Isaac

When I say exercise saved my life it’s not an exaggeration it’s very much the truth. Last summer was probably the worst time in my life and I got lucky which is why I can now tell my story. Mental health problems can manifest themselves in different people in different ways for myself it was rage. When I say rage I mean exactly that, a drunken like state where the only feeling is anger and the only feeling after is regret. I have punched myself in the jaw too many times to count, broken valuable objects, such as my last phone, and punched too many walls. I still have scars on my right knuckles from when I successfully punched two holes in my bedroom wall last September. I scared people: girlfriends, relatives and even pets. When I say I got lucky I do really mean it last summer the structure of revision had ended and I was back on the sofa bed at home. With now structure or personal space or even enough money to see friends all of my coping mechanisms fell apart. After multiple people telling me to get help I still thought I was a lazy shit feeling low not that there was something genuinely wrong with me. For anyone who may relate to having depression or anxiety, or both in my case, this is a major hurdle. Because of the stigma surrounding mental health we feel weak to admit that we might not be the most mentally healthy. We try to “just get on with it”, that there’s nothing wrong with us and we’re just being silly. This is particularly prevalent in men due to toxic masculinity I believe but everyone has that initial hurdle. For some they seek help as soon as possible, for some however, for various reasons, they never do. When you’re illness makes it hard to even leave bed it can be extremely difficult to fill in a long online form, questionnaire and a mini essay about how shit you’re feeling. I had left it far too late and despite suicide being on my mind almost every night and how I would be better off dead, how those around me would be safer with me dead I still thought I wasn’t ill enough for help.

I don’t really believe that counselling really helped me get better but what it did was reassure me that my situation was awful and I was ill. For me counselling hasn’t worked not because the counsellors were bad but because my mental health is so ingrained into who I am. There was no traumatic experience in my life, I grew up pretty happily and enjoyed a lot of things. My parents didn’t spoil me nor did they deprive me. For me it goes deeper than that it’s beyond thought. I still have it sometimes when I’ll walk out into the road and I’ll feel about stopping in front of that bus, I use the word feel because that’s exactly it, there’s a twitch to end it not a thought. It wasn’t exam stress or dreary days that brought out my issues to the very surface it was sunny beautiful days and endless free time. So when I say I got lucky it’s because if I hadn’t had to wait more than a week for the counselling service to get back to me I genuinely believe I wouldn’t be here writing this now. There would be 11 deaths instead of 10 since 2016. After starting university again a friend persuaded me to join a relatively new scheme called “Healthy Minds”. Chance would have it that I wouldn’t even know this person had I not gone to the learn to row talk (which I almost didn’t go to because I was too hungover) and sat where I did. Little did I know at the time that this small decision changed my life and put me on track. For those that don’t know, Healthy Minds is a scheme within SEH and student counselling where you are paired with a mentor and are given unlimited access to the gym, swimming pool and classes completely free. Although amazing this isn’t the main part of it that helped me, you also get a mentor to help you through the program, someone to show you how to use the gym equipment and what is good and what isn’t. Due to my anxiety combined with my super skinny body size I had never set foot in a gym by myself before Healthy Minds but after joining I was happy to do so, confident that I knew what I was doing. I’ve learnt a lot through it as well and from Pete Burrows, my mentor and the creator of the scheme. He’s taught me how to approach my own mental health and that of others around me. I’m now lucky enough to call him my close friend who I think of extremely highly. As one of my friends put it “Everyone should have a Pete at uni” (this person was of course full time #bnoc and part time Chair of Wellbeing Abbie Jessop).

Healthy Minds is a scheme where you don’t sit in a chair and have someone ask questions about your life it’s where you make the changes and you find something new you enjoy. Being a skinny kid that hit puberty late and almost definitely has dyspraxia, where you’re hand / foot eye coordination is non existent, I hated PE and any sport I was forced to play. But through Healthy Minds I have found cycling to be my calling. A hobby where I can tinker with my favourite toys and a sport where I can go anywhere without looking at my phone, true freedom, I can even see myself getting better with my hard work. I’ve been lucky enough that the cycling club is full of some of the most friendly people around, who have welcomed me as soon from my very first ride with them.

I do all the campaigning and work I do now because I don’t want one person to go through what I did almost a year ago now. I want to help make changes that will mean there is the help in place that I wish I had. I want everyone to be comfortable with the idea of mental illness as just another illness. After all most of us will get the flu occasionally but we don’t keep that a secret from our friends or family.