I ❤️ NHS

By Sharon Rhodes

Trigger warning: this story contains a suicide attempt.

Twenty years ago this May Day I tried to take my own life. I’d been held up at gunpoint 3 years previously and they gave me a now banned drug to help with my PTSD. I started hallucinating with rats running over me, low flying aircraft bombing me, thinking everything was bugged or poisoned and people were trying to kill me. I thought I was loosing my mind and couldn’t bare the thought. I was petrified of anyone knowing. I was scared of the stigma.

I woke up 3 days later on a life support machine and I’d died 3 times in the ambulance. Apart from my direct family one of the first people to be at my bed was the NHS ambulance man that saved my life. He came to see if I had survived.

He said to me that I have got a strong heart to survive that so I’d best get better and do something good with that heart. I’ve never forgotten those words.

I attended a secure unit for 6 months after that and was soon diagnosed with rapid cycle bipolar. I’ve spent 20 years seeing doctors and having therapy. It’s been a long journey.

I’m a mental health campaigner now and I make it my job to find out what’s going on in around Hastings. I speak out about my mental health to bust stigma and I am currently involved in a new project that’s putting this heart to work finally, a housing cooperative for people who have been on a similar recovery journey with the NHS coming out of supported accommodation to live in big houses together and supporting each other.

That ambulance man was an angel sent with a message to save me that kept me striving to get better all these years so I can then go on to help others with this strong heart of mine.

Here’s to the NHS I am definitely a product of their success!