A year later my low mood was weighty.

I was 12 and skeletal from worry, distant and disinterested in food or fun. I was referred to hospital for blood tests, brain scans. There was a brief moment where they toyed with the idea I had anorexia – the only time during this bleak period, it seems, that mental illness was considered.

Straight back to the drawing board: was it an early puberty? It wasn't. Why was there such a stigma attached to labelling me mentally ill?

And then there was the perplexity of my parents who - though wonderful and kind and brilliant - were very much from backgrounds that categorically opted to leave mental health out of the conversation.

This attitude is generational, cultural, and I don't chastise them for it. But it's frighteningly commonplace, as I found when discussing with others.

As I entered my teenage years, the cloud slipped away and I started to like life again and be less afraid.

My childhood anxiety went untreated - and I'm still dealing with it now