Why sharing really is caring

This month we welcome guest blogger Sarah, also known as the unmumsymum, to the TALKWORKS blog. Sarah previously accessed our service and has shared with us how talking about her own experiences as a mother, and the challenges of parenting, helped her to get back on track when she was struggling.

It’s been eleven years since I first started documenting my parenting adventures online. In that time, I have shared hundreds of stories about sleep deprivation, picky eaters and the horrors of soft play. Most of those posts were written with the intention of making people laugh but underneath the self-deprecation and disaster there has always been a more serious motivation for sharing.

When I became a mum for the first time, I felt extraordinarily out of my depth. I’d never expected motherhood to be easy but I’d also never expected to feel so lost. I spent a large proportion of that first year worrying that I wasn’t doing a good enough job, plagued by guilt over not cherishing every moment (something social media told me I should be doing). I was lonely, too, and that became another thing to beat myself up about because if I was a ‘better’ mum perhaps I’d have been better at making mum friends.

When I shared how I was feeling online, something remarkable happened. Women I’d never met replied sharing their own stories. Sometimes those stories were funny and sometimes they were sad but always they were honest and it changed the way I started to behave offline, too. I stopped pretending I was ‘good thanks’ every time someone asked how I was, realising that opening up about the harder moments of parenting was achieving something more powerful. Every time I said, ‘today’s been tough,’ it seemed to activate a chain reaction of other people saying, ‘I hear you,’ and ‘me too!’ It was a domino effect.

These days, I’m a mum of three and the baby and toddler years are behind me with my youngest being almost seven. My commitment to talking openly about how I’m feeling has been tested in the last year or two after seeking support for depression. The temptation to reply, ‘good thanks’ to every ‘how are you?’ question crept back in and it was only because I thought back to the early blog days that I realised I wanted to say out loud that I wasn’t doing quite so well, actually. I talked openly to friends, I talked to other mums on the school run and occasionally I talked to people I’d just met, surprised and at times deeply moved by the willingness of others to share their mental health journeys with me in return.

I’m forever grateful to the mums who sent me messages of solidarity all those years ago. They helped me to see that I wasn’t failing at being a mum and that sometimes, it really was just hard. They also taught me that the more we share, the less we feel alone. Sometimes we will need help to get our brains back on track, and that’s OK. But sometimes what we need more than anything in the world is for someone else to hear what we are saying and reply simply: same.

Who can I talk to if I am struggling?

If you are struggling, it can help to confide in someone that you trust about how you are feeling and what you are going through. This could be a friend or family member who you are close to and feel comfortable sharing this information with. Support groups are also a great option to consider as members of the group may bring with them a shared experience and be able to understand and empathise with what you are going through. Alternatively, you may prefer to talk to someone you don’t know, like a therapist or counsellor. By trialling therapy or counselling, you’ll be able to speak to someone in a confidential, non-judgemental environment about how you are feeling.

TALKWORKS is Devon’s NHS Talking Therapies service, open to adults’ age 18+, living in Devon (outside Plymouth which is covered by Plymouth Options). We offer a wide range of treatment options, including one-to-one sessions with a therapist, online self-help, interactive group courses and access to a range of wellbeing workshops. Our therapists can work with you to help you to make sense of the difficulties that you are experiencing so that you can get back to feeling more like yourself again. As an NHS service, all of our treatment and support is free to access.

You can self-refer to TALKWORKS without needing a referral from your GP. Simply fill out our online self-referral form on our website or call the team today on 0300 555 3344 (our phone lines are open Monday to Friday from 9am – 4:45pm).

What if I need more urgent mental health support?

TALKWORKS is not a crisis or emergency service. If you need to access urgent mental health support, please call NHS 111 and select the ‘mental health’ option. You can also contact the following services:

Mental Health Matters Devon provides a 24 hour, 365 days a year mental health helpline by calling 0800 4700317.

Samaritans are available 24/7. They offer a supportive conversation around a whole range of mental health issues and also offer a call back service and follow up calls. You can contact them at any time if you are in need of support.

Staying Safe - This site provides vital 'safety plan' tools and guidance to help people cope with emotional distress. It also offers ways to help keep people safer from thoughts of harm and suicide, seek support and discover hope of recovery through powerful videos from people with personal experience.

For further support information, please visit Devon Partnership NHS Trust website.