Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Most of us already have or will suffer with ill mental health at some stage in our lives. It really does break my heart that so many people don't feel heard or won't get the treatment they require. Without the correct support, many conditions snowball and this can be fatal. 

Episodes of reactive depression, PTSD and panic attacks are something I've experienced over a period of almost 15 years. When I was diagnosed with postnatal depression after having my son Bailey, I'd had enough. I decided to ‘grow a pair’ and take control of it as there was a tiny, innocent life to protect. 

Those treated for serious mental health problems are often robbed of their dignity and live lives dominated by mental illness. I can only imagine being put on all kinds of anti-psychotic drugs, anti-depressants, side-effect tablets, calmers and sleepers. Seeing psychiatric doctors, community psychiatric nurses, social workers, support workers and care workers over decades, working hard at counselling and psychotherapy, both in groups and one on one. Visiting day and night centres for the mentally ill, experiencing decades of insomnia, extremely bad side-effects from the medications and problems finding the correct dosage and type of medication. Being unemployable due to mental illness and after all this, being treated by society like you're not trying or you're pretending.

I just don't get it. It's mental health for f**ks sake!! 

Last year, I approached the Mental Health Foundation to learn ways I could help to improve the current standard of mental healthcare. They inspired me!! The charity works tirelessly, researching, campaigning, reducing stigma and lobbying the government on a topic most of us know so little about. So I am very excited by the positive impact the money I intend to raise could have on the mental health service. In addition I hope they'll help us all to understand invisible illness.

I'm attempting to raise £3650 for Mental Health Foundation by trekking the Andean trail to Machu Picchu this October. We'll spend One night in Cuzco, Peru, to acclimatise to the high altitude - apparently I'm going to feel pretty sick. Then the following 4 days will be spent hiking the Andean trail for up to 10 mountainous hours per day. And wild camping along the way at night - I'm told there will be frost. Yes, alongside hideous altitude sickness, the weather will be crazily unpredictable, experiencing 4 seasons in one day: scorching sunshine, heavy rain, high winds and snow all in one day. 

The following aspects of this trip scare me most:

1. Meeting a group of new people (I'm a massive scaredy cat).
2. High altitude (7973ft above sea level). Sickness seems to kick my arse more than most other people I know.
3. Missing Bailey - We have been inseparable since he was born. 
4. My fitness levels and whether my back will actually be OK by October.
5. All of it, all at once - Feeling ill and down, surrounded by people I don't know, pushing my body to levels it's never experienced, being exhausted and having nowhere I can run away to with a duvet to hide under.
6. Not actually reaching the target.


The fund raising itself and the intensive trek are a huge challenge for me but the cause keeps me going. 

Here are just a few ways the money we raise will help the MHF's vital work:

- £50 could help fund an educational programme in schools to help young people        understand mental health problems. 

- £100 could fund a half day workshop for staff working with people with dementia.

- £500 can help MHF to produce training materials for healthcare professionals that highlight the benefits of alternative treatments.

Mental Health Foundation has many other essential projects in need of funding, including a PhD study into postnatal mental illness.

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So please dig deep and donate now.