The founder of a Shropshire Stay Mentally Healthy Hub that is saving lives is telling her story from attempted suicide to helping others while also calling for sponsorship to keep the vital service running.
Mary Phillips, founder of the Stay Mentally Healthy Hub in Bridgnorth, says she hopes that talking about her difficult childhood and her battles with depression and anxiety will encourage more people to come forward and seek help.
The community hub, in Faraday Drive, provides one-to-one sessions, group sessions, workshops and events through a team of qualified Self Empowerment Journey (SEJ) volunteers, all dedicated to helping people stay mentally healthy – and some of the self-help services are free.
Mary has told her story ahead of an open event at the Stay Mentally Healthy Hub in Bridgnorth on Tuesday from 4pm to 6pm which is open to all including businesses, the general public from across the community and people in education.
The hub has recently launched a sponsorship offering for businesses in the town which gives access to wellbeing resources and training to staff members for as little as £10 per month.
Tickets for the open event can be booked here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stay-mentally-healthy-hub-open-day-tickets-1679759147829?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl.
Mary said: “I had a very difficult childhood. I was abused mentally and sexually by a relative who was an alcoholic and very violent. Back then we really didn’t know what depression was but when I track it back, I think I was starting to sow the seeds of depression from the age of seven because of everything that was going on at home.
“By the time I was 28 I had been in and out of NHS psychiatric hospitals. Then, when I was at work, I had a car accident and was fortunate that I ended up in the Priory Hospital. At that point I was married and had actually achieved quite a lot in my life: I had a very good career, company car and owned my own home – so in spite of my childhood, I had achieved a lot.
“But I got very depressed after the accident, suffered really bad anxiety and was told that if I didn’t stay there voluntarily I would be sectioned. I was there for about two years and had every treatment available.
“I had the best care, the most amazing psychiatrist and psychotherapist, but although I had tried so many medications and various therapies, I still wasn’t happy. I was just existing is the best way I can put it. Then one day I was told that everything possible had been tried, I needed to manage my depression and I would probably have recurring episodes for the rest of my life.
“I truly believed the professionals had my answers and would be the ones to end my suffering. I had attempted suicide while in the Priory and when I was told I’d have to learn to manage my depression, I felt as if I had been condemned to a life of suffering. What other answer was there than to end my life? I felt angry and remember thinking ‘how could they possibly know what my future holds?’
“It was in that moment I realised something so profound and it changed my life forever. I had a powerful awakening and not long after that I left the Priory and have been depression-free for 28 years.”
Mary’s life changed from that point. She left her husband, the place she lived and started again. She ended up teaching everything she had learned through her awareness, which became the SEJ process. An innovative evidence-based accredited self-help process of personal and professional empowerment.
“It’s a beautiful process,” said Mary. “It’s really about understanding that when we believe our thoughts we suffer and we are all identified with the story we run in our minds – a story that’s often put there by other people, which we then reinforce ourselves.
“I teach the SEJ process and use it in one-to-one sessions. It has amazing results. People come to the sessions and can be in severe trauma response, and between one and three sessions many are completely done.
“What I want to get across is that it is so simple. You don’t need to be re-traumatised by having years and years of therapy talking about the problem. Why do we want to do that when we have been living it for years?
“What we have to do is look at the thoughts we are thinking and believing right now in relation to the past. I must stress the SEJ Process is not positive thinking, a cognitive approach or re-framing, it simply provides a framework for self-enquiry to happen. For example, I recently worked with somebody that was in a severe trauma response.
“After two and a half sessions this person came back and said ‘I don’t know what you have done to me but my life has completely changed’. The SEJ process leaves people no longer a victim of the past, they can learn from it, move on from it but are no longer traumatised by the past, because they are now fully living in the present.
“So when we do the process on a thought, the client has their own answers – they always have their own answers but just don’t know how to access that. This is because they are identified with their thoughts and are so used to listening to thoughts about the past and continually replaying them, often unconsciously.”
The life-saving work Mary and her team are doing is making a massive difference but Mary is keen to spread the word about the services provided and encourage more people in need of help to come forward.
“I said I wanted to open the hub for people who can’t afford to go private, don’t meet the criteria or simply won’t go to the doctor, for whatever reason,” said Mary. “The whole idea of the hub is to help people and save lives. I cannot tell you how grateful people are who have used the hub – help they might not have got anywhere else.
“However, we need funding, the more funding we can get the more people we can help and the more consultants and trainers we can train to work from the Hub. We need the community to help the community and I have a vision that if every business in Bridgnorth gave £10 we could train more consultants to work at the hub.
“If businesses help us we could help them. I can go in and give talks, we could link their business to the hub – something that would work particularly well with small businesses that have no mental health provision. We also work in education. Imagine a community where businesses, educational settings and the community are using the same self-help process. We have seen first-hand how successful and life-changing this can be for families.
“If businesses gave £10 a month we could provide on-demand training that could be accessed online at any time. There are all sorts of packages we could put together for businesses and educational settings and the money would ensure we can keep things going at the hub.”
Serving Bridgnorth and surrounding areas, the hub offers cost-effective services including a free personalised wellbeing plan with 1-1 appointments starting from as little as £25 and all appointments must be pre-booked. No referral is necessary.
For more information, visit https://www.staymentallyhealthy.org.uk/.
