Explaining where my work life is at (or not) and why..kind of....
This may be long, I'm full of long stories and I suppose I feel like I have to justify why I don't work and why, but in that how I did work for 17 years and how I came to be on benefits, how I want to get back to work but the barriers I need to get over first(I write as a blogg post so it's not a long post on my Facebook feed then if anyone is interested they can read on).
People that have only known me over the last couple of years probably think why do I one minute say I want to get back to working in mental health and then say I want to get back to teaching horse riding but in the past I did do both at the same time.
I always feel like I go back to my past to explain now...storytime...don't get too bored. Since I was about 12 or 13 I wanted to be a nurse and was in St John's ambulance cadets, I started horse riding which I loved and I also developed an eating disorder (so life was always a bit of a battle). I got bullied alot at school, I was really quiet and my once a week horse riding lesson was what got me through my school days ( if it hadn't have been for horse riding, singing in the church choir and being in St John's ambulance my school days would have been just school and my bedroom...) Anyway at 16 I decided I didn't have the confidence to work with people and it was horses that had helped me get through my school days so I decided I wanted to work with rescue horses to give something back, I think my mental health would have got worse sooner if it hadnt been for horses. So I did animal care at college then did Equine studies at university, I worked whilst I was at college and uni at the riding school and packing fish fingers in a factory ( definitely wasn't my dream job but meant I had money to have a riding school horse on loan whilst I was at college). After uni I got what I thought was going to be my dream job at a horse rescue charity in Lancashire. I told myself I had to eat to look after the horses well as I had often lived on just a tin of soup a day at uni so I ate I dont know if I ate what a normal person would or binge ate but I put on weight. I was living in a shared house with strangers, travelling about on a moped in Burnley miles from home. I didn't make any new friends and the only person I spent much time with was the manager from work as I rode his horse too. But he wasn't nice and one day told me to ride a horse to make sure it was safe for a work experience girl to get on, it wasn't a small horse and I wasn't that big then, probably about 11 or 12 stone but then as soon as I was on he was telling me to get off I was hurting it's back and it made me feel so guilty for being fat so it re enforced the eating disorder voice and so I told myself I wasnt allowed to eat again. So i wouldn't eat all day but by an evening after doing a physical job looking after horses I was starving so I would binge on loads of food and make myself sick as I couldn't stick to not eating, my housemate who was a student nurse guessed I was bulimic and I moved back home to my parents. I didn't work for a couple of months then did the odd hours at the riding school but ended up doing full time agency factory work and told myself I wasn't good enough to do anything else. My eating disorder took over and I lost alot of weight, was taking diet tablets and laxatives, was exercising and making myself sick but continued working, God knows how.I looked into nursing courses but didn't have any confidence in myself so I did factory work for a couple of years and had horses on loan, the last one I had on loan was Warwick who I ended up buying the best thing I ever did. I got asked to teach a couple of lessons at the riding school but whenever I had done teaching at college etc. I would end up crying saying I wasn't good enough to teach but Rose who owned the riding school gave me the confidence to believe I could and I started teaching little kids on the shetland pony and taught a couple of adults with learning disabilities and I then taught group and private lessons to adults and children. I then felt confident and loved teaching and helping people so I got a full time job as a support worker at a hospital for adults with learning disabilities and mental health problems and challenging behaviour and worked there for 2 years but left because of my mental health. I had about 3 months off work but then got another care job with adults with learning disabilities and continued to teach horse riding which I ended up doing for 4 years but my mental health was affecting me so i stopped and just continued doing my care work which i did for 10 years in different jobs with adults with mental health problems and learning disabilities I even did agency care shifts when i ended up in an eating disorder clinic in 2010 i would work whilst i was on home leave. I didnt get any proper therapy for my bulimia so I told myself I just had to live with it and the underlying causes and continued to focus on work goals ( I have since learnt you cant live to work...you need social connections too but i always had social anxiety which i have since learnt was avoidant personality disorder so i avoided relationships and only could trust a couple of friends