Yorkshire Vet star Grace Olsen on how bullying and PTSD drove her on to help others

Years of crippling depression, guilt and trauma melted away in the middle of a field and placing her hands on the huge horse's shoulders, Grace knew her life, blighted by mental health issues from the age of five, would never be the same again.

From being a troubled infant, Grace, from Leeds, says she struggled with simply being alive, despite having a loving upbringing, and years of being bullied at school drove her to an attempted teenage suicide.

Suffering PTSD after giving birth to her daughter, Tali, brought further pain, but she finally found healing in her love of horses and now helps terminally ill people to find inner peace with the help of sheep on her Yorkshire farm.

Grace, who is now 50, says she was bullied at school from the age of seven to 14, when her ordeal resulted in drastic consequences.

“I was a very sensitive person, I was one of the most popular people in the school and had loads of friends – but a girl at school just didn't like me, and I was so soft- natured that I wanted to appease her.

"My mother was amazing and very loving but over protective. I wasn't taught how to stand up for myself and I was filled with fear every morning before school.”

Describing her suicide attempt, Grace says: “It was like I snapped. I just walked home and very calmly I swallowed a whole bottle of painkillers and went upstairs to my room to lie down to die. Then suddenly this voice within me said: ‘You have got to sort this out.’

"I told the lady across the road and she called an ambulance. I had to have my stomach pumped and see a psychiatrist. My poor mother was not aware of me being bullied or how bad I was feeling – it was just hideous.”

Despite moving schools, Grace says she simply attracted more bullies. She aso suffered when she became a mother herself in her early thirties. Following a traumatic cesarean, Grace says she found herself unable to love her baby.

“I was expecting it to be this amazing experience to become a mother, I was really looking forward to it but when it happened it was awful. I was in shock. I had a lot of blood loss. I was low in iron and B vitamins and then there I was having to look after this baby. It was an absolute horror show.

“I managed to do all the practical things because I wanted her to have good memories. But I just didn't feel any emotion whatsoever – just fear and depression. It took me seven years to really love my daughter.”

Grace is aware of a stigma attached to mothers who say they struggle with motherhood – a taboo she addresses in her books The Farm, published earlier this month, and The Yard and hopes will encourage more women to open up.

"That's my whole purpose of writing - the books are full of comedy. They're very similar to the James Herriot books, so they're easy to read. But they go very deep and I want ordinary women to be able to read these books and know that, actually, it's normal to feel totally s***e."

For Grace, animals were a huge part of her healing. It was another encounter with bullying and a feral pony that finally taught her self worth.

"Me and my friend took on a livery yard and I was bullied by a woman in my own livery. It was terrifying - like being back at school. Then my friend got a young pony that was so badly behaved and we had no boundaries - we couldn't stop her from barging into us and doing what she wanted. We took her to a riding school and we learned techniques of how to value yourself and how to not be bullied."

She explains: "Horses need to know where your stop line is, it's all about feeling confident within yourself and thinking 'no you won't step over the line and walk all the way through me.' From learning how to keep myself safe from this feral pony I learned I actually had value and I felt powerful enough to speak to the woman and it changed everything."

But it was an encounter with a huge brown horse that finally helped Grace find peace and led her towards her work with animals and dying people.

After travelling to a beautiful mountain farm in Wales to learn about a bridle for a problematic horse, she was invited to pick out a horse she didn't like the look of."I pointed to this big brown sports horse I was scared of. All the horses were trotting past and he came past me - but he stopped and put his nose on my heart. And I just started crying. The lady said: "Just put your hands on his shoulder," so I stood next to him and did so and all these tears just came. I was properly sobbing from the depth of my soul. It was absolutely bizarre.

She said: "He's telling you that you don't need to be afraid of him" and I continued crying even more. She asked, "What are you crying about?" and my mind went right into my feelings of guilt and remorse about being a bad mother.

She then asked: "So who took care of your baby? Was it you or somebody else?" and I said it was me. She asked me what I did with her and so I told her all about all the groups that I took her to and the routine I put her in. In that conversation I realised I had done so much for her. But actually that is love. It was just a light bulb moment. I was able to realise that love isn't a feeling. It's doing."

From then on, Grace, already a qualified massage therapist, realised the power of healing with animals, signing up to a degree level coaching course, learning to observe horse body language within a therapy session.

She says her work with therapy sheep happened by accident when she was offered a couple of pet sheep and knew they were good for grazing. "I got these sheep for practical reasons but they're like dogs, they're so loving. It was phenomenal. During a therapy session my sheep Merlin was watching me and walked up to this woman and just barged into her and made her cuddle him."

Today, Grace works with terminally ill patients, helping them face death with the help of five sheep including Merlin.

"People who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness are filled with fear because when you're faced with your own mortality, it's terrifying. The purpose of the session is for them to find inner peace and calmness. The sheep help because they are just super chilled animals.

"We all have mirror neurons, so we mirror who we're with. If you're with a calm sheep, that makes you feel calm. It's unusual to cuddle a sheep and they're so loving and full of personality, so along with the smell of them and the feel of the wool, it helps people to step into another dimension and relax."

Grace first started working with terminally ill people when she first qualified, nearly 30 years ago, and learned a particular massage which helps cancer patients. “I realised this is my sole purpose - to help people die better. In the process of helping others, you can learn a lot about yourself. I've learned so much from terminally ill people and they have changed me completely. Each one has been like a magical gift. I've loved every one of them deeply."

Grace Olson is the author of The Yard, The Farm and children's book Merlin Finds His Magic.

She has also appeared Channel 5 series, The Yorkshire Vet.