On Saturday 13^th May we had a charity dance event for Mental Health Awareness Week in aid of Mind Charity.  The event was a massive success with so much support from the local community.  We raised £467.80 for Mind Charity and raised a lot of mental health awareness!

Every year in the UK 1 in 4 people develop a mental health illness and at this event we were showing that it’s not only ok to talk about mental health it’s ok to dance about it too.  We did a 40 minute Sashay Line Latin and Ballroom exercise dance class.  Our mission at Sashay Dance is to give everyone something to dance about and it was fantastic to see such a diverse range of people grooving away!  The class was followed by a session on ‘how are you?’ by Lucile Paisant, Director of Mind It and Leeds Wellbeing Week, Lucile explained how answering this question can make a dramatic impact to your mental health.  The event was closed by myself sharing my own personal journey of how I overcame PTSD earlier this year.  This is the first time I had ever publicly spoke about this, it was great to give others hope that things can and will get better.

I mentioned in my story that I had PTSD symptoms after the attack but I didn’t even realise I had PTSD until 1 year later.  I thought PTSD was something you’d only get from being at war, I did find out eventually that this was not the case!  Thankfully I got the help I needed through IAPT in Leeds and the dancing helped by reducing stress/anxiety.  I’d like to share the mental health page from the NHS, it would be great for everyone who reads this to familiarise themselves with mental health illness symptoms not only to help themselves but to help others if they recognise symptoms in friends and family.  http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/mentalhealth/Pages/Mentalhealthhome.aspx

And most importantly a massive THANK YOU to every who supported the event, shout out to:

To all the wonderful people who made donations
For all our amazing raffle prizes (MI and Co, Chaophraya, Dance Studio Leeds, Nadine Kimani – No Hands Massage, Alison Downie – Travel Agent and my Mum for a nice bottle of wine)
To all the people who came to the event
To Lucile Paisant for her wonderful session on ‘how are you?’
To Sam Toolsie for the amazing photographs
To Leeds City Magazine for publishing our press release
To the Carriageworks for the discounted room hire
And to everyone who helped share across social media