I wrote my first emergency escape plan for my home when I was five years old, my Baby Born pink and white emergency bag stashed under my bed with clean knickers, a notebook and a packet of sweets inside. I tucked a list of every number for every family member I had committed to memory in the front pocket and planned which stuffed animal I would realistically be able to carry in a rush. Lullaby Lamb, my ratty wind-up singing lamb, didn’t make the cut, and I felt guilty for months.

Before I went to sleep every night, I prayed. I wasn’t religious, and I had never been to church, but I knew that bad things happen to people who don’t anticipate them and that plenty of people on TV and in movies prayed to God to ask for what they wanted. So I would pray for my safety, for the wellbeing of my friends and family and tick them off my mental list of people I loved one by one. I was stopping the worst from happening to any of us. That was my responsibility.

I spent my whole adolescence fearful of going to sleep and not waking up because people just die in their sleep. Someone could break in; I could wake up and they could kill me. Even at boarding school, possibly one of the safest environments to be in, I slept with a hockey stick by my bed ‘just in case’.

“So some days you just can’t get on the Tube? But the chances of something bad happening are so slim…”

“I thought living in fear of death was normal – it took years for me to discover I had OCD”