My husband left me two years ago. It hit me just after that. I was fine when he left. I got up one day and I couldn’t go out the house on my own. I couldn’t eat for four weeks and lost a stone and a half in weight. I couldn’t sleep. I was on my own at the time, I had family but my brother can’t cope with anything like that so I was sort of on my own.

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I was being sick all the time, couldn’t eat anything, couldn’t drink anything and I got to the stage where I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to the doctors and he thought it was funny that I’d lost so much weight and couldn’t sleep. It got so bad I couldn’t be in the house alone so my friend called the out of hours doctor. They called the crisis team in cos I told them if they couldn’t help me I wouldn’t be here in the am cos I used to be such a bubbly outgoing person and my life had gone. My brother said I’m not signing any papers for her to be sectioned cos he knew it was such a bad thing. The crisis team helped me a lot but when they moved on I started to go back down again. My friend was helping me from the start.

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If it weren’t for her I wouldn’t be here today. Unfortunately she felt she couldn’t help so much after a while as she felt it was too much. Then I found out about RECOVERY through Enham and it was the best thing that I’ve ever done cos I’ve never looked back. I get times at the weekend where I still have troubles because I’m on my own so now Liz comes at the weekend now too and we got to church as well, which is good.

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I believe if I’d have known about RECOVERY when I had my breakdown I wouldn’t have needed the crisis team. But they do know about RECOVERY now because I sent them the flyer. I do have moments in the middle night sometimes where I find it very hard but I just hold out cos I know it’s not long until someone comes to visit me now.

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When I was feeling ill and couldn’t go out the house I wish I’d heard about RECOVERY. I was having panic attacks every 20 minutes and no one understood. I used to go down to A&E to get pain relief cos my head hurt so bad and they gave me pain relief, which made me feel great but only for 24 hours then I’d be back down again.

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I needed someone to talk to who could relate to me like the people at RECOVERY, people who have been through the same problems. More people should know about it.

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Healthcare professionals never really helped too much. They prescribed me anti depressants and told me to persevere. If they knew about RECOVERY and referred me on earlier that would’ve been much better for me. The anti-depressants do help but sometimes I need homeopathic remedies RECOVERY have told me about to help calm me down too. Things like Chamomilla and Aconite are great and have really helped.

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RECOVERY are there when I need them. They come and take me out and I feel like I can talk to them. If I feel down I feel I can confide in them and they understand. I definitely feel these alternatives should be made more available to people rather than just being prescribed this or that drug. A lot of the time the professionals don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.

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I definitely feel more confident in myself now. Now I can walk around the block with my niece’s dogs ok and for the past year I haven’t been able to go out past my gate for the past year. Now I can go in to a small shop on my own, providing someone I know is nearby.

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RECOVERY help me a lot with the day to day stuff like domestic care like shopping, cleaning, getting out and socializing and sometimes getting up in the morning.

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I think the dogs really help as well because of the unconditional love. I just think the doctors/healthcare professional should recognise there are organisations like this out there to help people like us and they should pass the information on.