Your stories

Anxiety, GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder), emetophobia (fear of vomiting), depression, anorexia. These are just a few of the labels I have picked up in my 21 short years on this Earth. It’s usually great to get a diagnosis, then we know what we’re dealing with or how to make it better. But, with mental illness, it’s rarely straightforward! I’ve had these diagnoses for...

She is well educated, has a good job and was well brought up. She's living in a dream flat with her best friend, doing her dream job, with a great circle of friends. You wouldn’t think, then, she would spend two and a half years in and out of a psychiatric hospital. Or survive a suicide attempt. You wouldn’t think that, at 31, she’d have to move back home with her parents and...

I have lived with severe depression and anxiety for as long as I can remember. My therapist says that while it is hereditary, a lot of it can be learned behaviour also. When I was 10 years old my mum had a complete breakdown. She wouldn’t get out of bed, she wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t talk. All she did was cry. I remember how skinny she got. It was so frightening to see my...

I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression at the beginning of 2016. I have always been a 'worrier'. I even remember being at primary school, worrying about something pretty much every day. I found myself (and still do) catastrophising about everything - again, that's how I've always been, so I didn't really think anything of it: the nervous tummy, headache, aches and pains. They were all things...