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Living With SMA
Living With SMA
Ep 30: living with a long term condition and Mental health Part 2
Welcome back to the highly anticipated second part of our podcast episode on the profound connection between mental health and living with a long-term condition. Building upon the captivating story we shared in Part 1, this episode delves deeper into the transformative power of finding support and the results that can come from it.
In this continuation, we explore the pivotal role of support for people living with a long-term condition. We shine a light on the paths they can take to find the support the needed and the incredible outcomes that unfolded as a result.
Join us as we uncover the strategies, resources, and networks that are available. From discovering supportive communities to accessing professional assistance, we delve into the practical aspects of seeking and receiving the support necessary to navigate the challenges of a long-term condition.
Through powerful anecdotes and insightful discussions, we'll share first hand accounts of the triumphs and breakthroughs that were made possible through unwavering support. We'll explore the ways in which support systems can empower individuals, promote resilience, and unlock their full potential.
This episode not only showcases the importance of finding support but also highlights the incredible achievements that can be realized when individuals are equipped with the tools and resources they need to thrive.
Whether you're personally impacted by a long-term condition, searching for guidance on finding support, or simply seeking inspiration and hope, this episode promises to captivate and enlighten you.
Tune in now and join us on this empowering and transformative exploration of mental health and living with a long-term condition. Discover the incredible possibilities that lie within the reach of those who bravely seek support and witness the remarkable achievements that can be attained along the way.
#MentalHealthJourney #LongTermConditionSupport #thrivingthroughsupport
THIS PODCAST IS NOT JUST FOR PEOPLE WITH SMA This content is not solely for the SMA Community. We hope this discussion will be helpful to everyone. ❤️
You can contact SMA UK on the following social media platforms ⬇️⬇️
▶ | INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/sma_uk
▶ | TWITTER: https://twitter.com/SMA_UK_
▶ | FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/SpinalMuscul...
If you do have any questions for Becca or Ellie and the team or would like to participate in any of our podcasts please email luis.castro@smauk.org.uk
Living With SMA disclaimer: The views expressed in this episode belong to the Podcast Participants and not the charity SMA UK, its partners, or its employees. All opinions expressed by the Podcast Participants are solely their current opinions and do not reflect the opinions of SMA UK. The Podcast Participants' opinions are based upon information they consider reliable, but neither SMA UK, nor the companies with which such participants are affiliated, warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such.
1, 2, 3, 4. Hi everyone and a big welcome to the Living with SMA podcast. We talk about all things spinal muscular atrophy related, but topics discussed are not exclusively for individuals with SMA so there should be something here for everyone. We also do things differently. For starters, our charity, SMA UK, uses different hosts and everyone involved gets a final say in the creative process of making these episodes. We cut through the jargon and the content is accessible for everyone. All the stories are individual, and we are committed to sharing as many different perspectives as we can for our listeners. So if you're listening to this and have a burning desire to talk about a particular subject, then please reach out to us on our social media channels or send us a quick email. And remember, no topic is off the table. If there is something the SMA community wants to talk about, this is the place. We really hope you enjoy the podcast. And please do connect with our charity and share your comments online. Let us know what you think. From all the team at SMA UK, thank you for listening. 3, 2, 1. Hello everyone and welcome back to a brand new episode of the Living with SMA podcast. Now, you may have already noticed from the title of this podcast, this is a part two to a previous episode we filmed recently where we discussed mental health in relation to disabilities. In the previous episode, my two guests very kindly opened up and discussed their relationship and their personal journeys with mental health from a personal point of view and from a professional point of view, which was really insightful. And we felt like we needed to do a part two to discuss this topic even further, to delve deeper into the types of therapy and support that are available out there, and the processes of actually accessing those services. Let's have some brief introductions again, just in case anybody missed our previous episode. So I might as well just kick things off myself. My name's Ross Lannon. I'm 29 from Cornwall, and I have SMA type 3. And I'm a regular presenter of this podcast and a radio host. So Becca, can you give us a little intro to you, please? Yep. Hi everyone. I'm Becca. I'm 24 and I live in Sussex. I have SMA type 3 and I work in PR for a financial services company. Brilliant. And Ellie. Hello, I'm Ellie. I live down in Hampshire and I am a integrative arts psychotherapist and have previously been a carer also. Lovely. Thank you for the intros there. I just wanna start by sort of asking you both, just checking that we're all okay since the last episode because it can be quite daunting opening up and sharing quite personal information