I know , it’s crazy that i’m running a marathon …😂 But i’ve had a rough few years and MIND have changed my whole outlook of life , so take a seat , maybe have a coffee because here is my story , and here is why i chose MIND .

Growing up , i was your average quiet and shy child . I wasn’t loud, i wasn’t very talkative , very introverted and i remember always keeping my self to myself . But i would say there wasn’t really any alarm bells , i was just simply a quiet child .

I got a little bit older , i remember vividly the exact moment i started becoming anxious , i was no older then 10. 10 years old , i remember being extremely confused on why i couldn’t socialise at family party’s , or why i couldn’t get involved in family pictures, never really went to friends party’s , always called my mum to pick me up from a sleepover . I became quieter than ever . I definitely think my family had noticed at this point , that i had not yet come out of my shell .

Secondary came around , in all fairness secondary school was an okay experience . Again i was very quiet , also still very shy , but i settled in fine and got along with everyone and made sure i wasn’t just involved in one friendship group .

I was aware i was still so very anxious , i was anxious all the time but at this point i didn’t know it was anxiety . i didn’t really know what anxiety was I just remember having that pit in my stomach constantly .

It was in classes or speaking to people , where anxiety and mental health was mentioned that made me slightly more self aware but not enough to really do anything about it .

I got to my teens. Age 15-19 is where everything became a bit more real . I remember never wanting to do anything , for no reason at all, at the time i couldn’t put my finger on why i was the way i was . I couldn’t even hold a conversation with out panicking . Thinking of every word im about to say , thinking of every move .

Exams, interviews , meetings , work experience all started to be put in place, and then came along the panic attacks .

Again, i had no clue what these panic attacks were , sometimes they were shortness of breath and hyperventilating but majority of the time they were silent . Something i could only describe as a day dream , my brain would completely shut off, it would be hard to put my self together .

At this point i was old enough to know what i was suffering with , i knew that this was anxiety .

I look back on my teenage years and there’s so many things i look back on, opportunities that i missed because of what i was living with .

I left school, and went into sixth form , my secondary school had a sixth form so that’s where i stayed as that is what i knew . It saved the stress and anxiety of applying for other schools and interviews and overall just prevented some of that anxiety. Again , this could have potentially meant i missed other opportunities.

Sixth form was over , everyone was applying to uni , university was not what i had in my mind at all . Didn’t think twice about it . While everyone was applying for their universities i went job hunting for accounting apprenticeships .

I applied for countless jobs , had countless interviews and i just couldn’t get where i needed to be.

It wasn’t until an interview with santander on zoom where my interviewer said in nicer words , i see the potential but my lack of confidence is letting me down and she guided me into just looking into university .

Then the next day i applied for university , at this point it was two weeks until university started .

This is where my new life started at Brighton . 1st year at Brighton university was absolutely horrendous . I could not fit in with anyone , i really really struggled to make friends . I changed my self in so many ways to just fit in, i changed the way i acted , the way i spoke , what i wore . I honestly had one friend ( shout out to ellie). My anxiety was at its highest point ever , i lost so much weight and just didn’t know who i was at all . Panic attacks were apart of my daily routine . I was going through a massive identity crisis. I definitely think a bit of depression was creeping in at this point too .

Year 2 fast approached , moved into a home with 5 girls i didn’t know . Little did i know that these girls would literally be my entire life . I did also get into a very happy relationship .

2nd year things were good , i started to know how to deal with anxiety , started having doctors appointment . Everything fit into place , i still had my days , i still had my panic attacks but everything was more manageable as my environment was better , and i had the support system i needed .

Second year is finishing , just about to sit some exams , but during this time we unfortunately lost someone so close to us , he sadly took his own life .

My life changed forever .

I went home to my family and all of a sudden i felt like that anxious 10 year old girl again .

I remember not being able to leave my mums side , if my mum went to the shop, i’d lay there and prepare my self on what i’d do if she didn’t come back home . All of a sudden , death petrified me . Death never crossed my mind before , to me death was apart of life . But from the day we lost family to suicide , death is all i think about . It’s affected so many of my relationships . I’ve become so attached to my mum ( sorry mum) . I always feel the need to make sure she’s ok .That’s how i genuinely feel ,constantly.

Trains , planes, buses are also a problem . I am now thinking the worst case scenario in every situation that i am in . I also feel that i’ve become a people pleaser , and not really being able to stand up for my self .

At this point i really felt that i needed therapy .

I went to the doctors in July 2023, I got an official anxiety diagnosis and got prescribed sertraline . I wasn’t on sertraline long , i think it was to just get over the trauma of losing someome. This is also

when they handed me MIND leaflets and sent me links . MIND gave me digital therapy for a couple of months . The type of therapy was Cognitive Brain Therapy , and to this day , i view life so differently . Something so simple as the 3-3-3 method helps me live with this anxiety . It essentially requires you to identify three things you can see, three things you can hear, and three ways you can move your body. It's basically a way of distracting yourself from your anxiety by shifting your attention to your senses .

My therapist said something along the lines of “ Don’t be scared of your anxiety, if it wasn’t for your anxiety , your life choices would have been different and you wouldn’t be where you are today , don’t be scared of it , let’s just learn how to live with it” .

A year later , i can’t remember the last time i had a panic attack , i still have that difficult mindset of losing people close to me , but i could honestly say that i am ok” i have had to make some difficult choices about uni, but im still here and i am still trying . Uni has saved me in so many ways , i wouldn’t change uni for the world . i wouldn’t change the route i took, the friends i made , the degree im taking , the retakes im retaking . MIND allowed me not hate my anxiety , if it wasn’t for my anxiety i wouldn’t have gone to uni and i wouldn’t have met the people that have supported me thought out my journey .So as much as my anxiety has given me a difficult life, i don’t hate it , im just now bigger than it .

Losing someone so close to home will be the worse thing to happen in my life time , especially losing him the way that we did , but i wish he knew that he gave me the courage to get me the help i needed .

So that is why im running for MIND .

In honour of my self , in honour of jamie , in honour of people that are at war with their minds , in honour of people who are grieving their close ones from suicide and to just give back to MIND .

Now summers coming to an end I have just started to be consistent with training and i cannot wait for the journey ahead . Whether i complete this marathon or not , if i have raised awareness , supported a charity , helped just one person and got fit in the process then my job is done !