Carol McGiffin’s mental health is suffering during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although the 60-year-old presenter has never had depression, she admitted that the global health crisis has left her struggling to get out of bed in the mornings and she is considering getting therapy.
She told her fellow ‘Loose Women’ panellists on Tuesday (09.06.20): "I’ve never felt so close to seeking help in my whole life. Some days, I’ve got to the point where I’m thinking, I can’t get out of bed today."
Speaking about her co-star Denise Welch, who has been open about her own struggles with depression, she said: "Denise talks about the dark cloud, I’ve been very sympathetic but I’ve never understood how bad that can be. I can’t see the end of this. And it’s not just because of the virus."
And Denise believes Carol will not be the only person to suffer from increased anxiety during the pandemic.
She said: "McGiff did get in touch with me the other day and said that. So many people have anxiety and have no idea how to control it."
Carol – who tied the knot with Mark Cassidy in 2018 – returned to ‘Loose Women’ last week after 78 days away from the show, because of poor internet connection in France where she had been staying, and immediately blasted the lockdown as unnecessary
She said: "I hate it. It’s not so much the staying in, I love our house where we live, I like Mark, I don’t mind being with him all the time. It’s more the being told I can’t do anything I can’t go out.
"Also, I know most people don’t agree with this, but I’m not sure the whole lockdown was entirely necessary.
"There are a lot of people saying that now, so I do think there should have been more questions asked at the beginning.
"I just think it wasn’t necessary to lock up. I don’t even like the term, I prefer to call it locked up because I feel like I’m being locked up."
"I don’t think it was necessary to lock a lot of really healthy people up because as we now know this virus does pick its victims.
"Most people who don’t have any pre-existing conditions or are not particularly elderly would probably have mild symptoms or none at all and that was admitted really early on.
"I think the damage that it’s done shutting everything down is incredible and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to come back from that, and I’m not sure we ever will come back from it."