Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
My mental health is so much worse
Says Bake Off winner Candice
GREAT British Bake Off winner Candice Brown has revealed her mental health is “much worse” now than after being diagnosed with ADHD 21 months ago.
And the star, who won the show in 2016, says her condition is so bad that people have even told her they are struggling to be with her.
Candice, 36, says she knew about her mental health problems and had suffered from depression for years.
But she was only diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in January last year, and is now working with psychiatrists.
She said: “It is so much worse now. My mental health has taken a huge dip in the last couple of years.”
Revealing that her ADHD and the anxiety combined are in a “horrible battle” and create a vicious circle, she said: “The lateness, the buzzing around and the forgetfulness causes me so much stress and anxiety, which then makes it worse.
“People are sort of saying at the moment ‘we know you’re quite bad because we’re struggling to be with you’.
“One of the things I said as soon as I was diagnosed was that I don’t want to be medicated. But I’m working with psychiatrists and I know I have to be because it’s causing me more stress than I can cope with at the moment.
“I’ve been on anti-depressants and medications and things that have
FAME
Running a marathon in 2019 turned me into an absolute zombie, and it’s not nice and it does dull the bits about me that I do like. “One of the things with me and the ADHD and the anxiety, they battle – they can really fight against each other.
“It’s just a whole minefield but I’m working on it.” Candice, who is reported to be dating TUI executive Nicky Mercer following the breakdown of her two-year marriage in 2020, said the only time she can do things at normal speed is when she’s under pressure – like when she was on Bake Off.
She added: “Give me four hours to do something and I’ll take 10.
“Give me four hours to do something and people watching and pressure, like Bake Off – when I have no choice but to do it – and I do it. I’ve always been called icy but that’s genuinely me trying to focus.”
Since her Bake Off victory, Candice has written books, appeared on TV shows such as Dancing on Ice and also runs the Green Man pub in Eversholt, Bedfordshire.
Prior to that, baking provided some sort of escape, even though she was suffering mental health troubles at the time she won the TV competition.
But her success went on to attract internet trolls, who made death threats and attacked her appearance. Some even claimed that she had only won because she wore lipstick and falsely accused her of having relationships on the show.
She told TV star Vicky Pattison’s The Secret To podcast: “I worked so hard because I knew I had to. But that wasn’t enough for people, it had to be another reason. What has the world come to?”