Showing posts with label #AmazingRaise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #AmazingRaise. Show all posts

Why I decided to shave my head for Mental Health Charities

in:
Amelia shares her journey to making the decision to shave her head for mental health charities.
- Amelia Hartley


I recently created a video, posted on YouTube, sharing my story behind choosing to shave my head on the 3rd December this year to raise money for Student Minds and the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM).



Despite writing about my motivations on my fundraising page and in emails to friends and family, writing and filming a video to be posted online for the world to see was an incredibly daunting process. It took a lot of courage: courage I didn’t know I had. It showed me how far I have come and how much strength I have – we all have so much strength.

I’ve experienced some heightened anxiety over the past couple of months. Tackling a big fundraising goal is £2500 isn’t easy. I’ve had fears of not reaching my target, nobody attending the event, being laughed at or judged once the hair goes, friends not supporting me…the list goes on! However, I have had plenty of individuals express their support and encouragement.

Shaving my head for charity has become so much more than just trying to raise money for the causes. It’s also about showing people that it’s okay to talk about mental health and that recovery doesn’t happen overnight. It’s about reducing the stigma, as we all have mental health and we should all respect it like we do with our physical health. It’s about raising awareness of two amazing charities who are supporting thousands of individuals across the UK and will continue to support thousands more. I never thought I would one day be able to talk openly and honestly about my mental health, but here I am.

I was 14, and living in Sydney, when first diagnosed with depression. I felt like the only person of my friends, year group, even school, who wasn't 'happy' all the time. I thought I shouldn't feel like this because nothing had happened to trigger how I felt. I was looking for an excuse, and hoping that excuse would provide a solution to becoming better.

My methods for feeling better weren't healthy; I was self-harming, drinking and isolating myself. I had suicidal feelings. I started taking anti-depressants but I didn’t want anyone to know, or they'd know that something was wrong with me. I’ve realised now how helpful they are to some people, including myself. I still take them, but I’m not embarrassed or ashamed; having depression isn’t shameful.

In September 2010, my best friend died and my world completely fell apart. This was my first experience of 'suicide'. It was a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we will never know whatever led him to that point. A life taken at 18: he had so much more to do, and we had so much love and hugs still to give him. Sometimes things are buried so deeply that nobody can help at the crucial moment. I would do anything to bring him back, but since I can’t, I want to try to help fewer men take their own lives. This is why I have chosen the Campaign Against Living Miserably, the male suicide prevention charity, as one of the charities to raise money for. In 2016, 76% of all suicides in the UK were male, and this has been the case since the early 1990s. It is the biggest killer of men under 45. However, CALM prevents over 250 suicides every year. They offer a helpline, website resources, and support, tackle stigma through massive national campaigns and increase the awareness of male suicide rates. Just a £7 donation can pay for a potentially life-saving call, so giving a little can do a lot.

I have personally seen that suicide is preventable – another close friend of mine, who had a suicide attempt, has come far and is alive and well today. I am so thankful he had the right help and support, and am pleased I could support him too.

In 2011, I moved back to England and took the opportunity to improve my academic work and my mental health. Despite lots of ups and downs, I did well in my A levels and went to study Physics at university, excited by the opportunity to continue learning.

Three months before moving to Southampton, from nowhere, I felt a massive dip in my mental health and began drinking and caring very little about myself. Starting university, I didn’t feel in control and was very vulnerable, and then my uncle suddenly passed away over the Christmas holiday. Jon was like a father to me, who I had hoped would be at my graduation and walk me down the aisle at my wedding. I felt like a part of myself had been brutally and abruptly ripped from me. 

I spiralled. I couldn’t concentrate in lectures or sit exams without crying. I didn’t feel I could talk to people; it seemed no one would understand the grief or pain I was experiencing. I couldn’t pretend to be ok and couldn’t be rude, so I isolated myself. Feeling outside of myself, I was watching ‘me’ go through each day without any control. There were times when I couldn’t picture the next 24 hours. I was scared of myself. 

I had to start recovery. University was still the route I thought I was going to be taking, so I stopped drinking and started taking care of myself. I went into second year with a positive frame of mind but my mental health still wasn’t great, even though it had improved.

I found that university was making things worse. Opportunities I’d found in university were the things that were keeping me going such as running a Student Minds peer support group for students experiencing low moods. The programme I was facilitating, and subsequent support network, kept me going through second year and allowed me to leave university knowing I’d made the right decision to drop out. Student Minds saved me – I don’t know where I’d be without them. The mental health of university students would be at a crisis point without the peer support, staff training, campaigns and sector influence that Student Minds offers. This is why I have chosen them as my second charity. Their work is hugely recognised, and it is an honour to now work for the charity.

