Tim's Story

Tim had an important role in a large insurance company when he started to have mental health issues. When he had gone as far as he could with traditional therapies, he found that getting involved with his activities and groups in his community, and meeting other people in a similar situation, was the best thing for his wellbeing.

"Four years ago I went really downhill. I was originally diagnosed with depression and anxiety symptoms through the GP, and got put onto the ‘good old’ Prozac for a few months, which didn’t really work at all. I just became more and more agoraphobic, shut myself away, and at that time the GP referred me to mental health services in south Warwickshire.

Then I was lucky enough to get in fairly quickly, within three or four months of the initial recommendation and saw psychiatrists and psychologists. We messed around with the tablets for quite a few months, and went through quite a few different psychiatrists over that time, which was difficult.

Being able to get involved with your own services is about building trust up in the first instance. If you are unlucky, like I was right at the beginning, and go through half a dozen psychiatrists, then you just start to build up that trust, and then you’re back to the drawing board. That’s frustrating. I know that it isn’t always possible, but ideally, when anyone is going through that, they should be dealing with the same person to be able to move forward.

Eventually it settled down and I was lucky enough to see the same two people all the time. That was for two years, in Stratford-Upon-Avon, and depending on how I was it was either on a monthly basis or a weekly basis.

I also received Conditional Behavioural Therapy (CBT) with the psychologist. Initially that was okay, but only in the short term. You tend to go over the same things again and again, and it’s very difficult to get yourself out of that rut once you are in it.

The main thing for me was finding the Community Arts Workshop (CAW) art group in 2008, which I discovered by fluke. I was doing a course at St. Michael’s Hospital about managing depression. It just happened that one of the support workers there mentioned one of the exhibitions that CAW was holding. I was able to come and meet everyone here, and realise I wasn’t the only one who suffered these terrible symptoms, and was able to talk freely with people and feel comfortable. It was very different to talking with the psychologists and psychiatrists, who are very matter of fact about things. Instead, you’re talking to people who are actually going through it themselves. You can say, ‘Yeah, I have that,’ or, ‘Yeah, that drug makes me go that way.’ It was great just to find other people and an interest that everyone had got with art. I think that was really my turning point.

Now things have changed a lot. Before the episode I had in 2007 I was working as a claims manager for a large insurance company for nearly 20 years before it really ground me into the floor. The company were fantastic and supportive all the way, but now I have retired on ill health grounds.

Now I do some work with Rethink as a mental health support worker in Rugby, which I’ve been doing for three months. I have done a lot of work with CAW, and sit on the board. I also went to college, and I work with Making Space in Leamington as well. So I’ve got really involved with mental health and art now.

I think art is a great way to get the message across, as long as the people seeing it are able to realise and understand what it is that you are trying to put forward. I’ve done quite a few exhibitions, and a lot of my art work relates to mental health issues to try to push that stigma away from what we go through.

Being able to attend groups is really important, and it is really important to have some direction of where to go, so you don’t get stuck at home. For me it was very difficult being out in the sticks. In hindsight though, now I know what groups are available, be it Mind, or Rethink, or going to college or whatever, it has certainly helped my wellbeing, and meeting up with people is key, I think, to getting better.”