about your personal lives and your relationships. So just wanna check that you guys were all happy with everything last time and what you shared. Yeah. Yeah. I want to apologize for my Wi Fi last time. And hopefully it's going to be a bit better this time and I won't cut out so much. But yes, I think, all good here. And thank you for asking. And you Becca, are you all good? Yeah, I think so. I've experienced mental health issues for quite a few years now. I seem to have become more confident and comfortable with explaining it and hopefully about it. And I hope that it will help other people who maybe aren't as comfortable with coming to terms with it. Yeah, I think what we can all agree from the previous episode is the fact that this is such an important topic to discuss. Not only hearing other people's journeys that we can almost relate to or learn something from, but we talked about how disabled people in general are more likely and some to struggle with their mental health. And sometimes it's nice just to hear a little bit of advice from somebody new as well. So we are gonna continue that conversation today. We are gonna talk about that next stage in the process. So, Becca, can I sort of start with you. Last time we talked about your journey to discovering, that to realizing that you were struggling with your mental health. Can we kind of start at the beginning in a sense of the moment you realized that you need to find help? And what were the first steps you took in actually looking for some support? Sure. So I think I was around 15, 16 when I first started realizing actually I needed some support and needed some help. And my mom has always been the main person in my life that was supporting me and making sure that right through school for physical things, she always advocated for me. And it was no different when I kind of showed problems on mental health. So I think the first step was that we went to my GP to kind of say that this is the situation, this is one's struggling where, like what support is out there. And I think it's important to say that I really did not want to go on any antidepressants or anti anxiety medications, and partly because of I think I did not want to accept it maybe. And partly because I was concerned about how it might affect my condition and things. So I was asking essentially for what therapy options were out there. I think the GP then referred me to CAMHS. And I had a really good experience with CAMHS actually. I know that's often not the case. And I know that since I was 15, has probably changed quite a bit now. And unfortunately there are long waiting and some things, but I think if you have a medical team that is really happy to advocate for you and I think that makes all the difference. So I had a doctor who have been my GP since, God, since I was five or so. And they really advocated for me and kind of wrote letters to CAMH log the other kind of works out, you know who gets put in the system and things. And explains that my situation was a bit different because I was having such physical symptoms like vomiting repeatedly and stuff. It was really affecting my weight and obviously my chance for respiratory infections, so she really advocated for me. And although at the time there was an 18 month waiting list, I think I was seen in CAMHS within sort of six months which is pretty impressive for a turnaround time. So that was really the first point for me really. Okay. And so would you say that you felt supported in that sense then obviously going through your doctor first, then being referred 'cause there is a difference, isn't there? Between that initial opening up to your friends and family and having discussions and saying, "Look, I think I'm struggling," but then actually when you go to make that first step to talking to a professional, did you notice that difference? Yeah, I think I did notice the difference and I think, I was very conscious of what the GP and what like, the health practitioners and stuff would think. And I'd always been to see them for different, very physical medical issues and things. But I was very lucky and I was very supported. I think it was essential for me that I had kind of my family to help me because essentially I wasn't in a mental state where I was able to advocate for myself. And so I think that was really important for me. When I was in CAMHS, I was sort of under them for about 18 months until I turned 18 'cause obviously they're only for child services. And that was mainly for my OCD and panic attacks. And it just mainly kind of like having coping mechanisms to deal with like day to day life and I had a lot issues around like germs. So it was a lot of kind of working through why I was worried about germs. Like, what's realistic that I could control and what was out in my control and therefore I had to be put to the side in one way or another. And for a while it really, it didn't kind of get better. And I did end up going on antidepressants which I think was an excellent decision for me. It took quite a while to discuss with my respiratory consultant, what medications to go on because a lot of antidepressants are respiratory depressants, so they were a bit concerned about how it might affect my lungs because I wear a and things. So there was a lot of discussions there and I was very lucky in the sense that I didn't have any side effects or anything. And it just, it calmed my brain enough to be able to cope with the idea of going through different therapy processes. And I think that was really important for me. So I think it was a really big step for me to admit that actually I needed to go on medication for this and I found that extremely difficult. But if anything, I would, I wish I had kind of gone to that option a bit earlier. Agreed. And the thing is as well, you