The messages came in like a wave. First dozens, then hundreds, from women across the country - professionals, creatives, carers - all saying the same thing: I feel like that too.
'I call it my midlife tribe,' Sarah Cawood says now. 'And it was really lovely. But also it made me a bit sad, realising how many women are feeling the exact same way.'
The reason for this outpouring? The 53-year-old former TV presenter - once a fixture on our screens in the late 1990s and early 2000s - had posted a tearful video to Instagram in which, make-up free, and perched on her bed in her dressing gown, she admitted to feeling 'lost, redundant, left out'.
And the reaction was overwhelming.
'At first, I worried I had said too much,' she says. 'But then the messages kept coming in. They were from women from all walks of life, in their 40s and 50s, all saying, "This is me".'
'This', in short, being that familiar, and quietly devastating, moment of reckoning many women experience in midlife.
After years of raising children and, like Sarah, putting their careers on the back burner, it is the point at which they wake up, look around at the circumstances of their lives and what they have sacrificed - willingly, for the most part - and wonder who they are now.
For Sarah, that feeling is all the more pointed because so many of her TV contemporaries from her time in the spotlight - among them Holly Willoughby, Sara Cox, Fearne Cotton and Zoe Ball - are, as she says, 'still smashing it'.
The 53-year-old former TV presenter Sarah Cawood - once a fixture on our screens in the late 1990s and early 2000s
'There's been so many occasions recently where I'd be fresh from mopping the kitchen floor, or having spent hours ferrying the kids around, or wondering when the next pay cheque might come in, and then I'd scroll through Instagram and see someone I used to work with looking amazing on the red carpet. And I’d think: "God, what happened to me?'' ' she says.
It's a sentiment that clearly touched a nerve: in that one blisteringly honest post, Sarah unwittingly became a poster girl for a generation of women who feel they have been rendered invisible.
'I am so grateful for what I have - a lovely husband, great children,' she says now, chatting from the kitchen of her home in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where she lives with her husband Andy Merry and their children, Hunter, 13, and 11-year-old Autumn. I wouldn't change the choices I made. But I think lots of women hit mid-life and experience feelings of "Is this it?", no matter what job they do or how lovely a family they have.'
That feeling is understandably sharper when, like Sarah, for a time you lived the dream.
With her trademark bright red hair, in her 20s and 30s she was once a regular presence on an array of successful TV shows.
While she never set out to be a presenter - she first trained as a ballerina, studying for a year at the Royal Ballet School before moving into more commercial dancing, appearing in West End shows and music videos - her breakthrough came when a choreographer suggested she should audition for a presenting role on children's cable channel Nickelodeon.
She got the job which, in turn, led to The Girlie Show on Channel 4, where Sarah joined a then relatively unknown Sara Cox and Rachel Williams in bringing a cheeky, feminist edge to late-night TV.
What followed was a 'purple patch' of television work: throughout the late 1990s and into the 2000s, Sarah fronted everything from the Saturday morning children's show Live & Kicking and Top Of The Pops to The National Lottery as well as a stint working for the Travel Channel.
It was a chaotic, glamorous time. One week she was on a beach in the Cayman Islands; next, interviewing Bon Jovi or Brad Pitt ('We got on like a house on fire,' she grins of the latter.)
Sparky and fun, she was also a consummate professional, winning praise for remaining cool as a cucumber when, while presenting the National Lottery draw in 2006, the set was stormed by protesters from the campaign group Fathers for Justice.
The TV star has since opened up about the reaction she received while expressing her fear her career had peaked
Off camera, life was good too. Through working on CBBC show Call The Shots, Sarah became good friends with Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby; the latter becoming her flatmate for a while after splitting up with her then boyfriend. Sarah and her then partner , guitarist Adam Devlin from indie rock group The Bluetones , would often bump into Denise van Outen and her then boyfriend Andy Miller , from indie band Dodgy , or , on occasion , Sara Cox and Zoe Ball .
'It felt like we were all in this little telly sorority,' she says now.
But while many of her peers - Holly , Fearne , Zoe and Sara - went on to front prime-time juggernauts and become household names , Sarah’s career never quite reached those heights .
'Hindsight is a cruel mistress,' she muses when asked why.
'Looking back , I think I gave off a bit of a desperate energy at times . I’d ring my agent every day , asking if anything had come in . I wanted it too much , maybe . And then ... life just shifted.'
That shift came, as it does for many women, with motherhood.
Sarah met her now-husband, television producer Andy Merry, 43, in the late 2000s when he was working on the short-lived Sky chat show Angela And Friends, which featured actress Angela Griffin discussing topical issues with guests.
Sarah was among them, and, having crossed paths professionally with Andy, love blossomed - despite inauspicious beginnings.
'Andy said he didn't want to get married or have babies. I was 38 and very ready for babies. But we fell in love. And within a year I was pregnant,' she recalls.
