Hear'Say star and Emmerdale actress Suzanne Shaw appeared on ITV1's Lorraine on Thursday, May 18, to discuss a marathon challenge she is undertaking to raise money for mental health charity Mind, and during the segment she discussed her own battles with anxiety and depression following her rise to fame.
The 41-year-old first joined the Popstars band when she was just 19 and revealed that the early days were 'tough' on her mental health.
Speaking to the 63-year-old Scottish host, Suzanne - who will be running four ultra-marathons over four consecutive days in one week - said: "It was a really tough time. When I was a kid, I remember being a teenager and having my first major panic attack. It was quite severe and scary. I don’t really remember suffering with anxiety until after Hear’Say. It was such a big thing to go through - that overwhelming [feeling], that burnout manifested in depression."
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She added: "At some points I would really fear leaving the house. I would be in bed. My self esteem was so low at times and I really do now know more about mental health.”
Speaking about the impact it had on her relationships with family friends, she revealed that the connection "went away" because "it was very hard for them to understand what I was going through".
She continued: "My self-esteem was shot. I would self-sabotage, nobody hated me more than me and I hid that for a very long time. I was too afraid my story wasn’t valid because I was famous and what should I be ungrateful for… I suffered in silence."
Now, she has learned more about her mental health and understands how to help - such as quitting alcohol - and revealed that she has now stopped taking anti-depressants.
Speaking of giving up booze, Suzanne said: "I quit alcohol. I wasn’t an addict, but I was a middle lane drinker who used alcohol because that was the easier thing to get out of the mind chatter, but it was exasperating. I was feeling more anxious and more depressed. It had to go. I was having the beer fear every day."
Reminiscing on one particular moment that gave her "beer fear", she told Lorraine about the time she met Friends star Matthew Perry when she was "steaming" - which Lorraine dubbed as a "turning point" for the actress's relationship with alcohol.
The singer said: "I basically couldn't speak, incoherent, saying: 'Oh my god, I think you're amazing, my son loves you.' Then I think after that the beer fear was so bad I knew removing alcohol was going to be the making of my wellbeing. I still get those moments in the supermarket where I'm just getting a tin of chopped tomatoes and I go 'oh no' over Matthew Perry."
In honour of her journey with mental health, Suzanne - already a keen runner - told Lorraine about her latest challenge in the hope of raising funds for Mind, which will be documented via new documentary Run in 4: "I’ve been training since October for this. I’ve been running with my children and I’ve been doing panto over the season, two shows and doing training in between that." She added: "I could be running up to 200 miles or a mere 120 miles, I’m not sure until the day."
Suzanne’s marathon challenge will begin in the singer's hometown of Bury, Lancashire on Thursday, May 25 and will finish at London's South Bank on the 28.
Lorraine airs on weekdays at 9am on ITV1 and ITVX.
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