A former star of Strictly Come Dancing has candidly revealed she suffered a "full breakdown" during a charity trek. Angela Scanlon bravely opened up about her challenges with loneliness despite her happy persona in public.
The 41-year-old TV presenter boasts a busy work schedule and family life, but she admits she doesn't always feel connected. Instead, she confessed to often feelings isolated. And the Irish star has revealed she hit breaking point last November when trekking the Himalayas in India. She was taking part as a team leader in the CoppaFeel! charity trek, walking alongside Emma Willis, Sara Davis and Candice Brown.
Angela Scanlon opened up about her mental health(Image: @angelascanlon/Instagram)
However, she revealed that within days of beginning the challenge, she became overwhelmed by the intensity emotionally of the whole experience. She revealed she had hoped to be there to motivate the female trekkers, all of whom had had breast cancer.
But things soon took a turn. "'A couple of days in - I cracked," Angela wrote in a Substack post. "Full breakdown. Ugly crying into my yak-themed duvet.
She revealed she didn't think she was the right person to take on the challenge at the time. She continued to reveal her thoughts, adding she was thinking: "What the actual f*** was I thinking? How arrogant was I to believe I’m equipped to hold these brilliant women at such a tender time?"
And Angela admitted the loneliness she had been feeling had been inside her for years. "I was lonely. Not the cute, 'oh I miss my mates' lonely. The hollow, I have an incredible following of 436K people on Instagram, a full family life, a busy work life and still feel like I’m shouting-into-a-void kind of lonely," she added.
Despite having many friends, kids at home and a full-on schedule, Angela revealed the feelings must have been hitting her on and off for years - maybe even forever.
Her feelings at the time led to a breakthrough, though. She revealed how it led to her deciding to launch a grassroots community called Hot Messers. The idea behind the walking group was so that people could simply turn up without pretence.
"The kind where you turn up in joggers, cry on a bench if you need to, and nobody blinks," she explained. "The kind where you don't need to filter yourself to fit."
Angela has candidly opened up on past struggles in previous interviews too. She admitted she was "riddle" with anxiety when she landed BBC's The One Show gig. In her book, Joyrider, she revealed she frantic at having to deal with her anxiety in private, instead of telling her production team.
She said: “It was too late to backtrack, so I spent a long and lonely stint never once expressing fear or asking for the help of support I so desperately needed.
“I had built myself a little cage and wouldn’t let anyone in. The team were amazing, but I was riddled with anxiety."