who i am still good friends with but at our age they are married, have kids, relationships, careers etc.)Anyway I did an access to nursing course which I started at the end of 2010 and it was meant to be for a year then I was going to do 3 years at Hull but I got bullied on the access to nursing course by someone who is now a mental health nurse who actually bullied me for being open about my own mental health problems, my sister also found some of my birth family which stirred up emotions about being adopted and I also lost confidence in myself so I thought I deserved to be dead and started taking overdoses. I was battling a voice in my head that said I deserved to die as I would never succeed and I kept trying to fight that so although I was taking overdoses I would do shifts at work in between but it got to a point I was looking after others to stop them self harming and trying to kill themselves and was getting told I was too high functioning to need help because I was working despite being severely bulimic, self harming alot and taking overdoses alot and it got to a point I wasn't safe to be looking after others I was scared of myself as there was always a rational part that didn't want to die but the "suicidal voice" got so strong I couldn't fight it I ended up taking about 60 overdoses in the end and ended up with chronic kidney disease and heart failure and got to a point I actually wanted it to kill me so I didn't plan a future, I wasn't focused on work, it was literally Warwick that was keeping me alive I owed it to him to make sure he was looked after even if only financially at times and I love him but I was in such a dark place. I spent 2014 in hospital alot after taking overdoses and local mental health services said they couldn't help me as I was too complex so my mum found a therapeutic community in London for personality disorders and I got assessed for there but then at the beginning of 2015 I was in Leeds general infirmary with heart failure then I went to London but mentally was really unwell and took 3 more overdoses so then I came back to grimsby and was sectioned on the local acute ward as I was tying ligatures and banging my head on walls and pulled all my hair out and basically completely lost the plot. I had staff with me 24 hours a day and got sent to a locked hospital in mexborough where I was just as bad and got no therapy. In October 2015 I got meningococcal septicaemia and pneumonia and gallstones and my kidneys failed and I was in the high dependency unit and got scared of dying and my mental health improved I was still bulimic but not suicidal and in February 2016 I got discharged to a mental health rehab where I had my own flat but there were staff on site to do medication and run groups etc. I was still struggling with my eating disorder and still wasnt getting help for it but the staff helped me in other ways to feel confident living on my own etc but because my friends lives had carried on without me they were busy so I was only socialising with staff or in groups with others from the rehab. I got more depressed and took more overdoses but moved into my own flat and it was put in place I had support workers do my meds which are in a safe and I would go out with them to do social stuff. Now they just help me do my food shop because food shopping with bulimia or any eating disorder is a nightmare and they help me clean my flat because physically I get tiredbut i do most of it. Since joining AFO choir I actually have friends and a more normal social life. At the end of 2017 I started trying to work on work goals again so I did a 4 week horse riding instructor training course for people who had taught before and I took the exam I passed some of it you have to teach 4 lessons but in the end it took me 4 exams to pass it all but I passed it all in 2018. Because I failed some of the exam I did some teaching at a riding school in return for training to pass the rest of the exam and I taught for awhile but physically and mentally wasn't upto a paid job but I'm hoping to get the therapy that will help me manage my eating disorder and anxiety so that even under the pressure of work i will be able to cope emotionally. I'm getting better at challenging myself. Like before choir the only place i was going on my own was the stables to see Warwick i was too anxious, I would never have been able to go to something like the choir ball or singing karaoke even if over zoom, so my life plan is still a work in progress. I forgot I have been volunteering at bransby horses charity for a couple of years, I did work there on a weekend when I was in my 20s at the same time I was doing full time factory work. At one point I did an afternoon a week on the yard looking after the horses but realised physically I struggle with it now so last year I volunteered at their events on the stand at brocklesby fair and selling programmes at belton horse trials and the autumn, summer and Christmas fairs so I have tried to be useful and hopefully can be useful again. I would love to teach some horse riding and be a support worker there are jobs that combine both. Sorry that was a long one, even my phone is tired and tbh so am I just realised its 3am well done if you got this far.....
