Panic attacks got so bad I couldn’t leave the house.. I was convinced someone would throw acid at me
JUNGLE QUEEN SCARLETT REVEALS SECRET AGONY Gogglebox favourite on her long struggle with anxiety after being tormented by school bullies
SCARLETT Moffatt may have been crowned Queen of the Jungle but for two years, she struggled to set foot outside her front door.
The reigning I’m A Celebrity champ reveals for the first time how panic attacks made her a prisoner in her own home, often unable to eat or sleep.
Scarlett believed something terrible would happen whenever she went out. She even convinced herself she would have acid thrown in her face while filming her new series Streetmate.
The 27-year-old said: “Recently my anxiety has been really bad, especially after seeing acid attacks on the news.
“I’d cry for two hours in the morning, because I had it in my head that people would see the camera and that would make me a target.
“In my head I was going to be an acid attack victim. It sounds bizarre because the chances of that happening are so small, but that’s how my brain works.
“I would replay it over and over in my head to the point where I would be crying constantly.”
Scarlett, from Bishop Auckland, County Durham, began suffering with anxiety weeks after she first appeared on Gogglebox in March 2014.
Within a year her panic attacks were so severe that leaving the house became more terrifying than any Bushtucker Trial. Her heart hammered, her fingers tingled and her head swam. By the time she reached the front door, she was on the verge of fainting.
Scarlett said: “I got to the front door and convinced myself something was going to go wrong. I had palpitations and I could feel the blood rushing round my body. It felt almost like I was having an out-of-body experience.
“Sometimes I would pass out. I would know if that was happening because I would get tingly fingers, so I would lie down on the floor.
“It became a daily struggle. I would get to my front door, cry, then go back and try to pump myself up again. Sometimes I got out the door after nine or 10 goes. Sometimes I stayed inside all day.”
There were days when Scarlett could not eat, though she never lost her love of food, and nights where she could not sleep due to her “head demons”.
But she hid the worst of her problems from parents Elisabeth and Mark. She said: “My mum and dad were like, ‘Oh, you look awful’ and I’d say, ‘Yeah, I only got a couple of hours.’
“Actually I hadn’t slept at all and that set the anxiety off even more. I felt lethargic all the time.”
Scarlett kept her panic attacks secret during her two-year run on Gogglebox, but she knew things had gone too far when she started fixating on the volume of her car stereo and the way she walked up stairs.
She added: “I started getting really agitated by silly things. I could only have the volume in the car on an even number. I would imagine crashing into a tree if the volume was a number 13.
“I had to walk up the stairs using every other step otherwise I worried one of my family was going to die.
“I knew I shouldn’t feel like this but I was too embarrassed to tell anyone.”
The roots of Scarlett’s anxiety can be traced back to the school bullies who picked on her – and set up a website to taunt her at home. Today, it would be recognised as cyber-bullying, but at the time teachers found it easier to isolate her, rather than stop the bullies.
Scarlett said: “Looking back, that’s when I first had anxiety and panic attacks. When I moved schools I was able to suppress of lot of those feelings.
“But being on Gogglebox, I felt like I lost control again and those feelings began to resurface.”
Scarlett also feared being recognised in the street and disliked by viewers.
It’s hard to imagine her struggling with people. She’s as bubbly as a bottle of Lambrini, every bit as intoxicating in person as she appears on TV. She
said: “It’s not that I didn’t like people coming up to me.
“I love meeting new people and I’m flattered when they want selfies. But I felt like I was in The Truman Show.
“I was really worried they wouldn’t like me, so I’d stand chatting for half an hour and miss trains and buses.”
Scarlett’s anxiety started to spiral out of control after she was confronted in the street by strangers who criticised her for swearing on TV.
She said: “Some people got really worked up about it. My mam and dad don’t have a problem with it, so I don’t understand why others got so angry.”
Worse still was the abuse she got on nights out with friends.
In one club she was intimidated by a woman screaming “Gogglebox” who danced around her incessantly. Scarlett told pals she was going to the toilet, then went home and lay awake crying, worrying if the woman knew where she lived.
She said: “That stopped me going out for months, I was so nervous something was going to happen.
“If someone bumped me in a crowd, my little head demons would say, ‘Right, you need to go because that person doesn’t like you. Something is going to kick off.’”
Yet Scarlett never thought of quitting Gogglebox. She added: “It would have felt as if I let the demons win.
“Filming was the one thing that would chill me out. Sitting in front of the TV with my family, chatting, was my safe space, where I felt happiest.”
Eventually Scarlett found the courage to speak to her GP and spilled out the words she’d been wrestling with for months: “I think I’m mad.”
The doctor assured her she was not. Nor was she alone – one in 20 people in the UK suffer some form of anxiety.
Scarlett confronted her demons using cognitive behavioural therapy and meditates daily.
She still has “dark days” and her insecurities bubble just beneath the surface. Scarlett said “I’ll write a tweet and if it doesn’t get 10 likes in five minutes, I’ll take it down because I think people don’t like it.”
Scarlett also found an unlikely sanctuary from her panic attacks in ITV’s I’m a Celebrity jungle camp. Caves full of rats and cockroaches took her mind off her anxiety.
Her dad helped her train for the jungle by hiding plastic spiders around the house and forcing her to bite into whole scotch eggs.
She said: “He was convinced that’s what it felt like popping a kangaroo’s ball. I don’t know who told him that because they are very different.”
Being crowned Queen of the Jungle finally felt like she had been accepted after years of bullying and self-doubt. Now Scarlett is living the dream in London and is about to head Down Under as host of I’m a Celeb Extra. She has joined her childhood idols Ant and Dec as a presenter on Saturday Night Takeaway – and gets invited to their homes for Sunday lunch. Scarlett bought a new home with her boyfriend Luke Crodden. She said: “I know it sounds cheesy but I can’t believe this is my life now. I feel so lucky. My anxiety is still there but I try not to let it dominate things, because then you let it win.” ● Me Life Story: Sofa So Good by Scarlett Moffatt is out on Thursday in hardback, RRP £18.99, (Blink Publishing).
I knew I shouldn’t feel like this but I was just too embarrassed to tell anyone SCARLETT