There have been many terrifying episodes in Denise Welch’s 31-year battle with mental illness. Like the time her mum found her trying to climb out on to a window ledge as crippling post-natal depression left her “longing for oblivion”.
Or the moment she almost threw herself out of a moving car on the way to a hospital appointment. Then there was the time she hid in a dressing room before a TV appearance “crawling around and banging my head on the floor trying desperately to deaden the pain within”.
But one of her most horrifying experiences was an extreme depressive episode that made her physically contorted and unable to speak.