After my brain injury, and I became aware enough to be able to recognise my struggles, I lost confidence in myself. I sunk into depression and would cry everyday. My mental health had taken such a battering I couldn’t understand why my partner James would want me. So I kept telling him I could go move in with my Dad, seeing as he would benefit from some support due to his age. But James kept telling me that’s the last thing he wanted.

I was missing being me.

No matter what nice things he said or did, it made little impact on my self worth. All I could see was a liability, and I thought he deserved better. Terrible thoughts and ideas would go through my mind as I tried to find a way to take back control of my life. I was a mess. I had been depressed before, but this was different. How could there ever be a light at the end of this dark tunnel?

I’d never fully appreciated before that I was in my own way confident previously. As I could be shy at times, and you could hardly call me an extrovert, I thought that was a lack of confidence. Wrong.

After pulling myself apart for everything, I started to use mindfulness to try to see myself in a different light. Alright, so I might not be the same as I was any more, but that didn’t mean I was a bad person or had nothing to offer. I’d always been a good listener, even if I didn’t have all the answers, people were still opening up to me despite my flaws. That takes trust, and in time I realised these people must see something in me that I wasn’t acknowledging.