BATTLING by a nerve-racking divorce and continuous work, actress Rita Simons slumped right into a deep melancholy, spending days struggling to get off the bed.
The previous cleaning soap star, who performed Roxy Mitchell on EastEnders, additionally suffered years of pent-up anger after splitting from hairdresser Theo Silveston, her husband of 14 years, in 2018.
Now Rita, 44, mum to twin daughters Jaimee and Maiya, 15, has turned her life round — and located love once more.
She says: “After I look again, I was fairly aggressive, hardened and defensive, like I used to be on guard on a regular basis.
“If one thing dangerous occurred, I’d be the primary to go, ‘Raagh!’, and begin screaming.
“I used to channel that on the fitness center with boxing however now I simply don’t get offended. I’ve turn out to be the me I used to be all the time alleged to be and I’m on the trail I used to be meant to be on in my life.
“I needed to develop a unique method, and being away from my marriage has softened me massively.”
Rita break up from Theo the identical 12 months she took half in I’m A Celeb and the pair divorced two years later in 2020.
She says: “It was a deep disappointment, I'd say a melancholy. I couldn’t see the wooden for the bushes.
“I didn’t need to work. I didn’t need to be ‘on the market’. However I needed to be and so, as a result of I’m a grafter, I did that factor once you throw your self into work.
“It was all type of lumped into one large mess and I used to be very sick a number of the time. I misplaced a number of weight. And I wasn’t telling individuals concerning the marriage as a result of though my youngsters knew, I didn’t need them studying about it. That simply ate me up, not having the ability to inform individuals what was actually happening.”
Deep down, Rita — who has suffered with nervousness and OCD from a younger age — knew she wanted a break.
However she refused to cease working, showing in hit West Finish musical All people’s Speaking About Jamie and panto Sleeping Magnificence following her departure from EastEnders after ten years in 2017.
She says: “I used to be bouncing round from job to job. I just about labored 13 years and not using a break.”
However Rita reached disaster level whereas touring in play The Home On Chilly Hill in 2019.
She says: “There have been some stairs on the set that I got here on stage on, fairly excessive on the high.
“And I assumed I might simply chuck myself down. I didn’t need to die. I simply needed to harm myself sufficient to go to hospital and have somebody take care of me. That was scary.
“There was my nervousness, melancholy and OCD, however within the centre of all of that there was a very unhappy divorce occurring.”
She provides: “We’re nonetheless buddies, we’re amicable, nevertheless it’s by no means good to get divorced, it’s a very chilly, scientific factor to undergo.”
Rita couldn't carry herself to decelerate till the primary lockdown introduced a lot of her trade to its knees.
She says: “Had it not been for Covid, I most likely wouldn’t have began to take a extra laid-back method to my work life.
“Lockdown gave me time to take inventory, and whereas all of us must earn cash, now I’m making an attempt to be extra considerate about jobs I do.
“After I was compelled to cease, I ended getting colds and chest infections and complications. I used to be continuously sick from being on the street on a regular basis.”
Rita additionally discovered love once more, with actor Ben Harlow, her co-star in a 12-month UK tour of Legally Blonde: The Musical in 2017. The pair started courting in 2020.
She says: “He’s the loveliest man on the planet. And he takes care of me. He makes certain I’ve eaten as a result of I’m not excellent at that after I’m in exhibits.
“Ben’s simply fantastic and I’m very, very completely happy. It’s solely now that I’m so completely happy I can look again and see I used to be a multitude.
“However you don’t get wherever in life with out going by some s**t and I want I might return and inform myself it’s going to be OK. Greater than OK, it’s going to be nice.”
Rita can hint her psychological well being points to when she was round seven years outdated.
She says: “My mother and father would exit to dinner and we’d have a babysitter, however I'd sit by the window all evening ready for the automotive to drag up within the driveway.
“In the event that they’d mentioned they might be again by 10pm they usually had been two minutes late, I'd have this knot in my abdomen which I now recognise as nervousness.
ANXIETY
“I’d ask the babysitter to telephone the police stations and the hospitals. I’ve had that since then and for many of my life.”
The obsessive compulsive dysfunction was not recognized till Rita was in her teenagers.
She says: “I'd latch on to a thought and obsess about it. I’d inform myself, ‘I’m not going to go away this window till my mother and father are residence as a result of in any other case they’re going to die’.
“I began to stroll round with my grandparents’ handle written on a chunk of paper in my pocket simply in case I used to be orphaned and I needed to inform a policeman.
“I used to be solely about seven, however these had been the issues I thought of continuously. And also you get new obsessions as you become old.”
Round 750,000 individuals within the UK are regarded as affected by OCD. At 14, Rita began cognitive behavioural remedy (CBT) classes, which she says rescued her from what had turn out to be an insupportable scenario.
She provides: “I can completely say that CBT cured the compulsive a part of my OCD.
“When you've gotten OCD, you might be compelled to hold out rituals and there’s part of the mind that's quickly relieved by the completion of that ritual. I even used to do it after I first began driving. I’d must shut my eyes for 5 seconds whereas I used to be driving as a result of if I didn’t everybody would die.
“Clearly it was ridiculous however CBT teaches you that for those who resist the urge to hold out that compulsion, the pathways within the mind change. The primary time you resist the urge, it feels horrible. However do it as soon as and the following time it’s simpler. Resist a 3rd time and it’s gone.”
5 years on from her EastEnders character Roxy being killed off by drowning in a swimming pool together with on-screen sister Ronnie, performed by Samantha Womack, followers are nonetheless in mourning.
Rita says: “Not a day goes by the place somebody doesn’t come as much as me on the street and ask, ‘Why did they kill you?’. To be sincere, I didn’t have time to consider it an excessive amount of, it’s different individuals who have an issue with it.
“For me, it was a beautiful time in my life and I collected Sam (Womack) out of it and Scott Maslen (Jack Branning) and Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell) who're lifelong buddies.
“I simply acquired a message from Perry Fenwick (Billy Mitchell) this morning and I do miss my buddies terribly there.
“However all of us have to maneuver on and ten years was a very good innings for me. Had I not carried out EastEnders, I wouldn’t have been in a position to open in Hairspray within the West Finish with Michael Ball. So I by no means get upset.
“I’m unhappy, in fact, that we died, however eternally grateful for all of the alternatives which have adopted.”
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