People that have only known me over the last couple of years probably think why do I one minute say I want to get back to working in mental health and then say I want to get back to teaching horse riding but in the past I did do both at the same time.
I always feel like I go back to my past to explain now...storytime...don't get too bored. Since I was about 12 or 13 I wanted to be a nurse and was in St John's ambulance cadets, I started horse riding which I loved and I also developed an eating disorder (so life was always a bit of a battle). I got bullied alot at school, I was really quiet and my once a week horse riding lesson was what got me through my school days ( if it hadn't have been for horse riding, singing in the church choir and being in St John's ambulance my school days would have been just school and my bedroom...) Anyway at 16 I decided I didn't have the confidence to work with people and it was horses that had helped me get through my school days so I decided I wanted to work with rescue horses to give something back, I think my mental health would have got worse sooner if it hadnt been for horses. So I did animal care at college then did Equine studies at university, I worked whilst I was at college and uni at the riding school and packing fish fingers in a factory ( definitely wasn't my dream job but meant I had money to have a riding school horse on loan whilst I was at college). After uni I got what I thought was going to be my dream job at a horse rescue charity in Lancashire. I told myself I had to eat to look after the horses well as I had often lived on just a tin of soup a day at uni so I ate I dont know if I ate what a normal person would or binge ate but I put on weight. I was living in a shared house with strangers, travelling about on a moped in Burnley miles from home. I didn't make any new friends and the only person I spent much time with was the manager from work as I rode his horse too. But he wasn't nice and one day told me to ride a horse to make sure it was safe for a work experience girl to get on, it wasn't a small horse and I wasn't that big then, probably about 11 or 12 stone but then as soon as I was on he was telling me to get off I was hurting it's back and it made me feel so guilty for being fat so it re enforced the eating disorder voice and so I told myself I wasnt allowed to eat again. So i wouldn't eat all day but by an evening after doing a physical job looking after horses I was starving so I would binge on loads of food and make myself sick as I couldn't stick to not eating, my housemate who was a student nurse guessed I was bulimic and I moved back home to my parents. I didn't work for a couple of months then did the odd hours at the riding school but ended up doing full time agency factory work and told myself I wasn't good enough to do anything else. My eating disorder took over and I lost alot of weight, was taking diet tablets and laxatives, was exercising and making myself sick but continued working, God knows how.I looked into nursing courses but didn't have any confidence in myself so I did factory work for a couple of years and had horses on loan, the last one I had on loan was Warwick who I ended up buying the best thing I ever did. I got asked to teach a couple of lessons at the riding school but whenever I had done teaching at college etc. I would end up crying saying I wasn't good enough to teach but Rose who owned the riding school gave me the confidence to believe I could and I started teaching little kids on the shetland pony and taught a couple of adults with learning disabilities and I then taught group and private lessons to adults and children. I then felt confident and loved teaching and helping people so I got a full time job as a support worker at a hospital for adults with learning disabilities and mental health problems and challenging behaviour and worked there for 2 years but left because of my mental health. I had about 3 months off work but then got another care job with adults with learning disabilities and continued to teach horse riding which I ended up doing for 4 years but my mental health was affecting me so i stopped and just continued doing my care work which i did for 10 years in different jobs with adults with mental health problems and learning disabilities I even did agency care shifts when i ended up in an eating disorder clinic in 2010 i would work whilst i was on home leave. I didnt get any proper therapy for my bulimia so I told myself I just had to live with it and the underlying causes and continued to focus on work goals ( I have since learnt you cant live to work...you need social connections too but i always had social anxiety which i have since learnt was avoidant personality disorder so i avoided relationships and only could trust a couple of friends who i am still good friends with but at our age they are married, have kids, relationships, careers etc.)Anyway I did an access to nursing course which I started at the end of 2010 and it was meant to be for a year then I was going to do 3 years