A Carlisle woman has spoken of her determination to turn the spotlight on suicide as part of Mental Health Awareness Week.
Lisa juggles her full-time work with a very personal mission.
This year she takes up a new role as a lived experience advisor for the NHS and is working on her latest idea – to launch an awareness and fundraising walk in Carlisle called Stride Against Suicide.
Lisa has achieved a remarkable personal turnaround over the past five years. Diagnosed as bipolar, she struggled with her mental health from her late teens including periods of depression, eating disorder and a suicide attempt. Lisa also survived the suicide of her only sibling, her brother Stephen in 2015.
Today she is well, managing her mental health, enjoying a successful career, looking after her family – and working hard to make a difference for the many other people who experience mental health struggles.
At The Cumberland, Lisa is an operations team leader in the premises department but alongside that she is also one of the building society’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Champions. She works with 18 other volunteer colleagues to raise awareness and to help anyone within the business who may be having difficulties. A new development for this year was the first wellbeing event.
She says: “We put on a wellbeing day for the whole business. It was a really successful whole day event looking at different aspects of mental and physical wellbeing. We had businesses and third sector organisations from across the county come together, such as I Can We Can and The Samaritans, sharing information and support from stalls and people doing talks.”
Lisa was among the first Cumberland employees to train as Mental Health and Wellbeing Champions in 2020.
“I’m hugely proud of what we have done as a team. And I’m proud of The Cumberland for their forward thinking and a really quite pioneering approach,” she says.
“I have suffered, myself, with my mental health and I understand just how vital it is to have that support and for it to be recognized that people’s mental health is important.”
Outside work Lisa is even more busy. She takes part in a scheme called Suicide Safer Communities which aims to raise awareness and understanding across Cumbria. It is run by the Shap-based charity Every Life Matters for which she became a trustee after volunteering in their suicide bereavement support groups.
“I started doing lived-experience talks. We got sign-posting fliers out to all the pharmacies in Cumbria and to barbers. Men don’t really like to open up about mental health and how they are feeling. We have trained some barbers as mental health first aiders, so they can spot the signs and sign-post appropriately.”
Lisa has also recorded a training video on supporting those bereaved by suicide for Every Life Matters which is part of a package being rolled out virtually across the county in 2023 via CLIC (Cumbria Learning & Improvement Collaborative) Cumbria .
Lisa has also been taken on as a volunteer by Carleton Clinic mental health service in Carlisle where she will offer insights from her experience for service development, sit on interview panels for new staff and take part in hospital and ward inspections.
Recently Lisa had the idea for Stride Against Suicide – a fund and awareness raising walk modelled on the popular cancer fundraiser Race for Life.
“I’m in the planning stage, and would like it to happen in Carlisle. I’m thinking of Bitts Park for a walk of five kilometres” she says.
Her idea is that participants could raise money for suicide prevention charities Papyrus, Samaritans and Every Life Matters.
“My vision is the people who would come to it are the people who have suffered a loss or had thoughts themselves. It might be that they find kindred spirits within the whole process. It could be a natural support group for people,” she says.
Lisa says her own experiences – both with mental illness but also with recovery and moving forward – drive her to help others.
“I think it just comes from knowing, myself, how dark a place that can be and trying to make things better for people so when they do get to that dark place they are armed with tools, and they know where they can get help.
“It is so important to have that education out there and have people with real stories to tell and stories that show it’s a journey you can go on, but things will get better.
“Obviously losing my brother the way that I did plays a huge role in why I do what I do. I want to make the issue of mental health more normal and less shameful and hidden. It’s always on my mind – what more can we do to help.”
Listen to more of Lisa’s journey on the WeCan Cumbria podcast episode Bereavement by Suicide & My Bipolar, and again in the Suicide Crisis – Risk & Awareness episode, where she shares her thoughts about how we can help more with the crisis that the community is facing.
