Actress Amanda Abbington has revealed she considered suicide after her split from Martin Freeman left her feeling "a mess".
The screen stars, who played husband and wife in Sherlock, broke up in 2016 after 16 years together.
Amanda, 49, said she was spurred on to get therapy after the split.
Amanda and Hobbit actor Martin, 51, have children Joe, 17, and Grace, 15, together.
They played John and Mary Watson alongside Benedict Cumberbatch as the genius detective on BBC’s Sherlock.
Amanda admitted “she was a bit of a mess” and “hated herself” on the Full Disclosure podcast.
She said: "It was breaking up with Martin and then realising I needed to sort myself out because I was a bit of a mess. I hated myself.
"It was funny because the other day, and I’ve never told anyone, not even my therapist, I’d had a row with Grace because she couldn’t find her uniform and was late for school.
"So in the end I had to drive her to school instead of the bus and I was sitting in the car and I was having a go at her and I was getting nothing back from her because she’s a 15-year-old and she’s going through all this stuff.
“She’s a girl, I’m a mother — rage, anxiety.
"And I was sat there as I was driving, in my head, and I haven’t said this since I started therapy six years ago, ‘you could always kill yourself’.
"And that was what my mantra used to be.”
She added: "If you’ve let people down and upset somebody or if you’re not being the best you can or you’re a bad mother, or you’re not stepping up with your acting, you can always kill yourself.
"That was a genuine option for me, quite a few times in my life.
"Then I don’t have to be this bad person because I don’t have to be here any more.
"And I thought about that and I thought, ‘Oh my God I haven’t thought about that in six years’.
"It all stems back to childhood and who you surround yourself with and what you put out there, the signals you send out.
"People go ‘Oh there’s a vulnerable person with anxiety and low self esteem, I can use that and push that person down’. You attract what you think you deserve."
Amanda is now in a relationship with fiance Jonathan Goodwin. Martin is with French actress Rachel Mariam, 30.
