Dame Kelly Holmes opens up over 'anguish' that drove her to 'cut herself every day'

Dame Kelly Holmes has spoken of how she self-harmed as she struggled to overcome injuries she thought would end her career.

The Olympian, who won gold in the 800m and 1,500m competitions in Athens in 2004, said just a year earlier she was "cutting" herself regularly "to release the anguish" she experienced.

"At my lowest, I was cutting myself with scissors every day that I was injured," she added.

The 47-year-old, from Pembury, Kent, opened up about her experience with depression at a health and wellbeing show in Tunbridge Wells on Saturday.

She shared an image taken immediately after an injury during the 1987 world championships in Rome,  one of seven such injuries that led her to self-harm.

Dame Kelly, who took up the sport aged 12 and joined the army at 17, first competed at international level in 1992. She combined both careers before leaving the force in 1995.

She was awarded an MBE for “services to the British Army in 1998, and a DBE for services to athletics in 2005. She has spoken previously of how fear of negative perceptions around mental illness led her to conceal her depression.

But she said the issue needed to be "shouted about more", after recalling  how after "ups and downs for so many years" she got to the point where she looked in the mirror and "didn't want to be here".

"The scissors were in the bathroom and I used them to release the anguish that I had. It was really a bad place to be," Dame Kelly told BBC South East.

"But my biggest message to people is that you can get out of that and you can still achieve. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel."

Becky Randall, co-founder of Health & Wellbeing Live, said: "[Kelly] struggled but she kept going. "So many of us are inhibited by a black cloud that sometimes descends, by feeling not good enough.

"I want people to be able to understand that they are not alone and that talking about it is what really helps. It's got to be out there."