Refusing to listen to the voices in my head

WHEN Ann Mooney was just 13 years old, she was thrown off a horse and hit by a passing car.

She was lucky to survive. But since that day, the 51-year-old has heard voices in her head and she still continues to hear them now.

Ann has faced mental health issues throughout her life, and she now helps other sufferers in her role as chairman of mental health charity, Service User Network Swindon (SUNS), in Victoria Road.

“The horse bolted on Pinehurst Road and I fell off. A car hit me and the horse kicked me back in the air and on to another car,” she said.

“I had bad head injuries, and when I left the hospital I started hearing men’s voices.

“They were telling me to do things, telling me people hated me, telling me I was fat and telling me that people were trying to hurt me.

“That is what led to me to stop eating when I was about 14. I just didn’t want to eat and I wasn’t hungry anymore. I noticed I was getting thinner and it just got to the stage where if I tried to eat I couldn’t keep it down.

“I started self harming then too, because that is what the voices were telling me to do.”

Ann was admitted to Pewsey Hospital before being sent to an adolescent unit in Oxford.

She later married her husband when she was 17, and they have four children together.

“At first, the boys became my life and I hid all the skeletons in the cupboard. I was coping,” she said.

“I didn’t tell anyone about the voices then. But one morning I saw someone who reminded me of the past. At that point I broke down and was taken to the Seymour Clinic in Old Town.”

Since then, Ann, who has been diagnosed with temporal lobe epilepsy, schizophrenic episodes, personality disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder, has spent her life in and out of mental health institutions.

She suffers from dissociation, where she reverts to her child self, and night terrors.

She also hears five different voices in her head all the time.

“One of them is really nasty, I call him the leader. Three of them can be quite nasty, and there is one nice one. They all sound completely different,” she said.

Ann, who has been involved with SUNS for 15 years, set up Swindon Listening Line five years ago after attempting to take her own life.

“I was feeling suicidal and contacted the crisis team. But because I wasn’t suicidal to the point I was going to act on it, it was just thought, they didn’t see it as a crisis,” she said.

“Two hours later I acted on it.

“While I was in hospital I realised there was a gap between being in a crisis and just needing someone to talk to.

“I started working on setting up Swindon Listening Line while I was still in hospital.”

Ann, who has been chairwoman of SUNS for 13 years, said the charity is like a family to her.

“I have turned my life around by actually giving something back and helping people,” she said.

“The good thing about being here is that I am around people suffering with the same problems and they understand.

“When I was in mental health care I felt like nobody understood my mental illness and nobody listened to me. A lot of people just thought I was attention seeking.

“When I am here I am around people who empathise with me and I don’t have to be ashamed to show when I am ill.

“It allows me to be normal. You hear everyone else talk about their illness and just for those few minutes you forget your own.

“When I was younger I tried to go to work but I was bullied because I find it difficult to cope in normal situations. Sometimes I find going to the shops daunting.

“SUNS is service user led so I get just as much out of this myself as it helps me to try to forget my own problems. This place supports me as much as I support them.”

Ann said she doesn’t want anybody else to suffer like she did.

“No matter what you have gone through in life, don’t do what I did. I hid away for too long and should have spoken out earlier.

“Whether you are being physically abused or feeling depressed, you need to speak out so you can move on and get better. It’s never too late to speak out.

“Even if it’s post traumatic stress disorder involving something that happened as a child, you can still speak out now.

Helping people to build confidence SUNS was founded in 1998 with the aim of supporting and empowering service users in the Swindon area.

It is run by service users themselves and gives people the opportunity to have their say about the care they are receiving in a safe and friendly atmosphere in Victoria Road.

Helping people to build confidence

SUNS, which employs staff to work with service users, works alongside many mental health providers to help make sure service users get the care they deserve.

The charity helps service users build confidence and speak out, and encourages them to participate in the development of mental health services.

Ann said: “SUNS is here to support people and help them to have a voice. We can’t promise anything but we will do our best.”

Members of SUNS are taking part in a personal challenge walk on May 18. They are looking for volunteers and sponsors to help raise funds. To contact SUNS phone 01793 436174 or visit www.swindonsuns.org.

“I want people to contact SUNS or the Swindon Listening Line if they need help.”

There every evening to listen

THE Swindon Listening Line is a free and confidential service that is manned by a team of specially trained staff and volunteers.

Ann said: “The Swindon Listening Line has gone from strength to strength and many people from Swindon cannot thank the staff of the Swindon Listening Line enough. They have helped thousands of people in Swindon.”

The Swindon Listening Line is looking for volunteers. To volunteer contact SUNS on 01793 436174. The line is open from 6pm to midnight. To speak to someone, phone 01793 332520.

The mother of murdered Becky Godden-Edwards has offered her support to a Swindon-wide charity campaign commissioned by SUNS. Karen Edwards joined staff at SUNS in February as they launched wristbands featuring the number of the Listening Line. The campaign is intended to keep young people safe on the streets at night-time.

The bands have been commissioned by SUNS to encourage young people to text the helpline if they find themselves stranded or in a potentially dangerous situation.

Karen, 53, said she hoped the campaign would help prevent young women like Becky or Sian O’Callaghan, who was abducted and murdered by mini-cab driver Chris Halliwell on the streets of Old Town in March 2011, from being victims of crime.