A mom from Grimsby in England who once battled suicidal thoughts and was on the verge of giving up has turned her life around and is now helping others facing depression and negative thoughts.
Georgina-Leigh Pearce, 31, reached a point in her life where she felt that she wasn’t a good wife or a good mom anymore, and the voices in her head said she shouldn’t even be here anymore. It was at this point that she contemplated taking her own life.
The support worker had been suffering from a mental health illness since the age of 15–16. However, at that time, she just felt like a “wild child” who had begun to go off track. Although she did visit a doctor, Georgina didn’t speak out, as she thought she was fine. It was only after 10 years that she sought help.
Georgina later suffered from postnatal depression after the birth of her first child, Sienna, but never told anyone about it.
“I just wanted to be okay, because I was a mom, I thought I haven’t got time to go to the doctors. So I just thought I would deal with it myself instead, which was the wrong thing to do,” Georgina said in an interview with The Epoch Times.
One day last year, the mom of three woke up while her husband was still fast asleep and her children were at their nana’s, and headed to a place called the Green Bridge, which is a little bridge with trees and a bench.
“I sat on the bench for two hours, my head was a mess. I was overthinking, and a few people walked past me. Not one said, are you okay? Even though you could clearly see that I was distraught,” Georgina said.
Georgina kept thinking about how she could hang herself on a tree that was opposite the bench she was sitting on, and whether the identified tree would take her weight.
“I kept telling myself, ‘you are not good enough. You shouldn’t be here. You are not a good mom. You are not a good wife,’” Georgina said.
During this time, only one man stopped to ask whether she was okay, but she dismissed him and said she was fine. Georgina’s biggest problem was that she didn’t want to talk about things, always preferring to hide behind a smile.
“I always seemed happy but I wasn’t underneath,” Georgina said. “I wasn’t inside.”
When her husband woke up and realized she wasn’t around, he kept ringing her phone, but Georgina didn’t answer. It was only after two hours that she finally answered the call. Her husband then begged her to go home, which she did.
“That is when I had a severe breakdown, and I was just being sick. I didn’t eat for two days, shaking, staring into nothing,” Georgina said.
After two days, with the persuasion of her husband, Georgina called the doctor, and for the first time, she opened up and shared how she felt. The doctor was very supportive and even called every day for several weeks to find out how she was holding up.
“There was a lot of support there so I am quite lucky. If I didn’t have that support from family and the doctor, I probably wouldn’t be here,” Georgina admitted.
She was then put on medication that greatly helped her become stronger. Through her doctor’s advice, she started exercising, walking, and eating healthily.
“I had a lot of anxiety as well. So he told me to walk around my block just once on my own if I could because I never used to go anywhere on my own,” Georgina said. “After the breakdown, I was scared of myself ... and if I was on my own, but I did what he said and it actually worked.”
It took some time for the negative thoughts to finally disappear from her mind, but she followed what he said and was finally okay.
Georgina also included different things in her new routine.
“I started to self-care, like take a bath, go for a walk, or have a cup of tea. A lot of people get into depression and they don’t want to do anything like that,” Georgina said.
“I thought I’m gonna set up this group because there must be people out there that don’t want to speak to friends or family because they’re scared of it,” she said.
Georgina recalls one specific case where she helped a person who was struggling with depression and who was at a point of taking her own life to quiet the negative thoughts in her head.
“There was an American lady and I spoke to her for days, and she felt like she had nobody. On the fourth day, she messaged me and said thank you for saving her life,” Georgina said.
Georgina strongly believes that most people don’t come out and openly share about their mental health because of the fear of being judged.
Therefore, she advises people struggling with depression to recognize it themselves and accept the fact that they need help. She further adds that they should not be afraid of speaking out.
“They need to seek help, they need to definitely speak out,” Georgina said.
She hopes that sharing her story will encourage other people struggling with mental health issues to seek out the help they need.