You can’t always see depression, anxiety, or suicidal thoughts. You don’t always know how much someone is struggling. It doesn’t always show outwardly; they might not talk about it because they’re worried about others’ reactions. If I tell someone that I have clinical depression and anxiety or have experienced suicidal thoughts, they might change how they behave around me or panic. It’s not necessarily an illness with an easy diagnosis and treatment, where people wish you to get well soon and celebrate your recovery. Mental health difficulties and suicide affect millions of individuals across the UK. For that, I will do my bit by shaving my head and raising as much money as I possibly can for the Campaign Against Living Miserably and Student Minds.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, please donate if you can, please share this as much as possible. We can all share our stories and they can have more impact than we ever imagine.

Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/h7JCdp0QkpI


Hi, I'm Amelia and I am the Training Programmes Manager at Student Minds. I previously volunteered for the charity, and love now being part of the staff team. I've had lots of ups and downs over the years, but have found Oxford a beautiful place to live and work, and the countryside certainly helps my mood! We all have mental health, let's keep fighting the stigma.















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‘I’m so OCD’

in:
People like to use the term 'OCD' as a character trait, but what does it really mean?
- Krishna

As someone who suffers from OCD, I don’t think that the phrase 'I'm so OCD' will ever stop making me feel like I’ve been slapped across the face. It doesn’t even make sense, I mean think about it.

But that phrase, along with so many others, even along with products that showcase OCD as a form of organization, have made my life so much more difficult.

I first understood that I had contamination OCD when I was at university. For a long time before I knew that I had OCD, my behaviours' were just a quirk. I remember being called ‘infection control’ and always being relied on for having hand sanitizer in my bag. With time, what started as a quirk grew into something much more consuming. By the second year of university this simple overuse of soap was an illness that had the ability to trap me in my own home.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is cycle. It starts with an obsession (an intrusive, recurrent thought) which causes anxiety and severe discomfort. This is followed by an action which stops the anxiety. The issue is that the relief is short lived and the cycle starts all over again. For me this would focus on washing and cleanliness. I remember once having three showers straight after each other because of being near ‘contaminated things’ in my own home. It was exhausting.

At my worst it was a struggle to leave my home, I was unable to cook food and use a public bathroom? Forget about it! But there were also other things. Things that were more subtle. I would lie a lot to avoid certain social situations; I used food and alcohol as coping mechanisms (which when you are at university doesn’t always ring alarm bells) and my self esteem was basically non-existent. All of these things were interlinked. It wasn’t that I had OCD and I washed my hands a lot. It was that I had a debilitating illness that affected basically every aspect of my life.

But I think I was lucky. I had heard of OCD at some point in my life, which meant that I started to seek support when I realised that I couldn’t fix what was happening by myself. I also started campaigning and decided to use my experiences to try and raise awareness. I wanted to put the difficulty that I was going through to some good use. If I could help one person to understand what OCD really felt like or give someone the confidence to seek support themselves, then it felt like maybe all the pain was worthwhile. That it had a purpose.

Recovery was a long process. When something is so integrated into your life it takes a lot of work and time to change it. I often say ‘recovery’ because I view mental health on a spectrum. There isn’t ‘well’ and ‘unwell’ in my opinion. My recovery was about understanding and recognizing the harmful thoughts and behaviours’ that I had developed and challenging them. Forcing myself to face them until they no longer caused me pain or anxiety.

Imagine that - think of the one thing that you are the most terrified of in this world, then imagine having to face it every single day for prolonged periods of time until you are no longer scared of it. No it wasn’t easy, but it was perhaps the most beneficial and life-changing thing that I have ever done.

We should all be looking after our own mental health just as we would our physical health, because it isn’t an abnormality to experience a mental health difficulty and recovery isn't about never feeling down or unwell. I have experienced recovery but I still go through periods of difficulty. Times where I can feel the intrusive thoughts creeping back, manifesting themselves in different ways. When I notice that I am going through bottles of soap much quicker and using avoidance techniques again. The difference now is that I can notice it. I can see the signs and I know what I need to do to ensure that it doesn’t get worse.

I will forever feel frustrated when I hear phrases like ‘I’m so OCD’ because it trivialises something that impacted my life in such a consuming, challenging way. It isn’t a joke; it's very real for a lot of people. This OCD Awareness Week I want to continue to share that understanding.

