Let’s talk about mental health...

I’ve always considered myself lucky to have never had any problems with my mental health, although my physical health has taken quite a big hit. However, even if you don’t struggle with mental health on a day to day basis, joining a placement like this can really affect your mental health in good ways and bad ways.

We’ve 100% challenged every inch of ourselves on placement.

I feel as even though my personal development has really improved, my mental health and feelings during placement have affected how I‘ve felt throughout the last half of this cycle. This can range from emotions such as hearing dogs getting beaten whilst I’m showering outside and knowing there’s nothing I can do about it, to feeling extremely homesick and alone. These have been life changing and hard emotions for me to process as I’ve never had to deal with any feelings like these before.

Even though we‘re surrounded by people all day, every day, feeing lonely is common in the group. I feel at my worst when I’ve had a rough day and my family are too busy with their lives back in England to call or don’t reply to my texts. There’s only so much you can do when the time difference is so big but that thought doesn’t stop you feeling lonely.

We have also lost 4 members of this cycle who have returned to the UK. Nobody knew how intense and challenging this is because every Facebook and blog is sugarcoated to the fullest, again, the reason why I wanted to write this blog. There’s some things here that I cannot share on this blog because it would affect higher powers of VSO, but our worries and problems of this cycle are slowly being shared and listened to.

This morning I asked the team for quotes on their mental health during Cambodia and here’s what they said:

“Sometimes I feel like it’s not an option to not be okay.”

“I find it worrying when I feel like I have no fight left. It’s not like me.”

“I feel lonely and get frustrated with the lack of progress here. I bottle up my emotions.”

'I used to have very low mental health, got quite ill and had to have treatment. I was worried it would return here but I didn't think it would effect my placement enough to declare on my form. It hasn't been a problem on placement but I think if it was a problem I wouldn't have anyone here to open up to about it.'

“My mental health has been fairly stable throughout the majority of the cycle, however there are some challenges which I have met over this period. I’m an introvert, therefore long periods of socialising are draining and privacy is my own real method of realisation. The cycle has placed me so far out of my comfort zone in this regard as I cannot retreat into an enclosed space, and find basic tasks difficult when I’m mentally exhausted. I find myself unable to give basic greetings and even eye contact, sometimes feeling too fearful of walking into a room if someone else is there. When I need to do something simple like my laundry, I may just stay in my room alone until the area in which I need to do my chores has been vacated. However, while these trends have not fully gone away, they have improved significantly over the course of my time in Cambodia.”

“The progress here is really slow, sometimes we feel like we’re not changing lives at all. We have to remind ourselves it’s baby steps and nobody will change the world In 3 months.”

”I feel stressed but for reasons other than the placement. If you have things going on outside of the work it can be difficult to find time to focus on it.”

”I’m in a room of 20 people and feel the loneliest I have in my life. It’s not due to the amazing people on placement but I just can’t shake this feeling of being alone”

”Sometimes I cry myself to sleep because I want to go home but I don’t want to let everyone In Cambodia and the UK down, but we’re almost finished and I’m proud that I’ve stuck this out”.

“Sometimes things get too much. It’s a huge challenge to do a simple task and that really gets to me”.

“Things that don't normal affect me affected me in Cambodia. I didn't feel like myself some of the time. I'm not a short tempered person, but I was there. I don't normally care what people think of me, but I did there. I don't normally panic about stuff, but I did there. I had an amazing time in Cambodia, everyone was amazing. However, I was always worrying near the end because I didn't feel well. It all just got too much for me that I needed to get out of that situation.”

We do have good days, some really good days. We’ve had 1 out of community social where we went to a pool and had a great day. Sometimes the bad outweighs the good and sometimes it’s the other way round. We‘re very grateful to be here but I think that’s another reason why people are scared to leave early and we want to see out the rest of the trip now. Everyone is proud of each other for sticking this through now we’re so close to the end. But this is pure non sugarcoated words of volunteers and team leaders in VSO and I know people on other placements with ICS are exactly the same. This is an amazing and once in a life time experience, but it comes at a cost, as do most things in life.

Even though we don’t feel like we’ve helped change the world dramatically (this was expected), we can tell that we have made solid impacts in people’s life’s, whether it’s giving them the skills they need for a brighter future or making life changing friendships.

We are incredibly grateful that we have been a part of this journey and returning as new people - we just don’t want to come back missing a part of ourselves.