‘If I had support I might still have my son’ laments mum on mission to help others
Alicia putting her heart and soul into the mental health support and welfare group she wishes she had years ago
Had the mental health support group she recently founded been around when she was growing up, Alicia Wilson firmly believes that the son she, as a teenage mum, was forced to give up for adoption would be in her life today.
The story of Alicia’s own wayward childhood makes for sobering reading – which is why she and five friends are determined to reach out to today’s youngsters who are living in a chaotic environment.
Alicia’s father was a serial offender, whose frequent stretches in prison began before she was born.
Her mum struggled with post-natal depression and the demands of bringing up a child alone. Trips to visit her dad in jail were part of Alicia’s childhood routine.
With the arrival of Alicia’s sister and brother came another bout of post-natal depression for her mum.
“She would sleep all day and be up all night, moving furniture and decorating,” remembers Alicia, who moved between Govan and Blackpool.
“She would get angry at things. She was never diagnosed.”
While her father was in prison for another house-breaking, the harsh reality of what Alicia had been through in life hit home and that is when her battles with mental ill health began, as an 11-year-old.
Although her father turned his back on a life of crime when she was aged nine, he traded his negative pattern of offending for the equally destructive drugs scene.
“I fell pregnant at 15 and the system stole my son away and had him adopted,” said Alicia, who then had a steady boyfriend and was living in England. “They took all my rights away from me because of my mental health. It affected me really badly.”
Traumatised, Alicia’s behaviour spiralled out of control.
Throughout her teens and young adulthood, her world centred around substance misuse – party drugs, ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines.
She began self-harming, beating herself physically and emotionally. And, having witnessed domestic abuse when she was growing up, Alicia fell into a series of toxic relationships.
“I’d roam the streets of Blackpool looking for fights, picking on the biggest people, hoping they would beat me up,” she said.
“But I’d always come out on top, which I would secretly be angry about.
“I now know that was another form of self-harm. I ended up in a psychotic episode. I was hallucinating and ended up in hospital. I saw a psychiatrist and a psychologist.”
Now aged 30, it was only three years ago that Alicia was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. With the help of medication, she has since been free of the urge to self-harm.
She successfully completed a college course in floristry. But when her beloved grandfather passed away last year, Alicia was distraught and her behaviour became erratic.
“It hit me really bad,” she said. “I wasn’t able to cope and stopped taking my medication. I went down a bad path. I stayed with my mum, but because of the way I was acting, I was always arguing and getting kicked out, going from house to house.”
Having struggled with her own mental health, Alicia is acutely aware that many children and young people are secretly carrying a similar burden that’s hard to bear.
She has in the last two months channelled her energy into the launch of not-for-profit organisation, Self Care and Mental Health for Kids and Adolescents.
The group’s Facebook page, which directs children, young people and their parents to support services, has received 700 ‘likes.’
There, Alicia lays bare her own experiences, while the five friends who have joined her on the journey – some of whom are mental health practitioners – make themselves available to anyone who is finding it difficult to cope.
“In the last couple of years, I have seen a decline in children’s mental health,” said Alicia, who is determined to make the support organisation a success.
“Even before Covid, there was a 50 per cent rise in child mental health cases. Five, out of a class of 30 children, have mental health issues and a lot of them do not know where to turn.
“Social media and online bullying between kids has a lot to do with it. Kids can be right nasty. Just recently, we have been supporting a couple of youths and sign-posting them to places where they can get the help they need and they have been so thankful for it.
“We also have contact from parents who don’t know how to
I would roam the streets looking for fights and picking on the biggest people, hoping they would beat me up
deal with their kids. There is not a lot of help out there for them.”
Alicia and her team are hopeful of generating enough funds to secure a hall in which children and young people can gather.
Supporters have come forward, offering to volunteer by sharing with children and teenagers their expertise and experience in everything from the music industry and DJ-ing, to baking.
“We really need a hall where we can hold youth groups, where they can do activities and learn how to deal with whatever they are going through, whatever mental health issues they have,” continued Alicia, who is keen to share her skills as a creative florist.
“That is where other team members come into it. Yes, I can share my own experiences. But they are the ones who can tell them ways to do things to help them.
“I came from Govan. Round about me, there was a lot of fighting and drug use. I was living in the midst of that.
“It is the same in all the deprived areas in Glasgow and in Lanarkshire. If they get the help now at a young age, in their adult life they will be able to cope with it a lot better when situations arise by using the tools we teach them to get them through it.”
Alicia believes that had that support been available to her at a young age, she would have led a less chaotic lifestyle – and may have been able to keep son Joshua, who was taken from her at the age of 18 months.
Clutching a treasured picture of them together taken in a contact centre when Joshua was aged three, Alicia said: “When the system took my son away, it affected me really badly. It still affects me now.
“I have learned to deal with it a bit better now.
“He turned 15 just a few weeks ago. Trying to contact him when he turns 18 is something I think I will do. I had him for 18 months. I had that bond with him.
“He was taken due to my mental health. If I’d had that support, I might still have my son.”