ANNA RICHARDSON: ‘It took me years to overcome my anxiety’
TV presenter Anna opens up about her mental health struggle and how she wants to lessen the stigma to help others
She may seem confident on S screen, but Anna Richardson has suffered from “crippling” anxiety which, at one point, left her unable to even leave the house. The Naked Attraction host, 47, who is in a long-term relationship with TV star Sue Perkins says, “My struggle with anxiety started when I was 20; I had an ectopic pregnancy when I was at university. The pain was crippling and I was rushed to hospital, where I was told I was close to dying. It left me traumatised and took me three months to move on, with the help of therapy – but it mentally scarred me for years.”
MOMENT OF HORROR
But for Anna, another incident at the Cannes Film Festival in 2002 triggered the anxiety again and left her suffering from PTSD. She explains, “I was filming a series in Cannes and it was really hot, so I went to sleep naked in my hotel room with the balcony door open. I was woken in the night by two men who had climbed into my room and were going through my things. I will never forget that moment of horror, it felt like my heart stopped and all these thoughts raced through my mind. They both jumped off the balcony and physically I was safe, but I suffered terrible post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Anna, who is now a qualified cognitive hypnotherapist, then underwent extensive therapy for months. “It’s a vicious circle with anxiety,” she explains. “After that incident, I developed a fear of being trapped, as I had been in that room with those men. Then it became a fear of going on the Tube in an enclosed space, then going on the motorway because you can’t get off and, before I knew it, I couldn’t leave the house. I saw a psychotherapist and she saved my life. She was tough with me, but she needed to be. I’ll never be free from anxiety, but I’ve learned to manage it.”
IN THE GENES
Anna has a long family history of mental health problems, meaning the issue is even closer to her heart. Her grandmother tragically took her own life in her fifties, while Anna watched her mother, Janet, a retired teacher, suffer a breakdown last summer, and her brother struggles with OCD.
“They say that genes are the gun and environment is the trigger,” Anna explains. “So I was probably always prone to this, but those incidences triggered it off.”
And the reason Anna – who has just launched Mindbox, a service that aims to give easier and cheaper access to therapy – is so open about her struggles is because she believes we need to be more honest about our mental health.
“It’s a huge crisis in the UK. We are all under so much pressure and so many people suffer with stress, anxiety and depression, yet we still aren’t opening up about it. We need to lessen the taboo so people don’t feel ashamed to say they need help. Talking is effective, in fact therapy has been proven to be as effective as antidepressants.”