almost as non professional people, we put our faith and our trust in the trained professionals and in the fact that they're gonna know how best to support us. When I know in the previous episode you said a lot of your main sort of triggers and causes of depression and anxiety were related to disability issues within your life. Which kind of leads me to you, Ellie, from the sort of professional point of view and you've gone through this newly qualified training process. We kind of touched on it briefly before, but there wasn't any real focus as such on disability related issues when it comes to mental health. Is there? No. In my training personally, and I focused on integrative psychotherapy means that you are trained with an integrative approach, which means you're trained in all different talking therapies, transitional analysis, gestalt, person centered, psycho dynamics and in that it means you're left with an element of being able to pick and choose for your client, a breadth of knowledge. And then I went to go and train with seven forms of art also. And the disability side of training I had was mental disability really, learning disabilities and we had one lecture on that and that was it. And we learned a lot and she's wonderful, Valerie Sinason was my lecturer on that and she's a fantastic therapist, worked with real deep trauma as well. And she talk about disability alongside, but not in the sense of disability where it's physical only. And there was no training whatsoever on that for my four years of training, intensive training. So you are right in that sense. And I think all the different modalities can link to working with physical disabilities, for sure. We do talk about, don't we, the fact that there needs to be better support systems out in place out there and the fact that disability in general needs to be a focus of itself in relation to mental health services. What other types of therapy and things are out there, then? So Becca was sort of mentioning there CAHMS and in CAHMS a lot of the time there would be play therapy, which is a little bit like art psychotherapy, and there would sometimes be art psychotherapy. And there would also be CBT or DBT, which is a cognitive behavioral therapy and dialogue behavioral therapy. And these CBT and DBT help with our coping mechanisms and help with keeping our mindfulness. They help with keeping our stress lower and down. They help with teaching us breathing techniques, teaching us what happens to our body as our behavior starts to change. So if anxiety comes up, do we go hot all over? Does our body, do our hands tingle? Everyone has different ways of sort of relating to how their body works when their mind or their thoughts are processing in a certain way. So CBT works very much on the brain work and behavioral work. And DBT is dialogue to also a little bit more about mindfulness and a little bit more understanding, dialogue between people and your family members and elements like that. And then art psychotherapy or probably intricacy of psychotherapy or Jungian therapy. These therapies are and some therapists you'll see have trauma informed on their name as well. And that's really helpful to know that they're trauma informed. Now, this work is, means that it's a good way to access trauma and the subconscious, so working with what's happened without having to sit and tell the therapist exactly what's happened note by note, minute by minute of your fears. Obviously there is a point in therapy where that is accessible and able to talk through that, but sometimes it's not so easy. A little bit like Becca said in the sense of just admitting therapy, needing therapy, admitting a mental health issue or suffering that we're going through is really difficult. And I'd have to kind of put that down to a little bit, which we could probably do a whole another podcast on. But a little bit around our social construct and what we've been taught, especially us British people, what we've been taught around mental health and yeah. And how that makes us weak or how that makes us we've gotta be completely "crazy" to even seek out for mental health and we must be so different and we must be so... And the figures out there are saying, one in four people in our country suffer from mental health issues. So there is this social construct to it that I think stops us. And also our family may believe, I've heard, I've got on an taxi once going to work, and I got asked what I did and I said I was a psychotherapist. And the taxi driver said to me,"Oh, don't you think that's a load of malarkey," I think is the word. He may have used a stronger word. And I said, "Oh, well, considering it's my job, probably not," and he said, "Well, I just think we're all immature these generations below us and we just can't handle life." And that's a taxi driver in a very random, short conversation. So we can't lie to ourselves and say that we are growing and generations even below me getting the hang of understanding it and learning about themselves. And there are elements that are helping and not helping towards that, but it's a massive thing to discuss around, same as physical disability. Like it doesn't exist to some people. So they have a link in that way. Yeah, there's, I mean, it's, you gave the perfect example there. There is still so much stigma out there surrounding mental health. Obviously, it is great that there are various different types of therapies and support out there, but from a disability point of view, Becca, there is still so many barriers even to accessing those therapies. Like something so simple as like the physical access into say, a building. Can you talk me through maybe some of the barriers you've faced or just general disability thoughts related to physically accessing these services? Yeah, so when I turned 18 