Mental Health Awareness Week 2018

One of the main topics on social media last week was Mental Health Awareness week (14th-20th May 2018). The focus this year was on stress; research has shown that two thirds of the population will experience a mental health problem in their lifetime and stress is a key factor in this. People may be affected by stress and experience symptoms such as anxiety and depression for many reasons. The impact of having any impairment e.g. sight loss, hearing loss, mobility impairment, dyslexia and many more, can result in stress. This can occur at any time, whether the person's condition has worsened suddenly, they've had an updated diagnosis or they are finding it hard to adapt to the challenges that the impairment causes on their daily life.

I am a very positive person and I'm someone who keeps persevering, always keen to progress in my personal and professional life. However, when I've had to adapt to changes in my disability, whether it is the sudden worsening of my eyesight or another deterioration such as when I was finding it harder to breathe at night and switched from CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) to BIPAP (bilevel positive airway pressure), it did dampen my spirits and give extra challenges. Whilst these feelings of worry and anxiety didn't last long, it is important to be aware that people who have an impairment may have invisible emotional challenges going on as well as physical challenges. For some impairments that are invisible such as dyslexia, hearing and sight loss, it can be even harder for unaffected people to realise the daily challenges that are experienced in both a physical and emotional sense.

As research has shown, it important to have overall awareness that stress can affect anyone and to be aware to look out for one another. More information about mental health can be found at the Mental Health Foundation website www.mentalhealth.org.uk

As an update, since my last post a great deal has changed. At the end of March I completed my role as Project Co-ordinator on Wiltshire Sight's Looking Out For Sight (LO4S) project. The end of Year 2 gave us amazing results and it's been a real pleasure to work on LO4S over the last couple of years. I can't thank Leanne Hubbard, Maggie Hemmings and everyone at Wiltshire Sight enough for all their support, both as an employee but also through my sight loss journey. We've had lots of fun and a few challenges (Access To Work and my own stubbornness at being independent and not seeking support!)  I have had many wonderful opportunities such as receiving the Award in Education and Training qualification and delivering training around the country. I am very grateful to Peter Corbett (CEO of Thomas Pocklington Trust (TPT)), everyone at Thomas Pocklington Trust and all the societies and organisations who have given me so much positive feedback and support through delivering the project. I really appreciate it.
I'm now focusing on my role as a Disability Consultant, it has been something I wanted to develop for a long time and I'm eager to work with other organisations and deliver training, accessibility audits and talks that enhance awareness of disability and lead to tangible changes to people's experiences. I have a wealth of experience that I would like to share with others to make a difference to the lives of people who have a disability/impairment. (I'm still working out what the preferred terminology is!) I'm also going write more regular blog posts that I hope are informative and interesting. Do contact me at melissa@sansumandco.co.uk if you would like know more about my consultancy services.

Best wishes,
Melissa