Fifteen years ago, Izzy Judd was relaxing on the beach in Australia when she suddenly felt gripped by fear and unable to breath.
Her soon-to-be husband Harry, the drummer in McFly, had just gone off surfing.
“Him leaving me on the beach sparked a panic attack. It just came over me like a tidal wave. It felt like an out-of-body experience,” she says.
The professional violinist and mother-of-three is one of millions of people who live with anxiety so acute it can impede their ability to function.
Last year, almost 250,000 patients in England were referred for counselling, up from 190,000 four years earlier, for generalised anxiety disorder – a mental health condition that affects 7.5% of adults in England, external, causing fear, a constant feeling of being overwhelmed and excessive worry about everyday things.
Judd says her anxiety dates back to early childhood, growing up with three brothers in a musical family in Harpenden, Hertfordshire.
“I dreaded bedtime because I didn’t want to be alone in my bedroom. My heart was racing and my legs would shake.”