Although I believe I’m a good communicator in a professional capacity, I’m rubbish at this....so please stick with me!

I started to cycle from home in January to raise awareness for MND by cycling 500 miles. Ordinarily I live a pretty sedentary life style but I thought during lockdown 59.0 I should try and get moving and do something positive for both my physical and mental well-being. I’ve always wanted to do something like this so those 500 miles gave me great satisfaction, being able to give something to a great cause helped MND and helped me improve as a person! *Im adding these miles towards my 4000km target 

To my astonishment, right throughout this 500miles, people were messaging me asking where they could donate to the cause. When I started the challenge it was never to ask for money, it was purely to raise awareness and if that resulted in donations, then great! But the fact people cared enough for what I was doing that they wanted to donate really opened my eyes to the fact that I have the power to do something that can either raise money or awareness for an important cause......so here we are...

Here’s where it gets a bit personal...this has given me the drive to raise awareness and money for a cause that is incredibly close to my heart. Parental mental illness.

I have a firm belief that if charities like Our Time or the awareness that Our Time is trying to raise through campaigns like #beingSeenandHeard had been around when I was a child, my life and my relationship with one of my parents could’ve been very different. 

If I can do something, anything in fact, to contribute towards a young persons life that is heavily impacted by parental mental illness then I will be over the moon. 

It took until I became a parent 3 years ago to really address and get help to establish how much my childhood had impacted my thoughts, feelings and behaviour for the first 27 years of my life. I have my daughter Daisy to thank for that kick in the right direction, that’s why I am linking this 4000km cycle on my exercise bike to her 4th birthday in August. I want to do this for me, for Daisy, for my childhood & for the 2.9 million children like me. 

To be clear, raising money for this cause isn’t to ostracise parents that suffer with their mental health. I have had, likely will have and still have my own struggles. 

It’s also not about professing that I had a more or less of a challenging upbringing, I was lucky in so many ways compared to many others. 

This is purely about raising awareness for the fact the 2.9million live with or care for a parent with a mental illness. I know, first hand, the impact this can have. 

Sadly, I had to take the hardest decision of my life, after 26 years I had to decide to protect my little family and move on with with only one biological parent in my life (I have a great step mum). The reasons I had to do this will remain personal but whether I made the right decision or the wrong one, nobody should ever have to make this choice. I have forgiven, I haven’t forgotten and I will not change it but I do, and will live with that decision everyday for the rest of my life. 

I believe if I can raise awareness for a charity like Our Time, there is a chance that one less person will have to make a decision like I did.   

I’ve been lucky enough to have the care and support network around me in later life to become stronger and use the struggles in my early years as strengths in my later years. For that I am incredibly grateful. 

If you cannot part with any money for this life changing charity please help them by signing a petition to force the government into better protecting children that care for parents with a mental illness. A signature will mean as much to me as a donation <3 (if you feel passionately enough to do both, then wow, I can’t thank you enough)

https://www.change.org/p/call-on-the-government-to-protect-children-who-care-for-parents-with-mental-illness?redirect=false

This challenge will see me cycle 4000km on my little exercise bike, during lockdowns, Daisy at home full time, my lack of general fitness, my dodgy knee and two of us maintaining full time jobs. This won’t be easy for me I’m sure, but your donations and signatures will get me through this. Thank you for taking the time!