MAGGIE'S SECRET TERROR
AUG 25 2000 BY OLIVIA CONVEY
PEAK PRACTICE ACTRESS MAGGIE O'NEILL ADMITS SHE IS GRIPPED BY TERROR IN REAL LIFE. . .
She may play a cool and confident doctor on screen but Peak Practice's newest recruit, Maggie O'Neill, admits she is gripped by terror in real life.
The 37-year-old actress, last seen on our screens opposite Ray Winstone in Births, Marriages and Deaths, reveals she suffers from constant panic attacks and despite seeking medical help still cannot find an explanation for the sudden feelings of anxiety which grip her.
Although the roots of O'Neill's traumatic attacks are a mystery, she believes they are to do with unresolved anxieties in her own life.
She said: "I thought it might have been that my dad was very ill with cancer over a long period and I couldn't deal with it very well, but he died four years ago.
"The worst time for attacks was during that period, though. Five years ago I was in Oxford Street with the actress Tilly Vosburgh, who is a friend of mine. I started feeling really weird and I had to lie down on the pavement. I kept thinking I was going to have an epileptic fit."
"I thought for a while I might be epileptic, then I got really extreme and thought I might have a brain tumour because I'm a it of a drama queen," she said with a laugh.
"I used to get terrible symptoms and just think I was dying. I didn't get headaches but I used to get this strange buzzing sound in my head and everything would start going black around the edges and closing in on me."
O'Neill's black-outs have happened in tube stations, supermarkets and most embarrassingly during a television interview for GMTV.