The one lesson I’ve learned from life
ANNA, 48, presents naked Attraction and Supershoppers. She launched online therapy service Mindbox after her experience of anxiety, and lives in london with her partner, presenter Sue Perkins, 49.
EVEN MUMS NEED TO BE MOTHERED
OVER the August bank holiday weekend in 2017, my mother Janet had a complete mental breakdown, aged 74.
Fortunately I was staying at Mum’s Peak District home. She was convinced she was having a heart attack. I called the paramedics, who said: ‘You’re fine, there’s nothing wrong with your heart.’
The next day, Sunday, Mum said: ‘Whatever’s wrong with me? I can’t cope. I need to go to hospital. I’m having a heart attack, I’m dying.’ I drove her to hospital, and said: ‘ She thinks she’s dying, and she’s mentally not very well.’ They took her vitals again.
The doctor saying ‘ You’re all right’ made her worse. I demanded to see the senior doctor. he said all they could do was send Mum home with Valium, and she’d have to see her GP after the holiday. In desperation, I rang the Priory hospital in Altrincham, Cheshire, and said: ‘I don’t care what it costs, I don’t care what it takes, I want my mum to have an assessment and a week’s respite’.
On the Monday, a lovely Priory psychiatrist agreed to see her. It was private, so I had to pay. he said she had severe panic disorder due to coming off the SSRI antidepressant drug she’d been on for 20 years. She needed bed rest, drug therapy and face-to-face therapy.
It was a difficult time, but after three months my mum was 90 per cent better. She is now back on the SSRI drug. It can have devastating consequences if you come off it too quickly.
I was frightened that my mum might kill herself or not recover. Growing up there was always a sadness to my mum. My grandmother took her own life when Mum was only 20 and at university.
Through our family crisis, my brothers were brilliant in a practical way, as boys are. I was able to be a little more tender and be there emotionally. Mum needed to be mothered.
It’s ironic that I was about to launch an online therapy service, which would have really helped my mum — she could have called someone for reassurance.
FIND Anna’s online therapy service at mind-box.co.uk. Supershoppers returns to Channel 4 in the spring.