She was so kind and thoughtful and compassionate and made me feel normal
She's the first person I ever opened up to about anything
so to finally find someone that I could trust in
and open up to it was this massive weight that had been lifted
It was the nurses who were absolutely just wonderful and the best people
They deserve to hear the word thank you about 4 000 times more often than they do
She sort of sees me for who I am and when we talk she validates some of the very real
feelings that I have instead of just sort of telling me to move on
I don't think you will ever know the huge impact that you had on my life
and I owe my recovery pretty much solely down to you
I became a mental health nurse because I've got lived experience of mental health and when I was
a teenager I suffered from with anorexia and that was quite severe and I actually needed treatment
in hospital so the NHS saved my life and I thought
that I wanted to become a nurse. I also grew up
from a family of nurses my mum was a nurse my dad was a nurse so it felt like the obvious choice but
I've decided to be a mental health nurse really
because of the help that I got from mental health nurses
I'd encourage everybody to help people with lived experience to get into nursing
I've been working in healthcare for about 10 years and
I've been a nurse for about five years but I think
my kind of interest in mental health kind of stemmed from a lot longer before that so
my mum has been a big influence in that so she
is a social worker went on to retrain as a mental health nurse
I kind of always knew I wanted to do something in healthcare particularly around
mental health I think a lot of it was based on sort of connecting with the young people and
trying to understand them and trying to help each person through what
they were going through and that's what kind of led me to thinking I want to be a nurse
So my story into nursing goes a long way back because
when I was at school I wanted to be a nurse
I left university and then had a really good career quite
a varied career I decided that I'd that was it
was my time I thought well if I'm going to make this massive change this huge step I might as well
do what I'm passionate about and so yeah I applied
to do mental health nursing and qualified six months ago
I had a patient that i saw I was in this role it was a couple of years ago
and she had been admitted with self-harm it was quite serious it was very much in anger
she was very regretful of that and her family were ringing and the ward that she was on
and sort of asking for her to be in sectioned and I assessed her and I wasn't of the opinion
that she needed that and neither was the patient most importantly I worked with the family to
kind of educate them and kind of address the stigma that they were putting on her
and she actually wrote to me afterwards and said how helpful that was and that was just really
lovely but being able to work with the patient their family the medical team my consultant to get
the patient well and able to walk out of hospital that I mean that's just incredible
A lot of people who work in healthcare and then I can't speak
for all nurses but i think a lot of particularly
mental health nurses might have that kind of one person who they remember so I was working with
young men sort of similar age to me who I think he was one of the first people
that I started working with in this role so it'd been about a year and he was like yeah
Si, you've been there from the beginning and like you don't understand how much this has
meant and this has helped and working with that person has actually changed me and so even if
the feedback isn't verbal those are the sorts of people I'll remember and I'll think about
kind of continually because they've sort of challenged me to do things in a different way
I, a couple of weeks ago, took a patient out for a
coffee and we, you know, talking and doing some
care planning and some goal setting and on the way back she said this is the best day that I can
remember for a long time that's such a privilege to be part of somebody's journey and to be
somebody that's been part of the best day that I can remember in a long time
I would encourage anybody to become a mental health nurse
because it's incredibly rewarding it's very very
interesting and people are incredible and it's inspiring so I'm working with people across their
kind of journey is just I mean what more could you want
For people who I guess recognise that
there is an element of them that is able to
connect with others and to be compassionate and to care
I think nursing is a fantastic way in which to kind of use that gift or to kind of develop that
You just work with people in their darkest days but then see them the hope you
know mental health nursing is all about hope and so how can you not love that every day
It's an incredibly important role needed more now than ever I believe there is no greater gift than
supporting someone else and seeing them prosper and flourish I'd like to say a big thank you to
all the nurses and mental health nurses across
the country I really do appreciate everything that you guys do
Thank you for taking the time and giving me the safe space to talk about
my struggles I was facing as a young teenager so thank you
Thank you for
seeing past all the craziness, yeah, just thank you
It is a job unlike any other you will make a huge impact on so many people's lives
And if you're looking for a purpose a place a reason
to be I don't think there could be any better one than giving people the gift of good mental health
Thank you so much. Just keep doing what you do, it's really important