My name is David Alfie-Ward. I’m a 30 year old ambassador for Norfolk and Waveney Mind.
I’m an ambassador for Mind because I suffer with bipolar disorder. I’m actually originally from London and I moved to Norfolk in 2019, where I had a mental health breakdown and Norfolk and Waveney Mind were very strong support networks for me.
I’m in show business. I’m actually a standup comedian professionally, and there’s a lot of pressure that comes with that job and I’ve been suffering for a long time with mental health, but always kind of having to put on a show, you know, never allowing myself to address the emotions and the feelings that were going on in my head, never going professionally to the doctor, and then one day it got too much and I took myself to a train station and I attempted to end my life there.
I was pulled back by a passenger on the station and I moved to Norfolk where my mum had retired, originally just to get away from the hustle and bustle of London for a couple of months. I stayed and I still wasn’t very well at all.
In February 2019, I overdosed and I was found and had to have my stomach pumped, and that’s when Norfolk and Waveney got involved with my story.
They were there to support me. They met me for coffee twice a week and they were really that stopgap because there’s such a waiting list to get professional help in terms of psychiatrists and diagnosis and medication and Mind were that support unit that got me from attempting suicide to the professional help.
They filled that gap to make sure that I did have all the support I needed, that I was going to be alright.
I saw how it affected my mum and my sisters, how worried they were about me. To this day, I’m back to work now and I’m doing very, very well, but still, you know, if I don’t check in with people for a couple of days, I get phone calls and you don’t realise the ripple effect it has when you have a mental health breakdown on the people that care for you.
What Mind does and why it is so important is they help people that are in the lowest of the lows that the human brain can get.
I always say that Mind didn’t save my life, but they kept me on a life support machine until I was strong enough to breath again.
I think it’s important to understand because, still to this day, there’s a stigma around it and it’s not right, it’s not how we should be living our lives in this day and age.
We should be accepting mental health just as we accept the common cold or tonsillitis. People get unwell and they get physically unwell, they get mentally unwell and there’s no shame in that, but there still seems to be the stigma to it, so these services like Mind and other services that allow us to not just, you know, get the help that we need, but just being there and flying a flag for mental health is raising awareness to those who may not accept it or to break it down for people that have a stigma towards it.
Just by seeing Mind out and about campaigning will help them understand that this is a bigger problem. This is a huge problem, and we can address it if we work together.
If you need urgent help, visit mind.co.uk for emergency advice.