This year's theme for mental health awareness week is Nature and how taking time to #ConnectWithNature can improve your mental health.  

At Breathe Therapies we have also launched our #BreathOfFreshAir campaign this week, which is all about encouraging those struggling to ask for help and how that feeling of relief once making the first step is like a 'breath of fresh air'.  

Throughout the week, we will be sharing comments from those who have recovered from eating disorders and mental health issues about how it felt when they asked for support for the first time. 

Our first comment comes from one of our ex-clients here at Breathe: 

“Mental health, eating disorders and hiding of behaviours, feelings and thoughts as your too afraid of what people may think, say, do, of shame, of guilt is like having a person squash you from the inside, squash your heart, stomach, and lungs so much that you can't breathe as every step hurts and no one can see this thing inside you squeezing the life from you… I felt like everything was closing in getting darker and darker, overwhelming my whole sense of being; that was until I let someone come in that tiny bubble of mine and release the pressure, remove that thing inside tight release; asking for help and just having that space to talk.  

It takes time and hard work; it didn’t develop over-night so it isn’t going to leave overnight either. It takes that motivation, empowerment and acceptance to carry on, to fight even harder through the tougher days of recovery to continue with building a new better life away from something that is destroying, squashing your whole being.   

That is the hardest of all but taking that first step, that first and difficult step allows you to be able to breathe, when I finally spoke about even a little of what I was hiding; that thing inside couldn’t squash me anymore and my lungs filled with air, the tightness around my body released ever so lightly and I could breathe, life could finally flow through my blood again…   

Recovery is confusing and overwhelming but it is worth it." 

We want to encourage you this Mental Health Awareness Week, and every week after, to take that first step to start your journey of recovery, even if you don’t feel ready. We promise it will be worth it! 

For more information on Breathe Therapies and how they can help you or a loved one, click here.