Sutton Voice has been asked to upload this  anonymous “blog” to help further the discussion around mental health and the support offered by a service in the borough

Suffering from severe anxiety issues is so much more than just wondering if it is going to rain that day.

I suffer with the kind of anxiety which can lead to feelings of such deep dread that it can wake you in the middle of the night and in no time at all you’re sweating and concerned about all manner of issues that just 5 minutes before you had no idea we’re playing on your mind.

Such has been the depth and breadth of this anxiety that I have seen many counsellors over the years and it has spread when at its worst into OCD and depression. The diagnosis is of Generalised Anxiety Disorder. I have undertaken the recommended treatment of CBT.

All the while this anxiety hangs as a continuous backdrop against the development of my family, career, and life.

Recently while at a community workshop I became engaged with a speaker who was talking about breathing techniques and also an area that I had not considered before – that of self-compassion. Why would I? The nature of my anxiety manifests itself in the complete opposite “must try harder” “why did I do that so wrong?” – more self loathing than self compassion.

It came at a particularly relevant time as although anxiety is always there it feeds off of situations and the crosshairs of events was creating difficulties.

So I followed up with an email to the speaker to ask if there was a way I could share more of his thoughts because I believed they would be of the substantial help for me at that time. Here was someone seemingly gloriously at peace with himself – not having to cope with the pinball bouncing of an endless stream of thoughts.

It was from that encounter that I learnt about Sutton Uplift which is a service offering Talking Therapies to those who believe that they need them.

The benefit of Sutton Uplift to me was that I could self refer and after  a brief email exchange I received an online form which was very easy to complete which in itself became quite revealing.

A few days later I undertook a telephone consultation and that led to a 6 week block of therapy which I found extremely beneficial.

Even now as I look back on it I can relive the peace and the calm that came with those sessions. It is impossible for me to completely capture the quality and qualities of the therapist it has to be enough to record that that experience has lead me to this experience – the first time I have written publicly about my condition in almost 50 years.

I write this simply because a comprehensive list of mental health services available in the borough has been published and Sutton Uplift was part of that list and is probably not as well-known as it ought to be.

I hope that by me just giving a few details of my story it encourages at least one more person to try the service and to get the value that I got from it.