Hi,

Im Helen, a 34 year old from St Helens in Merseyside and I have found myself in a difficult situation with a disability that I am trying to overcome in a positive way.

I suffer from chronic OCD (an anxiety disorder) and eating problems which this year resulted in me being admitted to hospital and put under the care of the mental health crisis team. I was in full time employment at the time as well as a Labour party activist and political blogger. My whole world fell apart.

I have now been off work sick for 7 months, I am currently undergoing CBT and making progress all of the time (my husband is now having to pay for privately for it because I only got 12 sessions on the NHS which was not enough to even scratch the surface of this problems I need to overcome) but despite my improvements I am still a long way off being well enough to go back to work. It has been a very frustrating and upsetting time for me but as a passionate and experienced writer I found an escape from my mental health problems in writing.

I started my own blog, getting some friends to join in and write for it too and what started off as an escape has turned into a successful blog that gets tens of thousands of hits per month, this blog has huge potential and I am achieving wonderful things with it but unfortunately I cannot afford to push it on and take it to the next level because the amount of money it would cost for a proper professional website to be built, to have an app designed, to buy the equipment I would need and all of the other development costs involved.

I feel like so much light has come out of the darkness of my illness through what I have achieved with this blog and if I can keep pushing and take it to a more professional level it promises a much brighter future for me. As they say, everything happens for a reason!

Please - if you can - please make a small donation to give me a chance to build this into something truly wonderful. I really want to turn this horrible experience of mental health problems into the making of me. I know I can do it and I am sure many of you that read my blogs (both political and from The Socialite) know I can too!

Thank you.