It's ok to talk

Anon., staff member

Welcome to my first ever blog, I hope you can take something from my story. It is a very difficult story, but one with plenty of hope and a good enough ending. I am the mother of a young man with a quite a serious mental illness. It all happened when he was only 16yrs of age. Let me introduce him, he is tall, dark and very handsome. He has the most beautiful human nature and a beautiful mind. He is the eldest child in our family and highly intelligent. My son starting acting out and misbehaving at 16years of age and I assumed it was normal teenage behaviour. However as the months progressed he began to change into a very different person. He became addicted to cannabis and unfortunately suffered serious consequences ending in a lengthy stay in a psychiatric hospital. This story is about survival and how one can recover from a horrific and traumatic life event through talking.

What's left behind

Laura, staff member

Trigger warning - suicide

I can honestly say I had a good life; I grew up in a secure bubble and never experienced hardship or adversity. I remember one occasion a few years ago, talking to my closest childhood friends about how lucky we all were to have had such a happy childhood, getting through those teenage years unscathed, loved being a student and university life, finding careers which we enjoyed, getting married and ultimately settling down. However despite the fact that my life sounded like something from a chick lit novel, I wasn’t naive to the fact that one day my bubble may burst. The big bang occurred on May 22nd 2012. It was an ordinary Tuesday morning when I received a phone call from my father telling me that my brother Conor had died. That was the moment which changed my life beyond recognition.

Normality

Anon., student

Trigger warning - self harm

A lot people in the college don't actually know me. So first I am a 23 year old girl, a single mum to a 2 year old girl and a full time career to my 27 year old brother as well as full time student..

I was diagnosed with depression when I was 14, I was self harming. I started self harming on my legs as no one would be able to see then I started on my arms. I started self harming when my sister had died in a car accident as I felt there was no one listening to me and hurting myself released any pain I had for a few minutes.

Letting go to move forward

Shauna, staff member

My story with depression started when my 1st child was born but if I were honest it started further back than that. If anybody told me that I would feel indifferent or distant from my beautiful and vulnerable little baby I would have told them they were crazy to say such a thing, but unfortunately that is exactly what happened, I could feel nothing but absolute sadness and helplessness and resentment as to why I had to take care of my baby. I didn’t dare tell anyone how I felt as I thought that I would lose my husband and lose my baby. I knew about post natal depression but I didn’t think for once that I was suffering with it. I thought that I was a horrible person for thinking such selfish thoughts never thinking for once that there could be something wrong with my mental state.