In all honesty, I never thought I could recover. Ten years ago, I was pregnant with my first son and experiencing postnatal anxiety, which was spiralling into obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Every area of my life was affected, including my friendships, work and marriage.

OCD can come in many forms, but broadly speaking it’s when you feel the need to complete a certain set of rituals or compulsions in order for everything to feel OK amid intrusive thoughts. My OCD was dubbed ‘magical thinking’ and ‘tapping and counting’. You might consider this the stereotypical OCD you see in films: clicking the light switch on and off, stepping over cracks on the floor, turning the tap handle over and over – that sort of thing.

To give a little glimpse into my day-to-day life at this time, it was taking me roughly four hours every night to get to bed. I would start my bedtime routine at 8pm and would eventually stumble into bed around midnight. I was often late to events and eventually avoided social situations altogether because the stress of leaving the house was so overwhelming. I could recognise that rationally it didn’t make sense to tap a light switch in order to feel calmer, but somehow it felt so necessary.

This went on for years, becoming progressively worse. Looking back now, I have no idea how I got through a day, let alone how I carried on working or parenting.

“OCD made me feel trapped – this is how I broke free”