GOLD Logie-winner Rebecca Gibney’s secret battle with depression and agoraphobia led the actress to become a recluse who could not leave her home without medication.

"I needed Valium to go to the supermarket. People were staring at me and I’d have to run back inside", she told The Australian Women’s Weekly.

In a frank interview Gibney tells of her troubled childhood, the panic attacks that followed and finally tackling her demons head on.

Gibney first went public with her battle a day after winning the Logie and thanking her mother for helping her through a tumultuous childhood with an alcoholic father.

Growing up in New Zealand was in stark contrast to that of the loving Rafter clan of which she plays the matriarch on the TV hit Packed to the Rafters.

As the youngest of six children, Gibney regularly witnessed her mother being beaten by her violent husband and lived in a constant state of fear as to when, where and who he would strike next.

After an emotional collapse a few years ago Gibney sought help with a counsellor.

"It (therapy) brought up all the feelings of self-loathing, all the things I had done I wasn’t proud of, all the behaviours that, unfortunately, my first husband had to endure," she confesses.

 "I did terrible things and feel terrible about the people I hurt. I have to say that she (the counsellor) saved my life."

The panic attacks began when Gibney was 14 and continued until the birth of her son, Zac, five years ago.

The 44-year-old says that as she has gotten older certain things bother her less and she is less concerned by how she is perceived.

"You know, once upon a time, I used to hear, ‘My brother thinks you’re cute’ when people stopped me in the street. Then it was, ‘My dad thinks you’re lovely’ and now it’s, ‘My grandad thinks you’re hot!’ I can’t stop the clock and I don’t want to. But I am happy to slow it down a little when I can."

http://www.news.com.au/gibney-tells-of-depression-agoraphobia-hell/
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