Why Mandie was driven to suicide bids (From Gazette)

Why Mandie was driven to suicide bids

8:00pm Wednesday 22nd September 2010 in Local News

AS Mandie Holgate stepped out into the road she didn’t bother looking to see if traffic was coming. She wanted to die.

With good looks, an immaculate house, beautiful, well turned-out children and a loving marriage, no one would have guessed she was suffering severe clinical depression.

After the birth of her second child in 2004, Mandie, 36, began to experience depression, which led to two suicide attempts and almost being hospitalised.

Now a successful businesswoman, having founded the Business Woman’s Network two years ago, she is happy to talk about it, to help remove the stigma from mental illness.

Mandie, from East Road, Mersea, says: “For my first suicide attempt I remember reading all the medication labels warning not to take them all at once.

“I took all 16 tablets and when I woke up the next morning, instead of being relieved I had survived, I was furious. I very nearly wrote to the companies to tell them it was false advertising.

“Looking back it is almost funny, but actually it was an incredibly sad and lonely time.”

In a very vulnerable state, Mandie tried to keep everything under wraps.

She says: “The kids never knew. I kept it all a secret, including the suicide attempts.”

She would drive her car imagining fatal accidents, or walk across roads without looking, thinking if she died it wouldn’t be her fault.

“I also self harmed,” she says.

“My mum, dad and husband knew, but no one else. My husband worked an hour-and-a-half away, but he would always come home if I needed him. I used to be OK until he came through the door, then I would run and hide.

“I can’t remember clearly, but my husband says one time I was hiding behind the sofa crying and wouldn’t come out. I was manic, I would clean all the time and people would look at me and think I was functioning well. The house was clean, children well turned out, I lost a lot of weight and they would look at me and say ‘I wish my life was like yours’.”

But her condition escalated over 18 months.

She says: “At one point I was looking to have electric shock treatment and I might have had to be hospitalised.

The turning point came when Mandie picked up a leaflet on Colchester Mind and decided to go along.

She admits: “I was the biggest culprit of believing the mental health stigma. I thought giving in was weakness and that to admit I was ill was weakness.

“In 2005, I started at Colchester Mind and did two ten-week courses and I gradually started to feel better.

“I started cognitive behavioural therapy and counselling and they taught me coping techniques and I learnt how to think differently.

“They taught me it was OK to say no to meeting friends and running errands and have a quiet afternoon with the children instead. This is when I started to tell people about the illness and accepted it myself.”

For many years Mandie was a manager of a large vehicle repair centre and recovery agency. Feeling better, she was determined to put her know-how and experience to use.

She began training as a life coach and set up the Business Woman’s Network, now running in Essex Suffolk, Norfolk and Hertfordshire.

She says: “A lot of issues surrounding women in business is not about business, but about personal life and confidence. If you can get that right then women excel.”

For details of courses, visit www.thebusinesswomansnetwork.co.uk or www.mandieholgate.co.uk