Colleagues and people who have accessed Rotherham Safe Space share what taking action for your mental health means to them:

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Malwina Kertowska, Crisis Recovery Worker:

"Taking action for mental health for myself looks like setting boundaries, self-care, proper rest like minimum eight hours of sleep, an active lifestyle, eating healthy, spending time with my friends and family and spending as much time in fresh air as I can. For someone else, it is active listening, showing empathy, offering emotional and practical support and also attending ongoing training to improve my skills. For others, it can be education, it can be managing support groups, it can be creating events."

Katie Clark, accessed Rotherham Safe Space:

"Taking action for my mental health means checking in with my body if I'm not feeling great, making sure I'm eating enough food if I'm hungry, sleeping if I feel tired, if I feel upset not listening to sad music that's going to make it worse and talking to people that care about me."

Callum Marson, accessed Rotherham Safe Space:

"Taking control of your life with mental health to me is looking at yourself in the mirror sometimes. It's not easy with mental health and I feel like it's important to get that message out there that if you've got mental health struggles, you're not alone. Looking at yourself in the mirror and saying 'I am who I am, I'm beautiful, I'm great' is to me taking back your own life."

Person who accessed Rotherham Safe Space:

"I take action for my mental health by noticing changes in my myself - whether it's in my mood, energy, or how I'm treating myself or others. I reach out and accept support, whether it's from a friend, family member, or a professional. I know I don't have to go through things alone. I open up about my feelings. It may not always be easy but I've learned that sharing helps lift a weight off my shoulders and helps me feel less alone. I don't bottle things up anymore. I've learned to set boundaries, speak up for myself and say no when I need to. I seek help and access support services. This step wasn't easy but it was one of the most important choices I made for myself. Overall, I'm in a much better place mentally. I feel more confident, more like myself again, and I have the tools to keep growing."

Person who accessed Rotherham Safe Space:

"For myself, taking action means showing up, to groups and 1 on 1's, talking with trusted people round me, making meaningful connection, walks to safe places and connecting others. For others it means help with basic care, checking in on them, helping with responsibilities and showing up when needed."

Person who accessed Rotherham Safe Space:

"My first action was accepting that things needed to change and finding the right support. I pushed a lot of people away affecting relationships, when really they just wanted to help. Now I can see that what affects me, affects others around us and the first part to recovery was accepting I needed to change. I'll be forever grateful to those people that didn't give up on me. People were telling me what to do but until I saw for myself and has my own little wake up call I couldn't see how much I was, not only hurting myself, but others around me. I tried running away from my problems but I just needed help to face them and I found that there is support and now I'm getting my life back on track. I got myself back into a routine and accepted that nothing would change unless I faced it head on and now I know where support is and I'm thankful for those that still stayed even when I didn't want them to. Taking action for me was waking up and making a change accepting there will be good and bad days and changing the way I deal with it to move forward. Like Miley Cyrus sings, it's a climb."

We'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone from Rotherham Safe Space for sharing their stories, thoughts and experiences this Mental Health Awareness Week.