Casualty actress Connie Beauchamp says the scenes were painful to film after her real-life diagnosis in 2002 (Image: BBC)

There’s a bumpy ride ahead for Casualty’s Connie Beauchamp, as her cancer diagnosis can’t stay a secret for much longer.

But filming the upsetting scenes on the show led actress Amanda Mealing, 49, to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, as it triggered emotions from her real life experience with breast cancer.

Amanda was diagnosed with the disease in 2002, and went on to have a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which she reveals made filming Connie’s storyline even more harrowing.

Mealing, who plays Connie, said the storyline mirrored her life 15 years ago (Image: BBC)

She says: “It’s been a challenge; more than I thought it would be. To play a person struggling with cancer is to tell myself all day, every day, that I am sick.

“In some scenes I heard those words said back to me for real. It invited back old anxieties and my PTSD reared its head again.”

Thankfully, the plot – which mirrored Amanda’s life 15 years ago – saw the actress reach out to get support.

She tells TV Times: “I’m happy to say I sought help at the time the PTSD was most debilitating, and was able to do so again this time. Anyone who’s survived or is fighting cancer or trauma will have been as affected as I was.

“When one is faced with one’s own mortality it’s not something you can ignore.”

Amanda, an ambassador for Breast Cancer Care , urged sufferers to get help, adding: “Fifteen years on, I still use Breast Cancer Care’s services. It doesn’t stop once the medical side is over.”