The next time you hear someone joke about OCD, question it, ask them what it means. Then tell them what OCD actually is.

You could be helping someone like me who just needed to know that she had an illness, that it wasn’t her fault and that it could get better. And it did.

Want tips on understanding OCD or want to seek support? Visit OCD Action or Mind.


Hi I’m Krishna, the Design and Office Manager at Student Minds. I setup my first OCD awareness campaign back in 2013 which led me to the Student Minds group at Sheffield Hallam University. I then joined the Student Minds staff team in early 2016. As a graphic designer I am passionate about using design to raise understanding of mental health difficulties, inspire conversations around mental health and help to show people that they are not alone.

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Why I chose to walk a marathon for Student Minds

in:
Rosie writes about why she has chosen to walk a marathon for Student Minds.
- Rosie Steele

In March of this year I became a fundraising champion for Student Minds.

I am extremely passionate about student mental health and my role as a fundraising champion. My problems with my mental health have been apparent from childhood but really started being a problem for during my GCSEs and A levels. University has also been one of the toughest periods of my life through coping with separation anxiety, loneliness, isolation through not wanting to leave my room, and academic perfection linked to a fear of failure. I became aware of the work Student Minds do during my second year of university when my mental health started to become more of a ‘surviving over thriving’ period and looked through the different resources available to me, making me feel less alone, and reminding me to prioritise my own mental wellbeing.

Student mental health is an issue that really needs to be supported as 1 in 4 adults experience a mental health difficulty through any point in their lifetime. Next time you’re in a large lecture theatre or just in public look around and think of how many people may be suffering in silence without access to or the knowledge of how to gain support for the help they need. Through early intervention ‘the considerable risk’ of academic failure and dropping out linked to mental health can be lessened. Research has also shown that undergraduate students have lower levels of wellbeing than the rest of the population.

On University Mental Health Day in March of this year Student Minds brought together the link between physical and mental wellbeing through their Active Mental Health day. 

Throughout the worst periods of my mental health during my GCSEs, A Levels and university exam revision my mum made sure I got out of the house each day to walk the dog. I found and still do find these walks extremely therapeutic. Stepping away from the stress of revision for half an hour gave me time to clear my head but also talk freely to my mum about all the worry. There’s nothing quite like telling your anxious thoughts to a large field and not taking them back to the house with you. Even when at university and away from my dog, if I began to feel anxious and could feel thoughts creeping in I’d try my hardest to step away from my desk and get myself outside, even if I just walked to the Tesco at the end of the road and back.

As well as this, in April the BBC aired ‘Mind Over Marathon' in which ten mental health sufferers trained for and ran a marathon showing just how closely mental and physical health are linked. One of the runners Jake Tyler “blackdogwalks” on Instagram is now hiking his way around the UK to “promote movement as a way to manage mental health”. This really motivated me as I thought I won’t just be helping others but also myself, being active for my own mental wellbeing.

This is why myself, my mum and my little scotty dog Jack are taking on the challenge of walking a marathon across five days from the 7th -11th August. When thinking of ways I could fundraise a sponsored walk was my first idea. I toyed with the idea of a marathon in a day or a bigger amount say 50 miles across a week but then I thought no that is not realistic. I want to show other students, other young people the benefits of walking in a realistic manner that anyone can do. Motivating yourself to do any kind of exercise with a mental illness is hard, I’ve certainly never gone for a proper run (I used to run a mile with my best friend Lucy on a Friday night down some country lanes) but I’m not sure anyone’s going to sponsor me to do that. Finding something you enjoy, find bearable even is key to becoming active for your mental health. I’m seeing it as my own version of ‘Mind Over Marathon’ albeit not a traditional one.


We are taking on this walk from the 7th - 11th August and I’d love for you to support both myself and the amazing work Student Minds do. Just a pound or three pounds instead of your coffee will help towards changing the face of student mental health.

Through your support Student Minds can continue the amazing work they do, researching and advocating for students across the UK and creating campaigns who help students just like you and me to not just survive but thrive through what can be very challenging years.

Any donations and support are so gratefully received and I hope you’ll support me (and my mum and dog). Link to donate - https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/rosiesteele1


I'm Rosie and I'm about to enter my third year of a media, culture and communication degree in Liverpool. I suffer from anxiety, and separation anxiety which has made university a tough time, leading me to find Student Minds. I am now a Fundraising Champion which allows me to share my mental health story whilst raising money for something I am so passionate about helping to bring awareness to. 




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