‘I'm disabled, but nobody can tell'

Kelly Waite, 39, from Durham, is an actress, writer and charitable ambassador. All her life she has struggled with invisible illnesses and wants to spread awareness that not all disabilities are obvious

- GILLIAN CRAWLEY

'Bursting to go, I nipped into the shopping centre’s disabled loo with just minutes to spare. I washed my hands carefully and then left, smiling at the woman in the wheelchair outside. She glared at me.

“It’s for disabled people, you know,” she snarled. I tried to explain I have hidden disabilities, but she went inside and slammed the door hard, as if to make a point.

It happens all the time. I have many health problems, but as I don’t use a wheelchair or look conventionally disabled, no one is aware.

I have obsessive compulsive disorder, Asperger’s syndrome and also Hashimoto’s disease, a serious immune deficiency condition affecting the thyroid gland. This causes extreme fatigue.

When I look back, I’d always had OCD. In my early teens, if I watched the news and there was a story on cancer or heart attacks, I’d convince myself I’d get that illness if I didn’t do certain rituals, like counting. Even though I was in a happy home, I didn’t dare tell my parents or two brothers – and they never commented. I didn’t know about OCD until I was 16 and saw a TV programme about it. But when I went to my GP, they told me it was general anxiety related to being a teenage girl. It didn’t make sense because my symptoms involved intrusive thoughts, rituals – like checking and re-checking doors – and the compulsion to do things in a certain order. Before I went to bed, I’d have to check light switches and plugs and even though I’d take pictures of them to reassure myself everything was OK, I’d still have to go back and check several times.