Stacey Solomon would think about death for six hours every day.
Stacey Solomon
The 28-year-old singer admits there was a time when she was "so fearful of death" that it would consume all her thoughts, especially when it came to bedtime.
She explained: "At my worst, I was so fearful of death I'd think about it for six hours a day. I remember being scared of dying at a very young age, maybe even five or six. I had no traumatic childhood experiences. There's not a point in my childhood where my mortality was questioned, but the fear was always there. Bedtime is when I get most anxious because I have time to contemplate. I'm also more likely to question my mortality and catastrophise if I've seen or heard something upsetting about somebody. And, let's be honest, fear is everywhere. Every day a horrendous thing happens: stabbings, abductions, rape, cancer, failings in the NHS, paedophiles ... the list is endless."
Stacey tried to go for cognitive behavioural therapy to help rid her of her fear, but it didn't work for her.
She added to The Sun's Fabulous magazine: "I decided to take action last year and booked onto a course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in London. I have no idea what triggered this mentality. I told my therapist that I gave birth at 17. She said this is trauma and may have triggered my anxiety. While my anxiety was there before, she says the gruelling labour may have made it worse. I think the trauma of giving birth made me feel vulnerable and I wasn't invincible.
"Giving birth made me feel like I could die at any minute. I felt very fragile and that anything could happen to me and I wasn't in control of my life. My biggest fear is not being around for my children. In the end I only had three sessions of CBT. While it is a wonderful therapy that has saved some of my nearest and dearest during their darkest days, unfortunately, it wasn't right for me. It didn't work."
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