Tessa’s Story

Tessa’s story tells of how mental illness affected her

“I think when I was just entering becoming a teenager, I started developing depression and anxiety. I think the hardest thing is knowing that you really want to be able to fix it, you really want to be able get out of it. You can see that you are in a bit of a hole but, you just can’t. That’s the hardest thing because you see other people easily going to uni, moving out, getting jobs – and it’s just not that easy for me.

It wasn’t until I started going to art groups for mentally ill people, that I started to meet people that I could talk to and you actually start going “oh my god, you experience that as well?”  I thought I was alone.

HelpingMinds® provides a lot of support on a day to day living basis and how to cope. I think I am doing pretty well. With the help of medication and the support of psychologists and groups and art groups I am able to study 2 days a week – hopefully I will start volunteering and that is something I have never been able to do before.

So I find things that work for me, I find the coping things, I like dark showers, I like riding my bike. I know these things, and I know they will make me feel better. In the beginning I had no clue, what would make me feel better.

HelpingMinds® does give me hope, because it has helped my family so much to understand me and what I am going through. HelpingMinds® does give a sense that you are not alone, because it helps connect you with all the other people that may also feel like they are alone and you get to talk to them and realise that you are all connected in some way or another.”

There is hope, that even though you feel like the whole world is against you and its never going to work out. If you just hold on and keep going and keep trying you will get somewhere, it is not hopeless.