and left CAHMS, I went to university which was two hours away from my home. And I think I really tried to do it without needing any kind of therapy or other support or anything. But I think it became pretty clear after about six months that actually I really needed some more help. And kind of less surface level because I had learned to cope with, you know, how my OCD was and I had learned to kind of manage that within certain parameters. But I hadn't actually dealt with any of like the bigger, kind of deeper issues around my disability, I think. So, Ellie helped me look for a private therapist and I'm sure there are other charities that help adults have therapy and stuff. But I was in a fortunate enough position that I could pay for that. I didn't wanna take those services away from other people that couldn't. And also I know that obviously those come with longer waiting lists. So we looked on different websites, which Ellie will have to tell you because I've got around both for different therapists that were probably registered and accredited and everything. But there were quite a few things that we didn't even think about. I think we contacted maybe 10 different therapists and maybe only two of them actually had ramps or wheelchair access into their building. I think since COVID, obviously now there's a lot of therapy that's done online over Zoom. I currently have therapy over Zoom now. But a lot of people obviously maybe don't want to do that. They want in person therapy for different reasons. So yeah, coming across lots of places that didn't actually have physical access, when you are already looking for quite a specific kind of therapy. I wanted someone that had a bit of understanding of disability, a bit of knowledge around that stuff. So the pool of people that you can have as therapists quite quickly got narrower and narrower. And that was quite difficult, but I did find someone in the end and I think maybe since 18 I've had maybe three different therapists. Just because, you know, I've quite done all the work I could with them. I needed to move on or I moved back from Winchester to back home, so different reasons. But yeah, I think it is very difficult to find those accessible places and none of the websites or anything have wheelchair access written on them. And that's something that could be so simple to add on there. But I had to email or call each individual person and wait for them to get back to me and everything. And even something as simple as that, when some worries and like kind of upsets are about rejections in the society or feeling kind of not wanted or anything to then come across those barriers when you're trying to help yourself and trying to get better, that's quite difficult even just mentally. So I think it is difficult, but I'm sure Ellie can explain what those websites were and everything. Yeah. And if you've got those, I know you were happy to sort of signpost people. Ellie, what would you recommend? Yeah, it's a tough one in private therapy due to regulations and due to the mountain of different ways you can be trained. I know also and myself, finding a private practice to work out of finding a practice, finding a room. I couldn't find one near me that had disabled access either and it had a ramp up to a step, but then it had half a foot of a step. So as you were saying, that feeling. Yes. And I finally have found one and funny enough in a very old building that suits. But I think for us as practitioners as well, because it's not in our training, it's not necessarily in our thought process too, and that's where Becca taught me so much about the life in the world of disability and how lacking what we are doing for that world. I would say look on a website, that's UKCP website, UK Counsellors and Psychotherapists. You have to have quite an informed level of training. I think you have to have 450 client hours and supervision hours and onsite that to just be registered on UKCP. And they usually can give... Most therapists, we usually give a free consultation to begin with or a free 15 minute phone call. If not, they'll give a lesser expense first session and it'll be like an assessment session. Psychotherapists and therapists do that. I think psychologists do it the other way round and have a more expensive first session'cause of the amount of information they've gotta take in. But I've been looking at psychotherapists, therapists. UKCP is a good website. BACP is also a good website as well, and I believe we can add these links as well on the bottom for you, on the bottom of this podcast for you to check out. I think good thing to note is they do put categories of working with people. So for example, we all cope in different ways and it might be that someone that's worked with eating disorders understands the difficulty with eating on some form of level and how that's connected with your mental health may help you in the sense of if you have a disability and eating is difficult. Or if you've tried to control your anxiety or your depression or your feelings through being out of control what you can eat. That would, for example, be a great link. But they may not have ever worked with anyone with disability, but they'll understand how to work with someone that uses eating as a form of safety and help. And I reckon if they have trauma informed on there somewhere, that would be really helpful because... I don't want to put this out there because I don't necessarily have absolute facts, but I reckon it's above half of people with disabilities that have some sort of PTSD or even complex PTSD. You know, Becca was talking about in the previous episode about just waking up with a tube down your throat and waking up, and knowing and wondering whether the surgeon has nicked your neck. Or in surgery, in different surgery or all