CORONATION Street’s Katie McGlynn has revealed she needed counselling after filming Sinead Tinker’s death storyline.
The 26-year-old actress bowed out of the ITV soap during Friday’s heartwrenching episode, as Sinead finally lost her battle to cervical cancer.
Katie admits she couldn’t stop crying and felt like she was grieving for a real friend, having played the role since 2013.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, she revealed how she wore Sinead’s pyjamas while watching the show, a month after she filmed her final scenes.
She said: “It was like the storyline got embedded in my head I couldnt stop thinking about it and crying.”
Her heartbreak over the storyline lead to her having a number of sessions with a mental health specialist, who helped her come to terms with Sinead’s tragic storyline.
Katie continued: “I was sitting on my sofa watching the programme in which Sinead is told she has weeks to live, and I started to cry.
The next day I just kept crying. I couldnt stop. I ended up going to see a counsellor who told me that I was mourning Sinead.
A month later I still feel like Im really mourning her. It feels like waves of sadness coming over me.
“One minute Ill be all right, then the next Im in tears. It might sound weird, but to me Sinead has always been real.”
After a friend put her in touch with a counsellor, Katie has had three weekly sessions and she has found them to be a great help.
She said: “The counsellor told me, Katie, you are grieving for Sinead.
I hadnt realised what was happening at the time but it made sense when she said it.
“She said Id got so good at differentiating myself from Sinead that she had become like a friend to me.”
