Trevor's story: nature and my mental health

“I’ve had two mental breakdowns in my life. It was caused by pressure at work. I wasn’t eating and I was lucky if I was getting 30 minutes sleep a night. Your body can’t cope for this for long. I broke down in work at the Tesco’s where I worked, I was in such a bad way my parents had to come and pick me up. Work didn’t see me for ten months, after that I kept spinning downwards further into anxiety, paranoia and depression. It got to the stage where my partner could no longer look after me in Bournemouth and my parents came to take me to their home, but I kept going into the darkness. It got to a stage where one day I lost the plot, not violently, I just didn’t have a clue what I was doing anymore. I ended up have a paramedic fast response car turn up at our door and the Wimborne mental health team. The only way I could think of breaking the cycle was to go into St Ann’s Hospital in Poole. That’s not an easy thing to do. I wasn’t committed but I really wouldn’t have cared if I had. The staff in there were fantastic, I certainly couldn’t do their job. I ended up going in there twice. When I was discharged, I was scared to go outside. My parents just about got me to my doctors.

My doctor knew my love on nature and photography she told me to set my timer for a 5 minutes’ walk along Bournemouth gardens, where I was living with my partner, to take some photos and write in a diary of how I felt and what I saw, and to extend my time outside when I felt comfortable. What I found is when you’re going through a mental breakdown all your worries constantly spin around in your head and there isn’t an off switch. When I was staring through my camera, I was concentrating on that one moment in time and my worries faded into the background and gave me some much-needed headspace. It took me two weeks, but I finally got down to Bournemouth beach - I can’t explain the feeling I had seeing, hearing and smelling the sea again. Since then I’ve been raising the awareness of how good nature and photography is for our mental wellbeing. In 2018 I decided to tell my story to try and help others going through mental illness now. I’ve found a passion, motivation and a determination I never knew I had.

The reason why I talk about my mental breakdowns is because it’s a hidden illness - you can see if someone’s broken their leg, but you can’t see if someone’s broken their head a little bit. I use my story like dropping a pebble into a still pond - it breaks the surface and the ripples that come back to me are people’s stories of how nature has helped them. It’s ok not to be ok. Please open up and don’t fall into the trap of not saying anything like I did.”