Former Coronation Street star Helen Flanagan has opened up about the extent of a recent psychosis episode.
The actress, 34, played Rosie Webster in the ITV soap for 12 years from 2000, with a brief eight month stint from 2017.
Since her departure she’s appeared on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! twice, most recently in the South African ‘All Star’ series in 2023.
Earlier this year she was seen on E4’s Celebs Go Dating.
The star previously opened up about her struggle with poor mental health after splitting from her partner, Scott Sinclair, writing on social media that she was fighting a battle with her own mind.
She subsequently spiralled into a breakdown, which included hallucinations and the fear that she was in constant danger.
During a trip to Bali at New Year, she suffered a ‘very scary’ psychotic episode whilst with her children Matilda, 9, Delilah, 6, and Charlie, 3.
In a candid conversation she also shared the moment her nanny called her parents because she thought there was a man trying to break into her house.
‘So when I was in my psychosis, I thought there was a man inside my house trying to break in my house with my kids’ she told Daily Mail’s The Life of Bryony podcast.
‘While I was driving home – it’s horrendous – I could have killed someone, I was driving, and because I was so bad on this medication, I thought there was somebody in my boot.
‘I kept stopping my car all the time, because I can see someone jumping in my boot, because I was in a psychosis.’
She added: ‘I thought I could see someone, but my nanny came, and my mum had to take the children away from me.’
‘My mum and dad looked after my kids for about a month, and then sometimes they would sleep at mine, sometimes they would sleep at my parents, just till I just got myself, like, really good again.’
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Helen accredits the worrying change in her behaviour to new ADHD medication that she had been prescribed.
‘I had to explain to [my childrens’ teacher] that that I am a fit mum, I am a good mum’ she concluded.
In September she told Lorraine Kelly that she would ‘love to go back to Coronation Street.’
‘I really want Rosie to come back with loads of kids and just cause chaos and just fob them off with Sally’ she told the Scots daytime host.
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