of this is an element of trauma. And health trauma, especially in the last couple of years we've just been through is massive even with people without physical disabilities. And at the moment we're obviously talking about long term health condition disabilities but the amount of trauma that's related to back pain, that's related to neck pain, that's related to POTS, that's related to all sorts of physical disability that might not be long term. There's so much interesting talk behind the relation there of stress and disability and stress and pain and trauma and pain. So I think if you can find someone that's trauma informed and has done that wonderful training on that, that would be helpful also. Yeah, definitely. And just to touch on what you said there briefly as well. Before that you made a really good point about how it's because of Becca that you are more aware of certain things. And it's so true in the sense of until you actually start to listen and be with somebody, spend time with somebody with a disability that you actually start thinking, oh, I never thought about the actual access to the service before. I never thought of it from this aspect. Yeah. It's so true. I've had similar situations with my friends where not so much related to mental health, but they're like,"Oh, when I go to this place now, I actually think, oh, this wouldn't be accessible for Ross or... " But that's why it's so important to have these conversations and actually make people as more aware as possible. Yeah. I want to sort of move on now guys and talk about since our last episode, we encouraged our listeners to ask any questions or thoughts related to the topic that we're discussing. So we've had some questions come in which is great. So thank you so much to everyone who made contact. I'm gonna put this question to you Becca, this question came in asking how do you... Can you explain some of the coping mechanisms that you basically use and how to implement them into your daily routine if you're struggling with mental health from a disability point of view? Yeah, okay. I think that's quite a big, quite a big topic and different coping mechanisms will work for different types of people as well. I think I have personally over the years worked out that, I think I have a big tendency to dissociate when I feel very anxious and overwhelmed, which is I'm sure I might be able to explain better, but I basically kind of don't feel if I'm in the room I can become... Sometimes I can hear what someone's saying to me but I'm not processing it. So I have to kind of ground myself. And I can do that in different ways, but I can, I tap my fingers sometimes to like feel different things and kind of ground myself. I have to kind of look around the room and what, how, you know, what I can see and what I can hear and everything. So I sometimes do that. I think it's really when I was struggling to do that myself. Because obviously, I've learned over the years now how to do that. But when I was first going through therapy, when I went into that disassociated state, I wasn't able to do that myself. So I think if you're someone that has parents with you a lot and you know that you do go into those states, it's really helpful to kind of explain to them how to help you in those situations. When I was at uni, I found it very difficult to do that because I think I was still kind of a bit embarrassed about it or not really able to do that. But I think Ellie and my mum spoke to the carers individually and explained like if you see that she's dissociating, or see if she's gonna have an attack. If you do this, this and this, that will help. And it in a way obviously it's very difficult to have people around you 24/7 and everything. But in a way, having someone there that can ground you, which is quite an unusual situation a lot of people will be on their own when they're having panic attacks or anything. It can be helpful if a person knows what to do. I think that's important. If I'm more feeling in general overwhelmed by things, I have started you know, doing like okay, well, everything's overwhelming and everything's too much, so I'm not gonna go, or by the end of today I need to get, so I'm gonna take it kind of half a day at a time or an hour at a time, or half an hour a time, depending on how bad I'm feeling that day. You know, if I break it up into manageable chunks, that for me, I find it much easier to cope. So if I just say, okay well I'm gonna get through the next half hour and then I'll see what happens and then that's okay. Yeah. So I think those are some of the things that I have learned to do. I don't know if Ellie can think of some other ones that are maybe more standard or, yes. I think that is some really good advice there. And I think it's important to know that there is no universal answer. There is no correct answer because everybody has different coping mechanisms. I know myself personally, whenever I'm a little bit over anxious or stressed or having a really bad day about something, a lot of mine, I find that my body temperature, regulating my temperature is something that's really important and works for me. I found little life hacks of, you know, taking myself off to the bathroom, having a cold flannel or a cloth and just sort of regulating my body temperature. I personally prefer to be cold and that helps me to calm and helps me to... But that's not me saying that's the correct thing to do because everyone is different. So there is, it's such a broad spectrum, isn't it? Yeah. I think that's the point of therapy really as well is to find that out about yourself. Every client's journey is individual. Some people like hugs for example. Some people don't want to be touched in that situation. That's just one example of many and I think that's what going to therapy is