PoetryJo walks to wellness

It was a dark November evening, I’d had enough.

I was off work due to my poor mental health and had slept for over a month. Literally slept the day away every single day. I thought I was helping myself, thinking that if I slept because I was tired then eventually I would get better. How wrong was I?

Then, I stumbled across Unmasked mental health peer support group. I decided to give it a go and immediately felt relief. The feeling of finding a group of people who just took me as I was, was reviving.

It was a couple of weeks before I opened up and noticed a real change, mainly in my attitude towards my illness. It became clear that unless I helped myself nothing was going to change!

And that changed everything.

Today is 17 months since I first walked through those welcoming doors. I’ve attended for a while then circumstances meant I had to take a break but as soon as it was possible I was back there.

The group is absolutely wonderful and have become great friends and we have a real bond, but that doesn’t alienate newcomers, we love and welcome everyone who walks through those doors, then they become friends as well.

So here we are, Unmasking the stigma of mental health one group at a time, with a brew and a biscuit.