"Recovery being a journey"

My mental health is a rollercoaster and I am still struggling to get my head around the fact recovery is a journey and we are all just one set of circumstances away from a breakdown and there’s no magic pill!

Over the last 6 years I’ve been in and out of crisis, hospital, working with the home treatment team, the community mental health team, my GP, safe havens and more recently the new service in North East Hampshire called MHICs along with Inclusions to get sober before I start IVF as a single mum.

There have also been periods of stability where I’ve been able to be a part of focus groups looking at ways we can improve mental health services, linking up mental health with long term physical illness (I also have Fibromyalgia) and over the last couple of years, having a big involvement in the design of the new hospital in Surrey as a person with lived experience.

Throughout my rollercoaster mental and physical health ups and downs, I have mostly come into contact with very supportive people to help me and validate how I’m feeling and what I’m experiencing when unwell. It’s really important to me to say thanks to all of these specialists which is why I’m taking the time to do this right now.