A former sex addict and mother-of-three appeared on This Morning today in an effort to shatter stigma around the condition – but left some viewers insisting it doesn’t exist. Rebecca Barker, 37, from Tadcaster in North Yorkshire, said she used to demand sex from her former partner five times a day and thought about it constantly – likening the rush she got from making love to that a drug addict would get from a hit.

Speaking on This Morning today, Rebecca, who says she has been cured of her addiction, said she felt ‘ashamed’ of what she was going through, and is making it her mission to raise awareness to let others like her know they’re not alone.

She said today: ‘If it happened to me, it could happen to anybody.’

But not all viewers were convinced by her story, with some taking to Twitter to brand sex addiction a ‘made up’ condition, or an ‘excuse’ for self-obsession.

Rebecca told how her need for relentless sex ultimately ruined her relationship, and left her isolated from the outside world.

At first her partner welcomed her growing need for sex, but then it put a lot of pressure on the relationship when she was constantly demanding it.

She said: ‘I only got relief from the obsessive thoughts during sex, but as soon as it finished it was back on my mind again.’I felt very ashamed that it was all I could think about.’

Rebecca was used to criticism about the condition, and said she wanted to break the stigma. She said: ‘There’s so much stigma attached to it, [but] I feel like if it happened to me it can happen to anybody.’

Having sex would give her an ‘instant hit’, she said, but within five minutes she would want more.

In 2014, however, she took a ‘break’ from her boyfriend and went to live with her mother, which ‘very quickly’ led to the collapse of her relationship.

Rebecca believes her compulsion was linked to depression – she was diagnosed with the disorder after the birth of her third child in 2012 – and a ‘lack of serotonin’. She became so self-conscious about her sex obsession that she struggled to be around other people