Andrew's story

“Earlier this year I was in a bad place. It was a perfect storm where life just turned against me, I was made redundant, my wife was recovering from cancer, we had sold our family home which had led to a legal case that stripped us of all our savings, and our son was also having a bad time that we were trying to help him through. There was a lot of bad things attacking me and eventually I just couldn’t think straight or make any sense of any of it. I ran out of resilience or reserve and was broken. I began to get compulsive thoughts of killing myself and I didn’t feel I had the strength to resist them. I went to the GP who referred me to the crisis team, and they suggested James’ Place which had recently opened in the North East.

It was a welcoming and calm space, there was definitely a feeling of safety, of sanctuary. I met my therapist for the first time and I remember saying to her ‘I just can’t make sense of anything and I don’t know how to put myself back together’ and that’s how we started my therapy. She tailored my therapy sessions to what I needed and where I was, helping me to break things down and make my thoughts more manageable. Six weeks later I had slowly come through the crisis point, the issues I was facing were ongoing, but I started to deal with them better and look forward. I have another job, I have started on medication, I have started to re-engage with social activities that I had withdrawn from. I’m in a much better frame of mind that I was when I arrived at James’ Place, I was in a very dark place, feeling so low and powerless. I feel able to live my life again.”

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