I was living for my dream to be Olympic champion.

“I went to those world championships and I got a silver medal but no one knew what was happening.”

In a bid to help others with similar challenges, the former athlete set up the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust. The charity helps guide disadvantaged young people, getting their lives back on track by using world class athletes to engage, enable and empower, attitudes they need to fulfil a positive life. She encourages the same philosophy that she lives by, nothing is impossible.

Dame Kelly is now one of the most sought-after motivational speakers, having inspired and motivated audiences in the UK and around the world.

Her enthusiastic and energetic speeches are rooted in her unique achievements as a double Olympic champion and are synonymous with focus, self-belief, drive, determination and success.

She also specialises in mental health focusing on mental wellbeing in the workplace, drawing from her own experiences of depression.