After Lockdown 1, there was a phase when people asked ‘have you had a good lockdown?’ That seems pretty unlikely for anyone suffering with poor mental health but for one person with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, lockdown actually proved to be a boon.
‘In all honesty I was a little overjoyed and relieved that I wouldn't have to endure the daily battle to leave the house [because] the constant tirade of “what if” questions [in my brain] were alleviated as I settled into a life at home.’
Endometriosis affects around 1.5 million women in the UK and between 30 to 50% of those may experience infertility, according to the charity Endometriosis UK. This chronic and often debilitating condition can have a devastating impact on all aspects of life but since I started writing about health in the early 1990s, the average diagnosis time has been – as it is now – about eight years.
It was a sunny weekday morning, about 10.30, but I wasn’t working. I was living in north London and my housemate was away. I thought it would make a good start to the day to have a vodka and tonic. Just one. Except when I’d had one, another seemed to beckon. It was over 40 years ago but I have this clear recollection of standing in the kitchen by the fridge, looking on to the towering brick wall at the back of the yard, sipping, pouring, drinking more, drinking faster.
In 2002, Naomi Milward suffered ‘horrific’ injuries in a road accident. Then 31, with a successful career in the travel industry and ‘a great lifestyle’ before the accident, Naomi found ‘the hidden psychological impact was significantly harder to deal with than the very obvious physical one. Going out in public was a massive deal for me as I felt everyone was staring’.