about. It's about being in a safe regulated space, being able to look into what those elements, what coping mechanisms would be good for you and why, so that they can be implemented outside of the therapy space in a safe place. Yeah. I want to move on to our next question now, which kind of relates to what we've just said there. We've talked about the fact, one of the coping mechanisms that's quite common is that sort of disassociation, that taking yourself away, being alone. We've had another question that's come in that's saying, I don't ever feel understood with what I go through daily with SMA and it's starting to affect my relationships with friends and families and social isolation. Have you got any advice? I dunno who would like to, Ellie, have you got sort of any advice that you could suggest for someone who might be struggling with that isolation? Yeah, and I'm so sorry to here that. I think that's, you know, a very understandable position to be in. And again, it, I suppose it comes down to how open conversations are happening and how you feel you are able to talk to someone about your situation, your story. It's just absolutely individual to you. I think sometimes we think that if we're fragile physically, then we are gonna be fragile mentally or we have some sort of link that there's some element of fragility in our health as there may be in our physical health. And, you know, I don't think that's true. I think, well, what I've experienced with Becca and what I've also experienced with other clients with physical disability is, my God, you are stronger mentally than us with what you've had to go through. Just from a baby what you've had to go through, your body has had to process is unimaginable and incredible and you are so strong as a person. And it's having someone to sit with or having a sense of self worth of self and being able to see that yourself, I think. And I think there's a lot your family members and your friends can learn from your story and from what you have to say. For sure. I learn every day from my clients every single day. And I think it's for us that haven't been through that journey to be able to sit back and be, you know, humbled that we haven't been through that journey. And stay curious. For family members listening to this podcast or friends listening to this podcast, be alongside, be alongside that person, stay curious. They don't need fixing. They don't need rescuing. They just need someone to stand beside them and hear their story as this wonderful person sending in this question has asked. And that's, if you can't get that in your family right now, then maybe that's what therapy's for, where a nonbiased, you know, accessible person that doesn't know your family that can hear your story and would feel privileged to hear your story. So maybe that's a place to start until you fill the techniques to be able to be in smaller groups outside, be safe outside, and be able to open those conversations up yourselves. Thank you for answering that. That was really well answered. We'll have one more question which has come from the viewers. I think we'll ask this one. Becca, we kind of, I think the reason why this question has come about is because we kind of talked about this in the previous episode about the frustration that came with if you just wanted to throw something on the floor or take out some of that stress or anger. Somebody's asked, how do you clear your head when you can't physically exercise or do things like maybe other people do? Yeah, I, to be honest, I still find this difficult and I still, to be honest, haven't found like an excellent outlet. I think depending on kind of your level of disability, I've become more confident now in going for walks on my own. I think I found a lot of the kind of stress and pent up anger around the fact that I was just never alone and I couldn't just, you know, like if I didn't wanna talk to anyone, I just, I couldn't just like have a really grumpy taste and like, don't care. So that I now... If I'm feeling overwhelmed, don't wanna talk to people, or, yeah, I just wanna be on my own. I go for a walk. Well, I drive and I think I sometimes just walk down the road around the block or sometimes I get dropped at like a forest and go to the forest. And I find that I love going into forests and woodlands and stuff, but I find that really calms me and it really kind of puts things into perspective for me. So that is one of the ways that I kind of calm myself and everything. It doesn't really help with the anger, but sometimes I, now that I've got more comfortable with talking about, you know, how I'm feeling and my mental health and things, if I am with someone who I trust and if I'm with someone that's, you know, also having a bad day, sometimes we drive to a hill and we just scream at the top of the hill. And I know that may sound a little bit crazy but I think more people probably do that than you think on their own. They just don't talk about it. And it doesn't mean that you're crazy. It just means that you want 30 seconds to just be able to let everything out, not have to talk about it, but just let that, you know, like physical tension, like come out. And I think that's been really helpful for me. And I think, I know that talking about things is not always easy and stuff. I think there is a tendency where people with physical disabilities to feel very isolated and to feel very alone like the previous person said in that question. But I think even if you're around people that don't have disabilities or you feel like you're very different to them, I've learned that actually when you open up and talk about things, there are always similarities that you might not have considered. You know people that don't have disability, but maybe have, they've had difficult family lives or