Former EastEnders and Ackley Bridge regular Jo Joyner teased a possible pivot to writing when opening up about how she dealt with the struggles of undergoing in vitro fertilization treatment 12 years ago.
Speaking on Lorraine this morning, Jo revealed that she kept a diary during her IVF treatment, and had been reading back on old entries in her spare time.
The 44-year-old said: "I've kept diaries on and off since I was a teenager, but I never kept a diary when I was happy.
“You don’t keep a diary when life is going well, when you're winning awards and it’s all going merrily, you are just too busy having such a lovely time to think about that.
“I realised that throughout my life I’ve sort of used them as my own form of CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy), to get through something and to unravel what’s going on in my head.
“Often, you wouldn’t really want to go back and revisit them if they were written during the hardest times of your life.
“I never intended to go back and read through them, I only did it to keep my own sanity.
When discussing the humour surrounding her diary entries with host Christine Lampard, Jo teased the possibility of a book being written about her IVF journey, that gifted her twin siblings Edie and Freddie Madden.
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Jo added: "I have often wondered whether there's scope for a novel in them actually, but not like my own sort of exposee , so to say.
“But there are a lot of funny things that happen as well when you are going through a difficult time, and they are a lot funnier than you would first think.
“I’m now revisiting them. Yes, I have always wanted to but work has got in the way of course, and there is nothing firm there, I'm just looking to see if there is a book to be written in there."
The star also noted that her experience with going through the fertility treatment could help those who are considering it for the first time.
Jo continued: "When you find out about something like that, the first thing you want to hear is good stories, or to hear from other people who have gone through it as well.
“That is why I was so open about it in the first place when I initially went through IVF, so we will see.”
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