I tried to kill myself three times, says reality TV star Tanya Barnes

REAL Housewives of Cheshire star Tanya Barnes has revealed that she has tried to take her own life three times.

In an interview with GB News, she said she believed her attempts were due to having ADHD, which was only diagnosed when she reached the age of 40.

She said: “All my life I just knew there was something different about me I just couldn’t mix in and I always wondered why everyone else just found living life so easy, and I found everything so hard, just a list of tasks.

“It wasn’t until my 40th birthday that I got diagnosed with ADHD and everything sort of made sense, but leading up to that I’ve been to doctors the past 20 years about crippling anxiety and inner restlessness.

“All the doctors and GPs just threw me antidepressants, which of course is like giving flu tablets to someone who’s got a broken leg.

“So that upset the chemicals in my brain as well as the ADHD which led to me having a breakdown.”

In a discussion during Saturday Morning with Esther McVey and Philip Davies on GB News, Tanya said: “It was like living with 17 TVs on in my head at the same time, and I tried to commit suicide three times.

“Luckily, I’m very, very bad at trying to take my life, thank god. I’m laughing about it now but it’s not a laughing matter. I just try to see the funny side.

“I’m really really very passionate about trying to raise awareness and just trying to get the word out there and to help other people.

“The waiting lists are so long for people to get diagnosed, two to seven years. Seven years, it’s just so long.”

Asked why diagnosis tends to take longer with females, she said: “Boys normally get picked up because they’re more disruptive, but there’s also the more internal side, the inner restlessness, the noise in the head.

“We’re better at masking it and we’re not as disruptive to teachers and everything, we’re not a problem to anyone.

“And we’re not good at speaking about it and telling people what’s wrong with us, so we sort of fall under the radar.”

She added: “I did a lot of studying of the mind, so I get hyper-focused. I used to hyper-focus on bad thoughts, which we used to take me to like trying to complete suicide.

“Now I’m trying to steer away and focus on the positive and whenever I’m hyper-focused, I can get a lot done and then I’m just lying in bed for a couple of days, just completely burnt out.

“The turning point in my life was just being diagnosed and just knowing about it and being aware about it so I know when to rest, I know the tools to use.

“So I just think it’s really, really important to get the message out there. Some people might not be depressed, they might not be anxious, it might just be undiagnosed ADHD.”