Clare Verrall was in her early thirties when in 2015, while walking her dog, she was randomly attacked on the street by a man. She was left with a black eye and a broken nose, and suffered from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The way she describes it, there was a lot in her life that led to PTSD. “I had a bottle,” she says, “and every traumatic event was a drop in the bottle.”

“Some are little drops, some are much larger. Then eventually your bottle overflows. The attack was a big drop that caused the bottle to overflow.”

In early 2016, she appeared on the second season ofMarried at First Sight,and was paired with Jono Pitman, who she described as a “hot head”. Two weeks into the reality TV ‘experiment’, Verrall broke up with Pitman, and in the wake of the show airing, she said his tendency to “blow up” re-triggered her PTSD.

Speaking to Kyle and Jackie O in September 2016, Verrall said she was “recovering from PTSD and… was very open with [the producers] about that”.

Listen: Writer Marian Keys discusses her struggles with mental health. Post continues after audio.

“So they then matched me with someone who has… anger problems. So they thought that would make great TV.”

On Thursday, Daily Mail published photos of Verrall from a fundraising event in October last year, and reached out to her to ask her about her ‘weight gain’.

Verrall shared withDaily Mailthat she “went from 70kg to 114kg,” and has “been avoiding going out or attending any events for the past year as I am very embarrassed by how out of control my weight has become”.

“I have turned down events, would hide behind my friends in any photos, and avoided posting photos of myself on Instagram unless they were throwback photos”.

She said her ongoing struggle with PTSD had been one of the major contributing factors to her weight gain. “My body went into fight or flight mode,” she said. “Your brain tells your body to store every ounce of fat as it thinks you are onSurvivorwhen in reality I was in bed eating poorly.”

Verrall’s anecdotal experience is supported by research. In 2014, Laura Kubzansky and colleagues found that “experiencing PTSD symptoms is associated with increased risk of becoming overweight or obese”. Psychological research in general suggests that severe distress is related to weight gain, but PTSD symptoms specifically have been shown to affect a person’s body mass index.