Post-natal depression and me, how talking and support have helped

I was diagnosed with having post-natal depression 7 years ago, a few months after the birth of my son, Jack. I have two children, Jack and Holly.  I can still remember how ashamed I felt admitting I needed help. I was so low during a period when I should have been so happy. I felt like such a failure not being able to pull myself together and be the bubbly, happy person everyone knows me to be.

I kept my feelings to myself for a few months before asking my husband, Andrew for help.  I was in a place of trying to understand why I felt the way I did and not wanting to see anyone or leave the house.

Over the years, the way I feel and what I can only describe as periods of darkness I feel, haven’t changed. But the way I handle myself and cope with my feelings has got easier. I’ve found coming to work has been a huge help. There are days I just want to hide under my duvet and not face the world but coming in has helped me bring out the best in me and be the person I want to be again.  I find this hard to say, as I realise at home, with my loving and supportive family they are the ones who suffer the most from me not being the best mummy or wife.

Moving forward

Until recently, I hadn’t ever wanted to share how I feel with anyone at work. I felt I couldn’t. It would be career suicide. I was worried people would think I was some sort of crazy person.

But in January this year this changed. Over Christmas I’d been ill with the flu, things just spiralled and I didn’t want to come to work at all.  I met with Andy, my manager, cried and cried, and shared my feelings. Andy was brilliant, he listened, didn’t judge and was as supportive as ever. Nothing has changed and I haven’t been treated any differently which is what I was most worried about. My biggest fear is that people see me differently and then act in a different way towards me.

I cannot express the sense of relief I felt to share my feelings; it was like a huge weight had been lifted, like I could be open and free.

Support and encouragement

It is okay to not be okay. My friends, family and work family are all amazing and love me no matter what I am feeling or going through. I realise now everyone is there to support me and doesn’t judge me.

I wanted to share my story in the hope of inspiring others to reach out for help and support and to encourage managers to be as supportive as mine.

Charlotte Bleasdale
Programme Manager, Supplier Engagement and Change Integration

 

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this story you may be interested in joining Aspire and our parent and careers network, PACT. You can email Aspire at aspire@coop.co.uk.

For more support, you can also contact:

PANDAS Helpline – for women experiencing pre and post-natal depression: www.pandasfoundation.org.uk/helpline/.

Co-op Employee Assistance Programme: colleagues.coop.co.uk/employee-assistance-programme.

A Colourful Past: India’s ‘Festival of Colours’

I’m absolutely thrilled to be part of the Co-op’s Rise Network and tell you all about my favourite Hindu festival – Holi.

I’ve been working with the Co-op for over 2 years now initially working as a Commercial Analyst and now within the Co-op’s Data Management Team as a Business Analyst.

I was born and raised here in the UK with my roots going back to India. I grew up in Manchester with a traditional Hindu family. Me and my two sisters were all taught the basis of Hinduism. It’s so exciting to have been part of this Holi celebration every year since birth.

What is Holi? 

Every year, at the beginning of spring in India, is our openhearted Holi Festival – a.k.a an all-out dry powdered paint war!

Holi, also known as the Festival of Colors, has a long tradition rooted deeply in Hinduism. For many, it’s a day to forgive and create new beginnings. Like many other festivals in India, Holi signifies a victory of good over evil. We celebrate the joy of friendship, the coming of spring and equality for all.

While it is unknown exactly when Holi dates back to, the first mention is believed to have been in 4^th century.  

What can you expect on Holi? 

Holi took place this year on 20 March. During the festival, our friends and family all gather together and play Holi outside and splash each other with bright powdered colours. The brighter the colour, the better.

The coloured powders that we use in Holi represents love, happiness, and the freedom we have to live our lives vibrantly. Holi is celebrated across the globe, including here in England. Back in 2016, I lived and worked in New York and I was proud to have joined a beautiful crowd playing Holi on 48^th Street.

You’ll never have experienced anything like this…people chasing each other equipped with packets of dry powdered paint, splashing everyone from head to toe in colour whilst singing and dancing their hearts out to classical Bollywood or Bhangra music. It’s a free-for-all…and so much fun.

It’s a time where we all get to connect with our family and friends, meet others, laugh and forget our worries.

What I love the most about Holi is the fact that we all have a smile on our faces – enjoying the company of everyone around us. You feel proud to be part of a festival where you can see people happy on such a big scale. It’s amazing, wonderfully different, a congregation of music, food and colours. There is no better way to experience the Indian culture than to celebrate the Holi festival.

Kavita Mistry
Business Analyst

South Asian cultural event

Hey, Atif here,

Following the success of our Caribbean Event in November last year, the Rise Network invited colleagues from across Co-op to attend a South Asian themed evening.

South Asia is a region of the world that comprises the nations of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka. At Co-op, we have a diverse mix of people with origins from these countries and they all bring with them varied customs and traditions.

It was a family friendly affair with a fantastic turn-out from across the Co-op where colleagues mingled together to talk about food, cultures, music and even work!

We put on traditional clothing and some of my colleagues even did couple of dance numbers, I really need to up my game on that. Any takers for a dance lesson with me?! I can start with Salsa, Tango and make my way to Bhangra (a punjabi folk dance to the beat of drums).

Rise organises events like these with the aim to promote diversity and raise cultural awareness in its truest sense. When you know your colleagues better, you work better together and create a thriving environment for the common goal of serving our members and communities.

These events are a success because of the involvement of everyone, no matter what their background. If you have any ideas to share for other events or if you’d like to join us, let us know Rise@coop.co.uk.

