So this is not my usual travel related Blog post but something that is still as equally as important to me and something which I am very passionate about.
Did you know that…..
•Approx 39% of ambulance staff suffer from PTSD
•Approx 91% of ambulance staff have experienced stress or suffered poor mental health
(Statistics taken from Mind)
For the last few months I know I have suffered from poor mental health. Triggered by a personal bereavement in the most tragic of circumstances and being forced to return to work too soon after this, I soon found that I was becoming upset and angry at the world. I was turning into an irrational and anxious person that I didn’t recognise and I didn’t understand why this was happening. I found I had no motivation to do anything and simple daily activities were turning in to a chore. I found it difficult to be at work because I felt like no one understood how I was feeling. And truth be told nobody did understand how I was feeling because nobody knew what I had been going through as I hadn’t been open and honest about how I was feeling or what had been happening, instead choosing to just keep everything to myself and try to deal with it all alone. But my grief was consuming me. This, combined with the NHS pressures we as Paramedics are continually facing, started to become too overwhelming and being at work at times just felt tiring, tedious, demanding and stressful. I found it increasingly hard to bite my tongue toward patients who had called 999 for insignificant reasons and became resentful of being there. I felt like not only had I lost my spark, but I had lost my care and compassion.
My passion for travel began when I started working as Cabin Crew for Virgin Atlantic at the age of 18. I didn’t have a plan when I left school (I didn’t really excel at anything…..probably because I hardly ever showed up) and the thought of university TERRIFIED me. So, going against the grain of everyone else that was submitting their university applications, instead I decided to embrace the shiny red shoes, the red lipstick and go see the world.