at Hull but I got bullied on the access to nursing course by someone who is now a mental health nurse who actually bullied me for being open about my own mental health problems, my sister also found some of my birth family which stirred up emotions about being adopted and I also lost confidence in myself so I thought I deserved to be dead and started taking overdoses. I was battling a voice in my head that said I deserved to die as I would never succeed and I kept trying to fight that so although I was taking overdoses I would do shifts at work in between but it got to a point I was looking after others to stop them self harming and trying to kill themselves and was getting told I was too high functioning to need help because I was working despite being severely bulimic, self harming alot and taking overdoses alot and it got to a point I wasn't safe to be looking after others I was scared of myself as there was always a rational part that didn't want to die but the "suicidal voice" got so strong I couldn't fight it I ended up taking about 60 overdoses in the end and ended up with chronic kidney disease and heart failure and got to a point I actually wanted it to kill me so I didn't plan a future, I wasn't focused on work, it was literally Warwick that was keeping me alive I owed it to him to make sure he was looked after even if only financially at times and I love him but I was in such a dark place. I spent 2014 in hospital alot after taking overdoses and local mental health services said they couldn't help me as I was too complex so my mum found a therapeutic community in London for personality disorders and I got assessed for there but then at the beginning of 2015 I was in Leeds general infirmary with heart failure then I went to London but mentally was really unwell and took 3 more overdoses so then I came back to grimsby and was sectioned on the local acute ward as I was tying ligatures and banging my head on walls and pulled all my hair out and basically completely lost the plot. I had staff with me 24 hours a day and got sent to a locked hospital in mexborough where I was just as bad and got no therapy. In October 2015 I got meningococcal septicaemia and pneumonia and gallstones and my kidneys failed and I was in the high dependency unit and got scared of dying and my mental health improved I was still bulimic but not suicidal and in February 2016 I got discharged to a mental health rehab where I had my own flat but there were staff on site to do medication and run groups etc. I was still struggling with my eating disorder and still wasnt getting help for it but the staff helped me in other ways to feel confident living on my own etc but because my friends lives had carried on without me they were busy so I was only socialising with staff or in groups with others from the rehab. I got more depressed and took more overdoses but moved into my own flat and it was put in place I had support workers do my meds which are in a safe and I would go out with them to do social stuff. Now they just help me do my food shop because food shopping with bulimia or any eating disorder is a nightmare and they help me clean my flat because physically I get tiredbut i do most of it. Since joining AFO choir I actually have friends and a more normal social life. At the end of 2017 I started trying to work on work goals again so I did a 4 week horse riding instructor training course for people who had taught before and I took the exam I passed some of it you have to teach 4 lessons but in the end it took me 4 exams to pass it all but I passed it all in 2018. Because I failed some of the exam I did some teaching at a riding school in return for training to pass the rest of the exam and I taught for awhile but physically and mentally wasn't upto a paid job but I'm hoping to get the therapy that will help me manage my eating disorder and anxiety so that even under the pressure of work i will be able to cope emotionally. I'm getting better at challenging myself. Like before choir the only place i was going on my own was the stables to see Warwick i was too anxious, I would never have been able to go to something like the choir ball or singing karaoke even if over zoom, so my life plan is still a work in progress. I forgot I have been volunteering at bransby horses charity for a couple of years, I did work there on a weekend when I was in my 20s at the same time I was doing full time factory work. At one point I did an afternoon a week on the yard looking after the horses but realised physically I struggle with it now so last year I volunteered at their events on the stand at brocklesby fair and selling programmes at belton horse trials and the autumn, summer and Christmas fairs so I have tried to be useful and hopefully can be useful again. I would love to teach some horse riding and be a support worker there are jobs that combine both. Sorry that was a long one, even my phone is tired and tbh so am I just realised its 3am well done if you got this far.....
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