A personal story of gardening and mental health from Kirsty Ward of My Little Allotment.

Kirsty’s story

We all know that gardening is relaxing, it’s a place and a way to escape for many. its joyful, fulfilling and growing from seed to bloom or seed to fruit is completely captivating and addictive. When I started on my gardening journey, I didn’t know it was all these things I just hoped that whatever it was, it would bring a small smile to my face, but it did so much more, it completely saved my life.

A lot of you may know me as My Little Allotment on social media but many of you may not have heard me tell my story into why I have my allotment and the amazing journey it’s taken me on, so here goes.

Six nearly seven years ago my world was completed with the birth of my second daughter Mila, however things are never as simple as the fairy tales make out and just another 6 months down the line my world changed again but this time it wasn’t for the better.

During the pregnancy and birth of my second daughter I had really suffered from the day I found I was pregnant, suffering with hyperemesis, bleeds, hospital admissions, early labour scares, steroids, pain, SPD, long labour, emergency c-section, strep b, blood loss, blood transfusions, infections I had been through months of hell.

Since the birth of Mila I knew I had been through a rough time but knowing I took home a healthy baby girl and after a long recovery I was back to pushing her pram in the sunshine I thought everything was ok, but unfortunately that wasn’t enough, trauma has a funny way of sneaking in and catching you off guard.

On the surface of it all, and to most people childbirth is one of the most natural things to happen, but it doesn’t mean its not traumatic process to endure. What may seem traumatic for one person may not be traumatic to another and everyone will deal with it differently.

I knew that the whole 9 months of my pregnancy including the birth and the 12 weeks postpartum were extremely tough for me, constantly reliving scenarios in my head I thought I was tough enough to keep those difficult thoughts back, but it didn’t take long for it to bubble up to the surface.

Six months after the birth of Mila on the 5th March 2017 my life changed in ways I never thought it ever could, and as I write this I still sometimes can’t believe that it actually happened to me. I woke up to what I thought was a normal day, I got up and made myself and the children breakfast like normal, to a few hours later finding myself in the midst of a huge mental health breakdown.

It started with me sobbing uncontrollably and being unable to fully communicate what I was feeling or thinking, as the day progressed this carried on but I started to suffer with severe panic attacks, I couldn’t eat or drink and was unable to keep anything down.

I was sweating constantly, I felt hyper vigilant and had the most consuming and overwhelming feeling something bad was about to happen to me and anyone I loved. During the night I started to suffer with night terrors, flashbacks, severe sweating, intrusive thoughts, insomnia, feeling like I couldn’t breathe, hyper vigilance and physical pain.

After a trip to the local walk in centre and my symptoms literally being dismissed as a classic case of ‘postnatal blues’ followed by a GP appointment that lead to a prescription of antidepressants and a place on a long waiting list for therapy, I knew in my mind this was more, I was having intrusive thoughts of ending my life and feeling like my head was swamped with what I can only describe as a big black cloud of evil.

The doctors has mentioned CBT being a good therapy option so with the help of my mum and dad they paid privately for me to attend some CBT sessions and I was able to get an appointment with in a few days.

At this point I started to take my anti-depressant called citalopram and as it said on instructions it can make you worse before it kicks in and the next few days were the worst of my life, bed bound with my whole family looking after me making sure nothing bad happened, and I can’t remember much just disjointed horrific memories that’s till to this day my me tear up.

After my first CBT session I was diagnosed with PTSD- post traumatic stress disorder and it came as a bit of a shock. I had naively at this point only heard about PTSD in war veterans and from people suffering after bad RTC’s but I didn’t realise that it can happen from so much more.

I continued with my sessions and continued to take the anti-depressant as prescribes and after a few weeks I was sort of back on my feet and had found the Cognitive behavioural therapy to be very helpful but where was kirsty? I may have been back on my feet but I was the shell of a person I used to be and I had completely lost myself, so how do I get her back?

My Little Allotment

I did lots of reading online to constantly see that focus therapy was big in helping people with PTSD and that lots of people took on gardening as a form of therapy. I have very fond memories of going to my dad’s allotment when I was little and watering/deadheading my grandmas unbelievable hanging baskets as a child. Ive always said I wanted to have a go at growing my own just like my dad, so I took the plunge and applied for an allotment plot.

Just 3 weeks later I had the keys to my very own allotment plot in Lincoln and I tell you now I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I just know that it didn’t take a lot of time for the allotment and being outdoors to start working its natural magic and start to bring kirsty back out from under this big black cloud.

The allotment offered me a focus, somewhere that would constantly keep my mind and body active. It gave me a place to escape to be on my own and enjoy the quiet and equally a place to escape to with my children to have some quality time outdoors while the sun was shining.

The allotment got my senses working out to the maximum, the sights of the beautifully coloured vegetables, the smells of the incredible flowers and herbs, the texture of plants to touch, the taste of the wonderful homegrown organic foods and listening to the birds and the bees whilst enjoying working on the plot.

The funny thing was the allotment was offering me so much, but I didn’t know any of this was happening at the time. I just remember one key moment a few weeks after getting the keys that made me realise my allotment was so much more than just a plot of land.

I vividly remember being stood over a small bed on my allotment and looking at my onions growing being giddy with excitement that in a few months’ time I would be harvesting them to eat, my first ever home-grown onions.

Gardening and mental health

Then it hit me, that for the first time in months I was looking into the future, for the past few months I had been stuck in a place where I was sure I was going to die, where everything was traumatic, where I was sure that the simplest of day-to-day tasks would result in someone getting hurt.

I was stuck in a whirlwind of utter despair sure I wouldn’t ever find myself again, yet here I was stood looking at my allotment getting excited about growing onions and what I was going to be growing next, finally looking into the future.

It might seem drastic to say that the allotment saved me, but it did, and it continues to keep my mental health and wellbeing on track. I visit my allotment as much as I can and continue to make progress on a lifelong journey through PTSD, but the allotment simply doesn’t just grow my food it grows my mind too.

My Little Allotment- Kirsty Ward