It's me versus anxiety'

SHONA'S MENTAL HEALTH BATTLE

- - BY TOM BRYANT

AFTER 16 years in Albert Square, Shona McGarty is stepping into something far scarier than any soap storyline.

She is heading into the jungle determined to face the one thing that has held her back more than anything else: her mental health.

The 34-year-old actress said: "My mental health, my anxiety and my depression has been pretty bad over the last at least four or five years, and that has stopped me from doing a lot of things I have always wanted to do.

"I have kind of come to a point in my life where I do not want to let the anxiety win."

Opening up in depth about her mental health struggles for the first time, she says the last few years have been among her hardest.

Shona said: "Even talking to you now, I am very nervous, but it is just something I want to do to challenge myself and to kind of prove to myself that I am bigger than this anxiety.

Growing up on screen as Whitney Dean brought pressures she never quite knew how to deal with: "Being in an industry at such a young age, when people ask 'are you OK?' You have to say you are fine.