Novelist Cecilia Ahern suffers panic attacks

Best-selling novelist Cecelia Ahern has revealed that she has suffered from panic attacks since childhood.

Sat, 24 Jan, 2015 - 00:00

Dan Buckley

The PS I Love You author said the paralysing attacks have left her living in fear of when the next one will strike. “I don’t know how many panic attacks I have actually had,” Ms Ahern told broadcaster Gay Byrne. “The fear of them is actually greater than the attack itself. You are afraid of having one so that fear is always there.”

Ahern, whose 11th novel, The Year I Met You, is among the top 10 bestsellers in both Ireland and Britain, talks about her panic attacks in the opening episode of the new season of The Meaning of Life With Gay Byrne this Sunday night on RTÉ One.

She describes an episode.“You get pins and needles, extremely dizzy, you might want to vomit, run to the toilet — just feeling cold, then hot. It’s bizarre that it’s all created by yourself. It’s all in your mind.”

She also discusses her childhood experience of growing up with former taoiseach Bertie Ahern as a politician father who was loved and reviled in equal measure and how she coped with family breakdown as her parents separated when she was 11 years old.

On a happier note, she spoke about how the day she married David Keoghan and christened their daughter Robin in a dual ceremony five years ago.

“What we called it was the ‘Whistening’ — we had the wedding and the christening on the same day. We married first. I think that was probably the priest’s decision but how cool of the priest to do a christening and a wedding at once. I really respect him and thank him for that.”

She said that though all of her family and her closest friends knew that the couple were getting married, the rest of the guests didn’t.

The 33-year-old award-winning author also spoke about her faith and how she prays every day. “I pray every night to God, I say ‘Hi God, it’s Cecelia here’ and then I’m quite specific because I don’t want him to help the wrong one.”