Frankie Bridge has often spoken candidly about her struggles with anxiety and depression, talking honestly on podcasts, TV and recently penning a memoir, OPEN: Why Asking For Help Can Save Your Life about her experience.
Now, The Saturdays star and former Strictly Come Dancing contestant has opened up further about suffering a mental breakdown aged 23 and the relief she felt when she was admitted to a psychiatric ward. In all, Frankie was admitted for a month at London's Nightingale Hospital in 2011.
While, at the time Frankie – who is now 31 – was enjoying huge success with The Saturdays, inside she felt like she was hiding her true feelings. It was by hitting ‘rock bottom’ at a time when she should have been at her highest that she realised how truly ill she was.
‘It was a relief to be in hospital,’ she told OK!. ‘I definitely wasn’t capable of looking after myself at that point. I had no idea what was going on and I felt completely out of control. I’d lost who I was.’
‘I was exhausted, constantly crying and I couldn’t function any longer. It was a real relief to go somewhere and know I was going to be taken care of. When I look back now, I don’t really recognise that person and I’m so grateful I could go there.’
At the time Frankie was dating her now-husband, footballer Wayne Bridge, who rook her to the hospital after she returned from a music video shoot abroad with the band. In OPEN, she writes that Wayne ‘was my constant, the person who knew me inside out and had seen me at my worst and most vulnerable. He made me feel safe and loved. I couldn’t have done it with anyone else.’
Now a mum to two boys - Parker and Carter - Frankie is releasing OPEN to give hope of change to others suffering from mental health issues.
‘It’s mostly about hope and when your mental health is bad, you lose that hope,’ she explains ‘I just felt I was a prime example of how you can have a really bad time and still live your life and achieve things.’
OPEN: Why Asking For Help Can Save Your Life by Frankie Bridge is out 6 February, published by Cassell, £18.99.
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