When I was in my teens, I stopped leaving the house. For two years.

It began with a severe panic attack (in a church of all places). I was recovering from flu, and during the service, I started to feel unwell. Faint. Nauseous. I stared at the crowded pews around me. Everything and everyone felt a very long way away and that strange but familiar hissing sound began that usually precedes passing out. I knew I had to leave, but what would people think if I walked out of church in the middle of everyone eating their Bread of Heaven (they wouldn’t think anything, obviously, but teenage brains are not the most logical). I was trapped. Vulnerable. Adrenaline marched through my body (which isn’t helpful when you’re feeling ill). I was convinced I was going to keel over at any second, but somehow I managed to stick it out and eventually I escaped, legitimately, alongside everyone else into the quiet space of the churchyard. I took in lungfuls of cool air and the relief was intense. I decided I wasn’t going to church again; I’d give it a miss. It was too stressful, too hazardous. I was certain God would forgive me.

This was my first mistake, because when you have anxiety, submitting to it only makes it grow. Anxiety is greedy, too. It doesn’t just stop at one thing in your life, it likes to move onto all the other things as well. I was so traumatised by my experience in church, I began to analyse every situation and limit what I did ‘because I might have another panic attack’ (people with anxiety really enjoy fortune-telling), and slowly my world became smaller and smaller. At first, I avoided any kind of long journey because the closer I was to home, the safer I felt. Then I didn’t want to go to the supermarket because what would people think if I abandoned my trolley and fled (again, nothing, but I was at an age when I thought everyone would be horrified).

Eventually, it felt simpler to just not leave the house at all, until it came to the point where I was reluctant to even leave my room. Over the course of two years, I gradually became more and more isolated. I lived with my parents, of course, but as an only child I didn’t have any companions my own age, and as this was years before the internet, there were no online friends to talk to. Looking back, I’m not sure how I spent my time. I learned to enjoy my own company. I know I read a lot. I know I watched as the people I’d been at school with moved on with their lives and I stayed put. It was agoraphobia I was experiencing, defined as an extreme fear of entering open or crowded outdoor spaces, though I didn’t have a name for it then.