different home lives or whatever. And the reasons why someone has mental health or why someone you know is feeling a bit shitty might be completely different. But if the feelings are similar and you can talk about how you're feeling, and someone goes, yeah, I know wherever you are. I agree. I feel the same. And it's really shit. That can really help. And I think that can make you feel less alone in how you're feeling rather than your experiences. And that's helped me. Yeah, definitely. I think again, there's so many ways that people can look at this. I think animal therapy as well is a massive one just for me is just like a few, a cuddle with my dog can solve a lot of like problems, to be fair. So yeah, there's lots of ways out there to... There's ways around everything, basically. Yeah. I think when I used to be really angry at uni, I remember I used, I think Ellie used to give me pieces of paper and I either used to wrap them up or I used to, you know, scribble really, really hard with pens on them and then make holes in them or something. I think we're similar on that. But yeah, I think that can help with anger because you are right. Like we can't throw stuff on the floor or whatever. But that was a way to kind of get that out as well. I think it's a great tip there with the paper. I like that. Final question guys, and I want to end this on a bit of a high as well. Because I know Becca, you've kind of, you're in a much more positive space now. You know, obviously we all have to go through, these are ongoing battles. We can't sit here and say, yep, everything's fine now and things because life doesn't work like that. However, the fact that you are here sharing your story today and giving advice to other people already shows that you are in a stronger position than the past. So I think on a positive note, I want to just sort of end and ask you Ellie, what are some of the benefits? What are some of the real pros of therapy? Because mental health doesn't have to be a negative thing. We all have mental health and it doesn't have to be negative. So what are some of the positive benefits of seeking help? I think number one, I was going back into therapy myself actually, and I remembered how scary it is to walk through that door. So I think it's something accomplished and just turning up is enough. Really just turning up is enough and walking through that door, and it's hard, it's hard work. And, you know, I've been a few years in this and had a few years of therapy myself and it's still became nerve racking. So I think that finding that accomplishment of just walking through that door. The main thing is self awareness, growth of self awareness that will then help us understand our coping mechanisms, will then help us understand ourselves better, our attachment to our disability device of whatever sort, our wheelchair or our attachment to our friends and our families. And help us be able to speak louder, speak out more about our process. And what that awareness does is it then over time, as we filter that into our life and outside our life is, it brings change. And that's a really beautiful element to therapy at the end is the change that it brings through that awareness. And we, you will be finding awarenesses at every stage of life. I think that money doesn't stop. You're just heightening it and by giving yourself time, giving yourself an hour every other week or every week to be with yourself, to understand yourself. So you're healing, great. And it may be a bit of a painful journey, but as Gabor Mate says, you know, "Trauma is trapped grief." And so it is just getting us to that space where we are giving ourselves a little internal honk, releasing that energy that has been stored up, being heard, being listened to and giving ourselves, learning how to love ourselves. Again, I know that sounds really cheesy, but learning you know, what that means and how to do that. And that in turn then can let us take a deep breath in. And when we're outside of therapy and when we're at home, is a wonderful moment in therapy when you learn a lot about yourself and then you can look at your family across the dinner table and go, "I know okay, that's them rescuing, that's them over there doing that. And oh, this isn't mine, this is their problem. They're wonderful." Also, moments of understanding that can come with therapy also. And I really do understand and that it's hard to start and it's hard to do, but there are lights at the end of the tunnel and it's for us therapists to hold that for you until you get there. But it is possible and peace is possible. I like that. Thank you. That's really important. And I think just having you guys here and the dynamic of sharing Becca's personal stories and Ellie's outlook from the professional point of view as well, I think it's been a really interesting dynamic and I really hope that people listening have managed to benefit from that as well and just share and listen to each other's stories and hopefully be more open to saying, actually, I think I might need a little bit of help or these coping mechanisms. I've learned something today. So I really, really appreciate both of your time and for opening up and being so open and honest. So thank you very much for that. No problem. For anyone listening as well, if you are struggling or you need any help or signposting, please do reach out to SMA UK. We are here to help and support. So yes, if you do need anything, please do contact us. And yes, that is it for another episode. We'll be back with you very soon. Thank you for watching. You've been listening to The Living with SMA podcast. We hope you can join us again next time. But in the meantime, don't forget to like and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. You can find out more on our website at smauk.org.uk.