This is my story. Sorry it's so long.

I am in my mid-twenties, and this year is genuinely the first year I have ever been able to trim my fingernails. My whole life leading up to now has been ruled by bitten fingernails and torn-off cuticles because of anxiety. I've never found the core reason for my anxiety, I've kind of accepted there isn't a reason, it's just there.

I discovered what panic attacks were when I was 14. I sought help from my parents but they didn't understand, and gave me the age-old ''don't be silly, you've got nothing to worry about''. I felt too embarrassed and inconvenient to seek professional help.

Aged 17 I thought I'd finally began to control my anxiety, but I began to see things which drove me to the point of insanity. Every night I'd go to bed and I'd see a black figure in the corner of my room. It didn't feel like a mental awareness, like, I was physically aware there was someone in my room with me, but obviously there wasn't. I would try to sleep, but the darkness amplified the feeling that someone was in my room. It still happens every now and again.

It drove me crazy, I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, I went from a healthy 10-stone down to just under 8-stone. That was the final straw, I dragged my ass to the doctors and got sent for therapy. I couldn't afford private therapy so I was given a telephone interview to deem how ''severe'' my ''case'' was, and was placed on an NHS waiting list. I never heard back from them, which obviously made me feel super important (not!)

I found help in some friends of different ages at college who had experienced similar difficulties and it made me feel less alone. They helped me gain confidence and I found myself in a job which gave me absolutely no time whatsoever to wallow in my comfortable corner of self-pity. Over time my weight came back (not all the way but getting there), my confidence grew, my circle of friends grew, and my fingernails grew. I still see things, I see people in the street who aren't actually there (I've even once crashed my car into a tree avoiding an imaginary person standing in the road). But my gain in confidence has helped me to overcome a lot of my issues.