How Creativity supported my mental health
After the birth of my daughter, Dorothy I struggled with postnatal depression. Even after 4 years, that’s incredibly difficult to write. This is something that I’ve spoken about a lot at events, but I’ve never written about it in detail , so here goes…
In 2019 I went on maternity leave, and as much as it is such a special time, nothing can prepare you for motherhood. I felt a huge loss of identity and struggled with my new ‘role’. I’m sure every new parent can relate to this.
Only 6 months in, and the country was plunged into lockdown…cue a greater sense of isolation. I actually couldn’t wait to get back to work; and keep progressing with my career. When I started to discuss my return to work, I was told that my role was no longer available for me. I was offered a new role that I didn’t want. I felt like my life was being taken into a new direction, and I had no control over it. I was refused redundancy, as my new role was considered to be a promotion (with no pay rise). I felt like I had no choice, and I eventually had to accept the role.
Within a few months things rapidly went downhill. I fell into a cycle of depression and awful negative self talk. My self-talk started as ‘I’m rubbish at my job’ or ‘everyone must be laughing at me’, but soon got much worse…(I still don’t think I’m ready to actually write whose words here). The negative self-talk became so overwhelming, and I struggled to be able to turn the inner dialogue down, that it soon began to impact daily life. Unable to hold conversations, physical exhaustion due to constant deafening dialogue. The rage that accompanied this was something I had also never experienced before - anger that in the midst of my postpartum journey I was being made to feel like this.
I was signed off with depression, and ultimately left the company. During this time, I signed up for an online calligraphy course. From the very first time I sat down and put ink to paper, I felt an instant calm. It was the first night in months that I hadn’t sat on the sofa and cried all evening. But it was the internal quiet and peace that made the biggest impact. I instantly relaxed, slept better and felt calmer and a bit more like myself.
So, I sat down to practice calligraphy every night for the next two weeks. The impact was huge, and immediate. It was at this time that I realised how creativity was having such a huge impact on my mental health, and that it could help others too. And this is how my journey to building The Creative Wellbeing Company began.
I feel incredibly vulnerable in sharing my story. Yes, I’ve spoken about this publicly, but there are lots of family and friends on here that I’ve never shared this with.
Every time I’ve spoken about this in the past (usually at networking events), I’ll have a handful of people come up to me afterwards saying that they could relate to some aspect of my story. I know there is nothing special about my story, and so many people experience job loss, depression, struggles with motherhood, so I’m sharing this today, in a hope that one person might connect with it, and know that it’s normal to feel like this…maybe it will encourage someone to try something creative to help ‘switch off’ for a bit. Please contact me if anyone wants to chat. I reached out to Mind who were able to offer some really great support.
