The Good Morning Britain presenter Sean Fletcher has revealed that he kept behind-the-scenes suffering hidden from his fellow co-hosts whilst filming with them.

Speaking to The Mirror's Outdoors in Mind podcast the 49-year-old shared that he was looking to get just filming over and done with during this period of time.

He said: “You have to go on and smile and pretend everything’s great, as no one wants to switch the telly on and have a miserable news presenter."

Sean added he was "basically putting on a mask" and that fellow presenters such as Susanna Reid, Charlotte Hawkins and Kate Garraway were not aware of what was happening.

Sean Fletcher's son diagnosed with OCD

The problems for Sean lay at home with his then 14-year-old son, who was suffering with his mental health, The Mirror reports.

He was "unable to do basic things like get out of bed and go to school" Sean explained and he was eventually diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

The NHS website states OCD is a condition "where a person has obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours" which can be "distressing and significantly interfere" with the lives of those it affects.

Sean's son ended up being out of school for a year and also ended up in hospital for six months, with took a toll on the family.

Discussing having to deal with that plus the work on Good Morning Britain Sean said: “I was really struggling...it’s really hard, you’re just tired all the time.

"It’s a bit like when you have a newborn, you can deal with problems when you have sleep, but when you don’t have sleep, the smallest things become big.”

Sean felt his own work suffered and felt he couldn't open up to his colleagues about what was going on.

He shared: "I immediately just clicked into the mode, which was ‘don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it'

“And I didn’t for a long time. I probably didn’t feel a television studio was a safe space. To be fair, I didn’t feel anywhere was a safe space to talk about it, but definitely television.”

OCD was like a 'little gremlin sitting on the mantelpiece'

Speaking to The Mirror's Outdoors in Mind podcast Sean can now reflect on that period from seven years ago with a sense of calm.

Through a combination of medication and therapy, his son, now 20, is much better, and is now at university, something which he could never once envisage.

Sean now wants to raise awareness of the struggles that can come with caring for someone with a mental health condition.

“It was almost like the OCD was tearing our family apart,” he says. “It was like a little gremlin sitting on the mantelpiece, making arguments start…making things difficult.”

Throughout it all, he says he was extra mindful of his own mental health.

He said: “It’s almost like our son was going down the plughole of mental illness...and we were all going down it as well.

"But you’re no good if your mental health goes downhill. You’re no good to anyone, so you do need to look after your own mental health."

Sean managed his own mental health by often going for runs and walks by the river to try and clear his head.

He added that “the best thing they [the family] ever did" was doing a family therapy course at the hospital his son was in, where they met others going through the same thing.

"We were in this dark place, and actually, sharing your stories with other people who are further down the path or behind you is really important," Sean added.