MHFA Book LAUNCH FLIPBOOK

MHFA
Cohort 2016

"A former health and social care lecturer, I now
work in the mental health arena, delivering a
diverse range of mental health awareness
courses, including MHFA Standard and Lite.
I sit on various strategic bodies, including the
Devon Eating Disorders Pathway Group,
Plymouth Suicide Prevention Strategy Group
and Healthwatch Plymouth."

"I found myself faced with the most
frightening, devastating and
incomprehensible situation that any
parent would quake at. I was
witnessing my gorgeous son slowly
kill himself."

"...his torso, sunken and sallow,
resembled the carcass of a welldevoured
Sunday lunch chicken.
His skin, tissue-paper thin and
webbed with fine broken veins,
covered his bony ribcage."

"I so desperately wanted to
be refreshed from the
excruciating images of
Ollie's wan and deformed
body."

"His heart had suffered greatly
from the self-imposed starvation
that the eating disorder had
inflicted, therefore rest and no
exertion were paramount to
Ollie's care in the unit."

"...conversations that once were
humorous, enlightening and thoughtprovoking
transformed into diminutive
and trivial exchanges of words - no
sentiment or feeling so as to avoid what
the anxious parent really wanted to
talk about."

"He would hunch his back
and curl his body inwards to
desperately find the folds of
repulsive fat."

"...compulsion for excessive exercise
will see the person exercise as if on
automatic pilot, regardless of pain,
injury or harm to self. It is known
that some will exercise far beyond
the limits to their health..."

"With a heavy head and
heart, a darkness
shrouded me -
a darkness that was to
last for years."

"Recovery offered an
opportunity to live life as one
really should, driving one's
own destiny and not being the
back seat passenger."