Mental health worker’s own long road to recovery
A LEEDS-BASED NHS worker whose teenage struggles with anxiety and depression led to her being sectioned at 14 has spoken frankly about her journey to recovery to mark World Mental Health Awareness Day.
The day’s theme is “mental health for all”, which for Miranda Arieh “signifies that no matter what your past experience, your current life circumstance, your gender, age or background, we are all deserving of mental health”.
Now 36 and working as an NHS network mental health lead, Ms Arieh recalled being “painfully shy and frightened at school”.
Her emotional and mental state deteriorating, she was self-harming at the age of 13.
“I’d started stabbing myself and getting very, very, very unwell with anxiety and depression and suffering a lot emotionally.”
She was also “rebelling a lot. My life was so tumultuous because I was just in such a state. I had such a shattered sense of self.”
Her family “didn’t really know how to deal with it. They were shocked. There was a kind of disbelief around the idea that mental health problems even existed, which was really hard for me. I rememberbeingcalled‘adramaqueen’ by one family member, which really hurt and scarred me for many years. I found it challenging when I didn’t feel my suffering was being recognised.”
After several attempts to run away from home, she was placed in foster care and shortly after was sectioned and admitted to an adolescent mental health unit.
“I was stuck at 14 in this space where
I was becoming very emotionally distressed regularly and was being given tranquilisers to calm me down. [I was] basically sedated.”
Discharged nine months later “kicking and screaming” and frightened, Ms Arieh embarked “on a long journey” that incorporated psychiatric nurses, consultants, therapies and drugs.
Five years ago, “a moment of realisation” during an episode of “deep emotional suffering” made her appreciate that she could separate past pain from present identity.
“Now it has become second nature to comfort myself when I’m upset rather than beat myself up further.
“It’s like taking your mind to the gym.We wouldn’t do weights once and expect muscles like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
“Well it’s the same for retraining the brain. The brain reacts well to reconditioning.
“I now live life in joy, love and appreciation the majority of the time.”
In addition to her NHS role, Ms Arieh is a public speaker and offers one-to one coaching.
She was motivated to help others after experiencing first-hand “a system that wasn’t working that well” and the stigma surrounding mental health.
Ms Arieh is also writing a partly autobiographical book, describing it as mainly a guidebook “to learn the methods which have supported me through my own recovery”.
Within the Jewish community, she praised Jami on its “exceptional work. I adore the way they have peer support workers with lived experience of mental health difficulties. I also love the way Jami seem very recovery focused — something missing from many mainstream mental health models nowadays.”
Closer to home, she was also impressed by the efforts of Leeds Jewish Welfare Board “to support members of the community with their mental health” by encouraging independence and a person-centred approach.
And her message to Jewish community leaders?
“Make sure we are encouraging, especially our youth, to express how they feel.
“Mental health is something to be taken very seriously because it can have devastating effects.
“We need to open that conversation in every place, whether it’s in the workplace with our colleagues, at home with our children and our partners or with strangers at the checkout lane.”