I am absolutely happy about everything that's written, everything that's shown I'm happy to be out there.

After all this - I won the departmental prize at university, I was on the radio, I did this, I did that, but, 'She did go a bit funny, didn't she?' But that's their problem. Honestly, there are people still in my hometown who will say to my mum, 'Is your Rachel alright? She did go a bit funny'. And the reason why I don't care is because I've managed to hold a job down, I've got a lovely family, I've managed to do things that normal people do and there's nothing to be ashamed of.' So I have no problem with you knowing that I was in a psychiatric ward. Actually, what I've discovered from the next lot of diaries that I've written up and from talking to someone about the series, is the older I got, the more angry I got about things and the more angry I got about being labelled as a certain thing, which is what we were really trying to work against. 'I think when I wrote up the diary I'd reached a point in my life where I didn't care that people knew I'd been poorly. why she didn't freak out about having her diaries put on national television I can honestly say there's never been an occasion when I've gone, 'Urrghh'.' Except Tom is completely in tune with me - obviously the names are changed in the book, but he got one of the names right! How I don't know, but he did! Then I obviously get to see the previews - they send the DVDs over. 'I see every script before it gets made so I can say, 'Waah!', which I've never had to do. That's all in the subtlety of the writing and the performance as well.' It's more subtle and it's more true to life by being subtle. I'm very proud to say I think we've done it really, really well. They've always hammered it home too much. That people in psychiatric wards still want to live a life. That is brilliantly encapsulated by the script and by the cast and that for me is the most important thing. Whereas Rae wants to get laid, be popular, have a good time and she just happens to be mentally ill. When I've seen mental health things in the past, the person has just been about being mentally ill. why mental health isn't the only thing that the show is about I do feel that connection with obviously the person that is doing a very brilliant job of playing a version of Rae. 'Honestly, I'm not being cheeseball, but she is like my mate.

Mad fat teenage diary