7 As a Time to Change Champion, I wanted to share why I do what I do and how talking about mental health has helped me overcome my own challenges. I am an (almost) 50 year old mum of two, and I have experienced anxiety and depression for most of my adult life as result of the trauma I experienced dealing with an alcoholic parent who has mental health challenges of their own. I felt a lot of shame as a child watching my parent being sectioned and taken away in the ambulance after a particularly distressing domestic violence situation aimed at me. After they came back home they start ..read more

After a few hard years of a large amount of family bereavement, there was a day at school where I fainted for the first time. I hoped this was a one-off, but the fainting grew more and more until it was twice a day and was seriously affecting my life. My behavior started to get worse and I found myself getting a lot angrier with teachers. I had various medical tests, saw many specialists and yet nobody had an explanation for what was going on. That was until one day in A&E. After explaining what had happened in the years prior, a doctor approached me and started to explain what post-trau ..read more

I suffer from complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety, which at times makes my life difficult and unbearable. I find that mental health is still a very taboo subject. Many people are still ignorant to mental health and don’t treat it seriously because it’s not really visible. “Pull yourself together” “Try harder” “You CAN help it” “It can’t be true” “Put it behind you, it happened years ago” …are only a few remarks I’ve heard.  Do you seriously think I want this life? If it was that easy to change things, I would – b ..read more

I remember the first time I talked about my mental health. I was terrified. What if people thought I was crazy? What if they didn’t believe me and thought I was making it all up for attention? Would they take me away from my parents? Would I still have friends? I was 15 at the time, sat in a hospital bed after taking an overdose, and had been raped 3 months previously. I was not able to attend school anymore and there was a pending court case looming. I constantly felt sick for no obvious reason, I had lost all my confidence and self-worth, and I felt anger that I couldn’t ..read more