Thank you for considering getting involved with mental health torpoint.

Below I have included a little bit around why I have decided to start fundraising for local charities:

On July 18th 2016, I lost my dad to suicide. It is hard to put into words how difficult this was for me to process and recover from at such an early age, but I am sure you can all imagine - so I don’t have to go into detail. I went through all of the textbook stages of grief: denial - imagining getting a call on my phone and it is him telling me this was all some sick joke, anger - angry at the world for being such a difficult space for him, angry at myself for not being enough for him to want to stay. Depression and acceptance came hand in hand for me. Throughout my later school years, I knew I was sad - but I kind of believed I was just a teenage girl who had been through more trauma than some of her peers, so it must have been normal. What I look back on now and realise is not normal is that there would be times that I would lay in my bed and watch tv the entire night as I was too scared to be left alone with my thoughts. I would not sleep, as this is when it would be too loud for me to ignore. I had to push myself to total exhaustion so that I would just pass out. I hated people. I didn’t want anybody to ask me questions. I didn’t want to speak about my day. I simply wanted to be alone, or if not - have a distraction from my own thoughts and feelings. I would turn up to sixth form at 3pm after sleeping all day, I would have the same mascara on for a week, and I would have barely brushed my hair.

Once I had left school and turned 18, I felt like the happiest girl in the world. Everything was so exciting. I would be out every Friday and Saturday, looking forward to who I was going to see and what outfit I was going to wear. This went on for about a year and a half and I genuinely had the time of my life. I went on numerous holidays and trips away with my friends and really just made the most of these years.

Now I look back, as much as what I have said here is true - it really was the best time for me - I also was covering difficulties that I had not yet addressed. There were things I was glossing over and ignoring. For example, as much as it was fun going out - I needed to go out. If I had a weekend with no plans, I would panic as I would be scared to be left alone with my own thoughts. I knew this would ruin my week. As well as this, I would beg whichever friend I had gone out with to stay the night with me so that I was not alone. This was ongoing for the year.

So, as much as I felt happy - this was all due to distractions.

The reason I am sharing these examples with you is to prove the cliche statement of - you never know who is struggling. Most people I spent time with during that period of my life, or even who followed me on social media, would likely have described me as someone who is always having fun and someone who wouldn’t be struggling, but this was not the case.

It was not until my symptoms began significantly affecting important relationships in my life that I decided to make the scary decision to contact my gp and discuss the difficulties I had been experiencing for a number of years - which led to me being diagnosed with Mixed Anxiety Depressive Disorder. I have addressed my difficulties and seeked both medical treatment as well as counselling. I have amazing people around me who have always been a great support system. As much as this is still a daily struggle from me, and some days are harder than others - I feel I am now able to identify my trigger points and feel comfortable to speak about these with my close friends and family.

As much as awareness has been raised and stigma ever so slightly lifted - one thing I notice commonly amongst people is lack of compassion. Because people are unable to put themselves in the shoes of those struggling, they refuse to try and understand why someone would do something such as commit suicide. The sentence that bothers me the most is ‘they are obviously attention seeking’. If someone feels the need to go to extreme lengths to gain some attention, then they obviously need it so I urge everyone - next time you feel you want to accuse someone of attention seeking (as we all do sometimes), you instead try to understand why they may be doing this, and maybe even offer them the attention that they probably so need. You have no idea how much small gestures can help a person.