My Story: Bethan

 Hi my name is Bethan I’m 21 from Chester and I’m the founder and owner of Brave Beauty! I'm willing to share a little brief story about myself and some experiences I’ve had as a reminder that help is out there and ‘it’s ok not to be ok' and accept help.

I have been living with mental health issues myself for about 5 years but I have only been receiving professional help the last year and a half. It took 4 long years for me to realize something was wrong as I was always the giver, the people pleaser, the one that makes everybody laugh which makes me happy. I started to realize it was less and less easy to stay happy and a lot easier to be sad all the time. I was frustrated I couldn’t work out why I was feeling this way and I felt silly talking about it as people would say “what do you have to be sad about”, “you’re never like this”, “come on cheer up” just like it was that easy...

I had a lot of past relationship issues with my child’s father which I won't go into detail about, and my parents divorced when I was 16 which was hard along with a few other deeper personal issues. In the end, I dragged myself to the doctors and was told I have severe depression and anxiety which had been left untreated for a long time. I also was diagnosed with having a trauma bond along with being part of domestic abuse.

This was such a shock to me as I didn’t know much about mental health at all and to be honest, I was very ignorant of the topic and at first, I shamefully thought it was a joke. I was completely unaware that mental abuse was part of ‘domestic abuse’ as I always had thought this would just have been physical. It took me a long time to deal with this and having to accept I had a problem and hadn’t been treated right. I also then went on to find out just a few days after that doctor's appointment that I was pregnant, so I was unable to get help for any of this the way they intended me to with medication...

I was going to be a single mum on top of the stress of having a mental health problem and what I was already going through with my past. I really didn’t know how I was going to cope. I had suicidal thoughts and there were some very hard times over the last year especially having the whole pregnancy and labor during a global pandemic. The depression and stress caused growth problems which made me and my little girl very poorly and she was eventually born at 4lb 5oz - 2 weeks early.

I am pleased to say I am ok and things are ok! I never thought I would be able to say this but I made it and I now have a 6-month-old daughter Novarlee-Mae who is my little best friend. ‘It is ok not to be ok' and I really hope my business can be successful in helping other people.

https://brave-beauty.co.uk/
IG: @bravebeautylashes