For as long as I can remember mental health has always impacted my life in a major way.
From the age of 13, I’ve suffered from severe depression and anxiety. More recently, I was diagnosed with PTSD.
I spent years struggling. I wasn’t living, I was just surviving day to day.
With the help and support from my amazing YMCA family, my home church and an incredible organisation called Mercy UK, I was able to turn my life around. Those issues are still there and I still have to manage them on a daily basis. But now I have hope for my future. I’m really living and the smile on my face is a genuine one.
My advice to anyone struggling with any mental health issues is to focus on one day at a time or even one minute at a time. You can’t afford to look back or to imagine the future.
Don’t hold back, speak to someone you trust. Whatever giants you’re facing, you can overcome them. There’s a song by Carrie Underwood called ‘So small’. One of the lines goes: “sometimes that mountain you’ve been climbing, is just a grain of sand.”
I adore this song, it always reminds me that whatever comes my way, no matter how big things appear in that moment, I can overcome them. In time, these things will just seem like little things. The same is possible for everyone! #IAMWHOLE #WEAREWHOLE