Diversity is good for communities, and it’s good for business.

Atif Hussain 
Business Intelligence Analyst (Co-op Property)

We have to demand and ensure equality of life outcomes

In our last blog Hazel Reeves talked about becoming the sculptor of Manchester’s newly unveiled statue of Emmeline Pankhurst. Until ‘Our Emmeline’, 16 out of 17 statues across the city were men, the single woman being Queen Victoria; her statue in Piccadilly Gardens was unveiled over 100 years ago, before women even had the right to vote.

Hazel’s been involved in women’s rights activism globally, and we wanted to find out more. We asked her about what being a woman means to her and what she feels is needed to create female empowerment in the workplace.

Our network seeks to empower women, and encourages our members to push for equality – what does empowerment and equality mean to you as a woman?

When I worked promoting gender equality, I had colleagues who spent a lot of time tousling with definitions of empowerment in relation to women. So I thought I would cheat and nick one of their definitions (from Rosalind Eyben, Naila Kabeer and Andrea Cornwall in 2008): ‘Empowerment is fundamentally about power – about the power to redefine our possibilities and options and to act on them, the power within that enables people to have the courage to do things they never thought themselves to be capable of, and the power that comes from working alongside others to claim what is rightfully theirs’. And it can’t be a top-down process.

For me, gender equality and women’s empowerment is about transformation – transforming gender power relations. It’s not enough to give women equal opportunities to men as there isn’t a level playing field. We have to demand and ensure equality of life outcomes. This means we first have to challenge discrimination and violence against women, and we have to challenge limiting gender stereotypes and sexist attitudes and behaviour.

I’m sure Aspire is much-needed. I’ve yet to find an organisation where [a network of this kind] is not needed. The time is right to push harder for gender equality – remember that there is no justice without gender justice.

What is the most useful piece of advice you’ve ever been given, and how did it shape who you are?

It wasn’t advice as such, but I saw my mum, only educated until she was aged 14, do spectacular things in addition to bringing up me and my two sisters. She was a racing cyclist and won medals in national races. She founded and ran a bird hospital for over 40 years. She was a book collector and bric-a-brac dealer. She did a BA in her 60s at Surrey University. She showed me that women could do whatever they put their mind to, and not only that – they could excel.

A piece of advice I received later in life was actually a quotation by George Eliot on a greetings card. She says ‘It is never too late to be what you might have been.’ It was a risk changing career from a well-paid research manager promoting women’s rights, to becoming an artist. But George Eliot inspired me all the way, and now I’m very happy as a full-time sculptor, working to commission, doing what I should have always done but not regretting my rather convoluted route to my final destination.

For more information on the WoManchester project, visit https://www.womanchesterstatue.org/.

 

For the design of the statue I wanted to show Emmeline as the courageous, determined, dignified and elegant activist she was

As International Women’s Day fast approaches (8 March), we’ve started to think about the women who inspire us and the impact that empowered women in history have had on our everyday lives.

Hazel Reeves is the sculptor behind the recently unveiled Emmeline Pankhurst statue in St Peter’s Square, Manchester. Working from her studio in the West Sussex countryside, she does a lot of work to promote women’s rights internationally. As well as creating the bronze of Emmeline for Manchester, she’s made other artworks celebrating women, including one of women biscuit factory workers, the Cracker Packers, for Carlisle. In this first blog, she talks about what Emmeline – both statue and figure – means to her.

What made you enter the competition for the Emmeline Pankhurst commission?

I saw the call for artists and immediately knew I had to apply. I’m never happier than when I’m combining my passion for portraiture with telling stories of struggles for social justice and redressing the lack of representation of women in public art. Emmeline is a hero of mine, of Manchester’s, and of women’s rights advocates across the world. Easy.

What does Emmeline’s legacy mean to you?

I admire her courage and tenacity in the face of sometimes violent resistance and her ability to inspire women of all classes to rise up and demand the vote. She brought about new forms of activism and pioneered concerns that became central to feminism later in the century.

Gaining the vote and enabling women to stand for public office weren’t just end goals but a route towards women shaping the decisions that affect their lives, challenging and changing discriminatory legislation and carving out space for women to be whatever they want to be. My choices and achievements in life have been hugely advanced by the sacrifices of the suffragettes and suffragists.

It’s befitting that the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst – affectionately known as ‘Our Emmeline’ – was unveiled on 14 December 2018, the centenary of when the first women voted in a general election in 1918. Despite this, both my grandmothers had to wait until 1928 before they were able to vote.

What impact do you want the statue to have and how did you include that in your design?

I wanted the statue to highlight Emmeline Pankhurst’s extraordinary contribution to progressing women’s rights, and remind us of Manchester’s radical legacy as the birthplace of Emmeline and the suffragette movement. But I also wanted her back on Manchester’s streets, to be a catalyst, to move people to action. We need her as much as ever to inspire us all – women and men – to rise up and demand gender equality and demand the end to violence against women. I dedicated the statue to our modern-day Emmelines, who are tirelessly working for women’s rights, and to the future generations of Emmelines.

For the design of the statue I wanted to show Emmeline as the courageous, determined, dignified and elegant activist she was. The scene is one Emmeline would be very familiar with – the suffragettes are ringing bells, summoning people from their homes and workplaces, to listen to Emmeline. Someone grabs a kitchen chair as a makeshift rostrum and the 5ft Emmeline climbs atop and addresses the noisy crowds, urging women to rise up and demand the vote. This design nods to the work she has done but also to the work that is left to be done.