It’s good to talk

BECKY REALISED HOW DANGEROUS IT WOULD BE TO FOLLOW IN HER MUM’S FOOTSTEPS…

When Becky’s mum was ill, she made Becky promise not to tell anyone. After the worst happened, Becky’s own mental health spiralled and her future looked set to mirror her mother’s. Until she remembered the power of honesty…

Becky, 30, explains:

As my mum danced around the room, my friend whispered. ‘Your mum is so cool, Becky.’ I beamed. Everyone said what a happy couple my parents were. So it came as a huge shock when they announced their divorce, when I was 13. 

After they broke up, Mum was deeply depressed, but snapped into happy-go-lucky mode if we had friends round. It must have been exhausting.

When I was 16 I had my son, Harley. Mum was supportive but I was worried about her. Sometimes she’d say I’d be better off without her. When Mum told her GP she felt like she might kill herself, she was put in a secure unit. I went to visit and she put on her usual brave face, laughing and joking. She did such a good job of seeming fine, she was discharged and told she wasn’t ill enough to be there.

She was allocated a bed in a voluntary facility and she hoped she’d get the help she needed.

‘But don’t tell anyone where I am,’ she told me. She was ashamed. ‘If anyone asks, say I’ve gone to visit family out of town.’

Maybe, if Mum had felt comfortable telling the truth, things would have been different.

As she packed her bags to move to the voluntary unit, they gave her bed to someone with a higher priority.

Two weeks later I found her dead. 

She’d taken an overdose. She left me a note, saying sorry. 

In the years that followed, I struggled with my own mental health. I met Joe and together we had two children, but when I was pregnant with our second, Joe was diagnosed with bowel cancer. When Elsie was two and Arthur was six months old, Joe passed away. When he died, I felt a new wave of anger towards Mum. I’d watched him fight for his life, yet she chose to end hers. 

I had a newborn, a toddler and a teenager and I was trying to put on a happy face, but I knew how well that had gone for Mum. I was admitted into a mother and baby mental health unit with Arthur, while Elsie and Harley went to stay with Joe’s mum.

I turned my phone off, ashamed, just like Mum ten years before me. Three weeks into my stay, I realised I had nothing to be ashamed about. When Joe was in hospital fighting cancer, we didn’t think twice about leaning on our friends. Why should a mental health illness be any different from physical? 

I wrote a Facebook status, explaining: ‘I hit rock bottom. Three weeks ago I was admitted to a mental health unit. I was embarrassed and decided not to make it common knowledge. Reaching out and admitting I needed help allows me to see things a lot clearer. Without this place I’m not sure where I’d be’. 

Having psychiatric help and the chance to grieve and breathe, I processed my feelings of anger towards my mum for leaving me. I learned so much about myself and the power I had to cope. 

My status update was met with 300 lovely comments from people who felt I’d given them permission to be honest about their own struggles. I was worried I’d feel worse if anyone knew my truth, but I felt so much better. 

After losing Mum and Joe, I thought I’d never feel happy again but I’ve been with Tom for a year now. I feel like the luckiest unlucky person in the world. When it comes to our mental health, it’s so important to talk as soon as we feel unwell. Like any illness, if we catch it early it’s much easier to treat.