When anxiety overwhelmed Heidi Scrimgeour, medication proved a lifeline. But she wanted to dig deeper – why had this happened? And had it really come out of the blue?

Hitting the age of 40 without taking ‘happy pills’ was a point of personal pride. I’d always thought of myself as someone who didn’t ‘do’ anxiety or depression – until I found myself in my doctor’s surgery, begging for something to make the unbearable feelings stop.

A series of stressful life events – from family conflict to criticism at work – had converged, until a difficult conversation used up the last of my emotional reserves, and I was suddenly completely overwrought, unable to stop crying. I moved through that weekend in a daze, unable to focus on anything except the dread.

We visited a theme park (a pre-arranged trip) and I froze when my husband suggested I wait with our daughter while he took our boys on a ride. ‘I can’t,’ I whispered. ‘What if she floats away?’ I wept with relief when my GP handed me a prescription for anti-anxiety medication and prayed that it would restore me to the calm state I had always taken for granted.

Looking at my friends, it surprised me to realise how many of them also felt totally overwhelmed, which made me wonder if anxiety was telling us something about our lives. It’s too trite to conclude that we’re suffering the fallout of the women-can-have-it-all myth that we grew up with, but might there be something in that? We expect so much of ourselves, then chastise ourselves for failing to meet our own unattainable standards. I had to find a way to address the level of anxiety that my life had created.