Strictly Come Dancing's Shirley Ballas has revealed that she thought she was 'better off dead' as she reflected on her 'darkest hours'.

The admission comes in an extract from her new memoir Best Foot Forward, which was published by The Mirror.

Shirley revealed that she believed she was 'heading down the same route' as her late brother David, who took his own life in 2003 at the age of 44.

Speaking about her suicidal thoughts for the first time, Shirley said: "I was anxious, depressed and desolate. I thought I was losing the plot. In my darkest hours I went to some terrible places in my head and while I hate to use the word suicidal, those thoughts crossed my mind.

"I could never have gone through with it because I wouldn't want my mother to suffer the agony of losing a second child to suicide, but there were certainly times when I thought I'd be better off dead because the way I was living felt so hideous."

The 64-year-old went on to say that she felt like she was 'plummeting into a black hole you can't climb up from' as going through menopause in her 50s affected her mental health.

"You're scratching away at the sides, trying and fighting to scramble your way up, but never quite managing before you fall back down again," she stated.

Saying that she tried to 'manage the situation' through the use of 'antidepressants, sleeping tablets, more medication to wake herself up and alcohol', Shirley said she 'never a boozer' prior to this.

She recalled: "However, now I was drinking. It had become a crutch which I thought was helping me to relax and unwind, something to take the edge off at the end of a busy day, but was actually making my anxiety even worse.

"I knew it was becoming a problem. I'd developed a dependency on that evening bottle of red and I was doing all this in private, hiding the extent of my distress from my family and those around me."

Shirley's son was the first person to 'realise' something was affecting her as she went on to see a doctor in California to discuss what was happening.

"I told him about the uncontrollable physical symptoms, the drinking, the mood swings and how some days were so horrendous that I didn't want to live. He sat there so patiently as the tears rolled down my cheeks and then he gently told me that this was all to do with my hormones, which was news to me. It was the first time I'd considered that as a possible cause," she said.

The doctor suggested that Shirley undergo bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, a treatment which involves implanting a rice-sized pellet containing oestrogen and testosterone, which drips into the bloodstream over a period of three to six months.

While the 'change took several weeks', Shirley began to feel like 'her old self again'. During the period she began to reflect on her brother's life.

"As I explored the issue and talked to my mother about what my brother had battled with for much of his life until he died, it dawned on me that I'd suffered similar feelings intermittently since I was a young girl.

"The difference between me and David was that I'd been able to cope a bit better with various situations. I had to appear strong, keep going, get to work, travel the world and raise a family. I never had the chance to sit down and reflect on what was going on inside my head because in my industry you keep moving until you pop your clogs," she noted.

Opening up about how her mental health is now, Shirley stated: "Whenever I have days where behind the eyes there's emptiness and all I want to do is come home, take a pill and go to bed, even now I struggle to share that with anyone. I just get through the day and hope that I wake up feeling brighter in the morning.

"I always trust that the darkness will pass and things will get better because history shows this to be true. However, what I've found over 20 years in counselling is that you can talk about it until you're blue in the face but unless you're prepared to do something about it and unclip the baggage yourself, nothing will change.

"I know I'll have anxiety until the end of my days - panic attacks where my chest tightens, my heart starts racing, my body goes from cold to warm to raging hot."

She continued: "I'd say to every woman, please don't suffer in silence. I can't stress enough how important it is to get your hormones checked and I wish I'd asked for help sooner."