Hunter arrived in 2012, followed by Autumn two years later.
And, almost without her noticing, the phone stopped ringing.
'At first, I was still doing voiceovers and the odd commercial gig,' she says. 'But over time those jobs just ... fell away.'
Meanwhile, her one solid gig - presenting the breakfast show on the now-defunct regional radio station Heart East Anglia - became increasingly hard to justify in terms of the call on her time and the money it paid.
'I made a choice,' she reflects. 'I had this tiny baby girl and a toddler and it just didn't make financial or emotional sense any more.'
In December 2014, she handed in her notice and stepped back from work altogether.
'I remember lying on my in-laws' sofa that Christmas, thinking: "I don't have to go back in January." And it was bliss. Truly.'
The red carpet was replaced by story time on the local library rug , coffee mornings with local mums and subsequently , school pick-ups and drop-offs for children who even today remain oblivious to their mum’s past stardom .
'They have no clue,' she laughs. 'But every so often a song comes on the radio and I'll turn to them and say,:“I've kissed him,you know.”Just to keep them on their toes.'
She emphasises that she would not have done anything differently. 'It's not that I regret it,' she clarifies of her decision to step back.
'I've been present for my children and I know how lucky I am. There are a lot of women who don't have that choice, working long shifts and yearning to be at home.
'But I think what nobody tells you is that you don't just lose the job; you lose yourself a bit.'
Certainly , the friends from the TV world drifted and the glam nights out dried up . 'You realise that unless you're in the game , you're just ... not in it any more . And I couldn't afford the restaurants , the parties ,' she says . 'So life went another way .'
With no formal qualifications , Sarah found herself trying everything she could to bring in money , resulting in what she readily admits is a piecemeal career . There is some scriptwriting , the odd voiceover and she has dived into direct marketing work too .
'It was , and still is , all just bits and pieces ,' she says . 'There's no career any more . And that really hits you in your 50s . I'm also very aware of the pressure on Andy as the main breadwinner.'
That pressure only heightened when , in September 2022 , a month after her 50th birthday , Sarah was diagnosed with breast cancer .
'I was very lucky , it was stage one , grade two ,' she says . 'I didn't need chemotherapy or a mastectomy , just a lumpectomy and lymph node surgery . But still it knocks the stuffing out of you.'
Not least because of the medication she must take until 2028 , which has plunged her into medical menopause . Many of those who have come out the other side of cancer talk of the emotional toll casting a long shadow , too .
'Yes you've been given the all-clear , and that's brilliant , but with every ache or pain , you wonder: is it back?' she agrees .
And while overcoming cancer gave Sarah a newfound gratitude , the after-effects did little to help the lack of confidence that has dogged her in recent years - or the sense that , as she wrote in her Instagram post , she was 'peeking over the parapet' while others lived better , more successful lives .
Her younger daughter starting secondary school at the start of last month has been another milestone. 'Obviously the children still need me,' she says. 'But you can see them growing up and having their own lives.'
It was a Saturday morning in September when Sarah woke up feeling 'just a bit sad', as she puts it.
'Doomscrolling' on social media in her bedroom - a fatal mistake, as she now admits - she saw the usual roll call of what looks from the outside like a veritable glut of people living better, more successful lives.
Here were former colleagues on TV panels, publishing books, launching podcasts and fronting award shows.
'And there I was, on my bed in my dressing gown, not much going on over the weekend other than ferrying the kids around,' she recalls. 'And I suppose it all just came out.
'Usually I am quite upbeat about what I post on the basis there’s enough bad news in the world, but on this occasion I thought it was important to be real.'
So she picked up her phone and pressed record. ‘Can I be honest for a minute?’ she asked the camera. ‘I’m 53; I’m healthy; I have a lovely family... but I feel lost.’
Lost and, as she was brave enough to admit, envious of the success of her former peers.
'It's so silly to say that, at 53, I feel jealous,' as she put it. 'All my former TV buddies plus new friends I've met seem to be at events with each other working together thriving. And here's the thing: I couldn't be more pleased or proud of those women but I miss them ... and I miss being one of them.'
It was a candid admission which hit a nerve. ‘Because we’re not supposed to admit that, are we?’ as she puts it now.
The response included many non-famous women sharing their own stories of career pivots, post-natal identity loss, menopause brain fog and midlife flatness.
But celebrities messaged their support too, including Denise Welch, Kate Thornton and former Blue Peter presenter Katy Hill; while Zoe Ball responded on Instagram offering a ‘cuppa’.
'It made me realise that this isn't just about me,' Sarah says. 'It's a generational shift. We were told we could have it all. Then the children arrive, the work dries up, and as your kids get older you realise that in time they will need you less you're left wondering who you are.'
The answer to that is a work in progress. 'I'm still at a crossroads and all those feelings I had don't vanish overnight,' she says. 'But speaking out and the reaction has helped make me realise that what I am going through is normal and to be a bit less hard on myself.'