Real Life | Gill

Gill* joined our virtual peer support lounge when she found lockdown particularly difficult. Scroll down to read her story.

 
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GILL

Background

Our peer support lounge usually runs 6pm–midnight on a Friday and Saturday evening. The service is specifically for woman who’ve experienced domestic abuse and are experiencing mental health crisis.

At the peer support lounge, women have the space to talk – or not – maybe watch a film, read, knit, play board games and join in planned wellbeing activities to help with their journey towards wellness and independence.

Lots of the people we work with experience mental ill-health as a result of domestic abuse, and the peer support lounge was originally set up because the women seeking our support found it harder to cope during evenings and weekends – when most of our services tend to be closed.

The peer support lounge is organic, so it can look completely different from one week to the next. Sometimes it’s a take away and movie. Other times it’s a discussion group. But there’s always a planned wellbeing learning session incorporated somehow.

When Covid19 restrictions were first put in place in March 2020, we knew straight away that our peer support lounge regulars would face additional pressures. We were forced to close the face-to-face group, but knew we had to maintain the service somehow. That’s when we launched our virtual peer support lounge.

The situation

Gill has been attending our peer support lounge regularly since October 2019. She’d completely our Gateway recovery programme and survivor groups, but found lockdown particularly difficult. Her normal routines were removed, she lived alone and was fearful of the virus. Gill suffered from intrusive thoughts in relation to self harm and ending her life.

Gill joined our virtual peer support lounge and we helped her with safety planning and support around her intrusive thoughts. She can now implement practical responses to these thoughts and understands that she’ll sometimes need to reach out for medical support – which she’s done several times. We’ve also helped Gill to access support from mental health services.

The future

Gill has really enjoyed the wellbeing activities she’s accessed through the virtual peer support lounge. These have included:

  • Boundary setting

  • Maintaining healthy sleep & mealtime routines

  • Calm breathing

  • Mindful colouring

  • Mindful meditation

  • Building healthy support networks

Gill has now reached the point where she doesn’t feel the need to attend the peer support lounge as often – because she hasn’t felt like she needed the support. She’s made huge progress and knows the group is there if things change.

 

*Name changed to protect the identity of our service user.

Saskia