Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. I’m raising money for Mind because 2020 has been the toughest year of my life and it is so, so important to raise awareness of mental health. 

At the end of April this year, I experienced something that I never thought would happen to me, at the age of 27, I suffered a mental breakdown. After more than a year of continuous stress, anxiety and depression building up in my personal and professional life, Covid-19 was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ve had a few minor panic attacks over the last couple of years but at the end of April I suffered quite a bad one, the next morning I had lost complete control of my own mind. I was experiencing heart palpitations, tremors, breathlessness, a burning sensation on my skin, vomiting, insomnia but what was by far the worst was something I’d never heard of before, something called intrusive thoughts. 

These intrusive thoughts were caused by anxiety and it felt like I had another person in my head, I had awful thoughts that go against who I am, some incredibly violent or harmful. I didn’t want to have these thoughts but I couldn’t stop them, the more I tried to push them out of my head, the more there were. They were never ending, I didn’t sleep for 3 weeks with insomnia, I didn’t eat and I couldn’t even make myself a drink. I couldn’t watch tv or listen to music, or even read, everything made it worse. My partner, Nathan said it was like my soul had left my body and I was dead in the eyes. It got to the point where in the height of lockdown Nath made the decision to drive me from Nottingham to Newcastle to my parents because he didn’t know what to do. 

I ended up calling my local crisis line because I didn’t know what was happening to me, I didn’t know who I was, my home didn’t feel like my home, I didn’t feel like me and I felt like I just wanted to run from everyone and everything. 

Over the three weeks I was at my parents, I phoned the crisis line and the Samaritans several times and on a few occasions I thought about ending my life and ways to do it. 

The nurse who I spoke to via the crisis line told me about intrusive thoughts and I couldn’t believe it was a thing. Mind was the first website I looked at to understand more about these. 

That 3 week period was the darkest and most terrifying time of my life, I didn’t think I was going to make it through. But Nathan, my family and friends came through, if it wasn’t for Nathan and my parents pulling me out of this black hole, I wouldn’t be here today. I found a tiny bit of strength inside me to call my GP and self refer for counselling. The months to follow were really tough, and I still have bad days now, the intrusive thoughts are still there but they’re not as strong and my counselling helped me with how to manage them. It turns out I suffer from generalised anxiety disorder which led to depression. 

I felt compelled to do something to raise money for Mind and awareness of mental health. I’m not a good runner and I don’t like sports but I like being creative, so I’ve been making these little Christmas decorations and gift wrapping accessories - they have been made with mental health in mind, making them has given me something to focus on. I’m not an expert so they are perfectly imperfect, but that’s okay, because it’s okay to be imperfect, we should strive for progress not perfection. So I hope you’ll buy one of my little handmade Christmas trinkets, knowing that they’re not perfect but a reminder that we’re all just trying our best, we are all perfectly imperfect.

Minimum donation is £2 and I can post to you. Just message me via Facebook, Instagram or text to let me know what you’d like! ❤️ If you feel like donating some handmade Christmas crafts or just making a donation without buying a trinket, please feel free! I’ll be making more as the weeks go on and will share them on this page 🥰