Rich, famous, gorgeous... and secretly struggling

He won Strictly. She was a hit on Britain’s Got Talent. But here Harry Judd’s wife Izzy bravely reveals the battles they’ve both faced as parents — with the crippling anxiety that blights so many lives

THE panic was debilitating. Her heart was pounding, her legs shook, the capacity for clear thought deserted her. Izzy Judd knew — because she was familiar with the symptoms that had plagued her intermittently since early childhood — that she was suffering a severe anxiety attack.

The cause was her son Kit, then just eight weeks old, who had just been diagnosed with bronchiolitis. The family doctor had sent them home, urging her to keep an eye on him, but his symptoms had swiftly worsened. Izzy, alone with Kit and her then

two-year-old daughter Lola, who was fractious and hungry, was distraught and incapacitated by terror.

It was the first time she had suffered such an attack alone with her children.

‘My head started spinning. Kit was struggling for breath and was sick everywhere. It was terrifying because my husband Harry [drummer with the band McFly] was in media interviews and out of contact.

‘I phoned my mum who lives in Hertfordshire — miles from our home in Chiswick, West London — and she suggested I try to clear Kit’s airways with steam, so I stripped him and put him in the shower. It didn’t help and he’d also developed a rash on his tummy.

‘I called an ambulance. Within minutes paramedics arrived. By then, I couldn’t think or function. I couldn’t string a sentence together.’

In the ambulance, with Kit linked up to oxygen and Lola strapped into a seat beside her, Izzy’s worries mounted. Kit was admitted to hospital, Harry arrived to take Lola back home and during the next few days Izzy stayed at their son’s bedside.

‘However anxious I felt during those days in hospital — and I was very fearful — my natural maternal instinct to protect Kit overrode it. I had no option but to cope,’ she says. ‘But then, as his condition improved and three days later we went home, the panic attacks returned.

‘If the children woke at night I’d imagine the worst-case scenario. I couldn’t cope with caring for them. I was terrified of being left alone with such a huge responsibility.’

Izzy, 35, is outwardly calm, sweet-natured, accomplished; a best-selling author and professional musician who toured the world with the female electric violin quartet Escala, after reaching the final of Britain’s Got Talent in 2008.

Yet she is one of the thousands of people in Ireland who lives, at times, with anxiety so acute it can impede her ability to function. Around one in nine people are likely to have a disabling anxiety disorder at some time in their lives.

NEITHER would you guess that Harry, 34 — a pop star and dancer who won Strictly Come Dancing in 2011 — has the same mental health problem. Blessed with affability and charm, he is chatty and palpably devoted to his wife. They seem like a golden couple.

‘Our anxieties are very different but we both understand how the symptoms feel,’ Izzy says. ‘Harry has acute episodes, which then ease, whereas mine are underlying and consistent.

‘Both our families are riddled with mental health issues and we’re acutely aware of the potential for both of us to struggle. We understand and sympathise with each other; we’re also aware of the strategies that help each of us cope.

‘Harry knows if I can’t get hold of him on the phone I catastrophise — I assume something terrible has happened to him. So we always agree on a time to call each other during the day.

‘Every parent has concerns about their children’s wellbeing and I knew I wanted to give ours the tools for good mental health. I think having two so close together I felt double the sense of responsibility. That was when I started to feel overwhelmed.’

Izzy and Harry met in 2005 when she was playing violin on McFly’s Wonderland tour. They married in 2012 and assumed children would swiftly follow — but two years on there was still no pregnancy.

Their first attempt at IVF ended in a miscarriage.

Izzy says: ‘I think I’d gone through so much to become pregnant and was so elated — it felt magical — that in my naivety I didn’t even consider the possibility that I could miscarry. I felt huge loss and grief. IVF represented hope and it had been crushed.

‘I wanted to start again straight away but Harry said I needed time for my body and mind to recover.’

They tried again a few months later and their second attempt resulted in the birth of Lola in 2016. Izzy admits she was unprepared for the complex emotions parenthood would bring: the amalgam of elation and exhaustion, apprehension and fear; the momentous impact on her previously ordered life.

SHE says: ‘On the night Lola was born I was scared to let her sleep lying on me in case she rolled off, and frightened of putting her in a cot as I wanted her with me.

‘I felt she’d been safe in my tummy and wanted her to be back there. I was overwhelmed, out of my depth. Breastfeeding was toe-curlingly painful and I began to dread feeds.

‘Harry had serious fears about falling downstairs while he was carrying her. He was very protective, very nervous.

‘I haven’t slept well since I became a mum — I can’t switch off. I’d hear phantom cries when Lola was actually sleeping peacefully.

‘Parenthood brought new and different fears about trying to hold on to control. And I think anyone who has suffered from anxiety will be on high alert for post-natal mental health problems.’

Kit’s arrival, just 19 months after Lola’s birth, was both a surprise and near-miracle; a natural conception when they had assumed they would need another round of IVF.

Again, the maelstrom of emotions was all-consuming. While Izzy felt an immediate flood of love for her newborn, Harry did not bond at once.

‘Harry adored Lola from the second she was born but it took him longer to connect with Kit,’ she says. ‘He’s besotted now but the first few months were challenging. Lola was very straightforward, easy, but Kit cried continually for the first year of his life. He had reflux and demanded so much attention.

‘I remember Mum saying, “You’ve done nothing wrong. Every baby is different; they are who they are.” But at the time I was working and I felt guilty. Lola had been with me 24/7 but now my attention was divided.’

She feared, too, not only for her own mental health but for that of her young children. ‘Like any parent I worried about passing on my anxiety to the children, yet I wanted to raise them to be strong, happy and self-sufficient. So I knew it was vital to find a tool to help