WHY PH7 LIFE?
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I created ‘The Lady Detective Agency’ almost 10 years ago because I had no where to turn when I thought my then husband was being unfaithful. Providing services where there’s a gap in the market has served me very well in life so far, and I’ve spotted a new gap to be filled!
There’s only three other times in my life when I’ve felt I’ve had no where to turn. They all revolve around one thing. They’re the times when I’ve been in complete crisis mode, physically, mentally unwell and consumed with the thoughts of ending my life.
The last time I felt this was was January 2018. I’d just come out of A&E after a doctor didn’t have a clue what to do with me, he didn’t even understand when I couldn’t get my words out. I couldn’t tell him what was wrong, because the chemical imbalance in my brain didn’t allow me to! All I could say was ‘my brain is broken’, and that was after about a minute of trying to string the sentence together and a whole lot of tears. He kept asking me ‘why I felt like this’, but if I could give him that answer - I probably wouldn’t be there! He prescribed me medication to calm me down and anti depressants. That was it.
I sat in the car park with my dear life long friend who’d taken me there. After 5 solid days of crying, not eating or sleeping, even the police had been phoned to check id not committed suicide - She took me there because what else do we do when we see our friend completely broken? We go to a doctor! I may as well have had a broken leg, because I was so physically unwell with the symptoms of a mental illness, I quite simply didn’t function anymore.
The problem was, generally people come out of A&E fixed! I hadn’t. I was still the same as I was when I went in. There had been no miracle cure, because mental health doesn’t have one. I had a couple of prescriptions, for medication that would sedate me, that would help straight away, and another medication that would take at least 3 weeks to work...
I needed help then and THERE! Instead, ‘dear friend’ drove me to a 24 hour pharmacy, we collected the medication. She took me home and I blacked out until morning. When I woke up, everything was still the same.
One of the greatest things you can give to anyone with mental illness is ‘hope’. The NHS should prescribe that alongside anti depressants!
If I had come out of A&E and I knew of the work that Paul Howarth and his team at PH7 were doing, it may have helped me in the interim, and given me hope that I WILL get better.
I love the NHS, but here is the ‘mental health system’ in a nutshell...
‘I have depression’
‘Here are anti depressants (IF you want them) and CBT which is a 6 weeks counselling course (that you get after about 9 months + of waiting - my favourite part is when you get a phone call to make an appointment for another phone call that will then decide your requirements!!)...
If you don’t want the anti depressants, fine, but you’re still only getting that 6 week course... and you’ve a monumental wait on your hands before that.
If you don’t want the 6 week course or anti depressants... there’s no other option.
If I was told about ANY service that could help, it would have lifted me enough to continue another day.
Paul Howarth has been in a similar position to myself. He’s a former professional footballer who battled alcoholism to cope with his depression and he became suicidal. Quite frankly he’s turned his life around, and is set to transform many more.
I met Paul with a view to having the PH7 system our ‘LIFE expo’ charity. The meeting lasted 2 hours and 50 minutes ha! I went in thinking I’d hear about what they’re doing, and make a decision after speaking to so many more worthwhile causes. That didn’t quite happen. I went to their centre, learnt about Paul and ALL his visions (there’s approximately 1.3 million of them, but today we’re focusing on one - the others are for another day) surrounding mental health and KNEW, they are my LIFE charity!!!
They offer a six week anxiety and depression program. It costs the centre £750 per head, but it costs the person nothing.
Over the 6 weeks each person goes on a self healing journey. It’s not just about CBT, it’s about self love, care and spirituality. They go right to the deep cause of your issues and help you rebuild yourself. You leave the program with a mission statement for the future.
Again - god bless the NHS... but, the CBT programs I’ve been put on, they’re one session for 6 weeks. They’re also not every week, they get spaced out, some of my sessions were 3 weeks apart. They’re generally in some very ugly rooms, and often with a therapist you don’t always gel with (that’s important for CBT!!).
Paul’s program is 3 sessions a week for 6 weeks. It’s intensive, and in very beautiful surroundings with great people.
Here’s the maths!
PH7 program:
3 sessions per week, for 6 weeks.
Offering CBT, psychotherapy, reiki, yoga and massage.
Total cost £750 per person for the whole duration (all funded through the charity)
NHS program:
1 session per week for 6 weeks
CBT sessions only
Total cost to the NHS: £900
Recovery rates (important part)
PH7 program:
Anxiety - 100% recovery
Depression - 88% recovery
NHS program:
Anxiety and depression - 25% recovery
The facts speak for themselves!
The NHS are amazing, but they’re getting mental health wrong! We’re in an epidemic, and they need to act fast.
I fully believe one day Paul’s program and concept will far outweigh current services, and the NHS will wake up to his way of thinking!
So there it is. PH7 is my charity of the year!
All of my charitable money raised will go towards putting people through Paul’s PH7 program. £750 will put one person through it. I feel confident and exceptionally happy that we’re literally helping people.
The LIFE Expo is all about bettering our lives and following our goals. My goal is that people will view mental health as normal, that no one will ever feel like I once did and if they do - I know they’re getting the help they need, that makes ME feel happier and does wonders for my mental health!
Most importantly, we’re helping people to provide the service I wanted when I had no where else to turn - which to me, is absolutely EVERYTHING.
I wish Paul, his wonderful partner Lilly and their beautiful family all the best for the future. Thank you for letting us help you, I’m excited for what is to come!!
Rebecca
WHEN YOUR WORLD IS FALLING APART,
HERE IS WHERE YOU GO
THE FORMER PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALLER
WHO TURNED HIS LIFE AROUND AFTER WANTING
TO TAKE HIS OWN LIFE.
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WHAT IS PH7
Introducing PH7 LIFE
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Every week 84 men take their own life. That’s 1 every 2 hours. In the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 40.
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There has also been a dramatic ‘spike’ in women taking their own lives over recent years. As suffering and pain ripples through families and friends, loved ones are left behind to pick up the pieces.
We judge others to hide our internal fear and shame, when the walls of judgement come up we disconnect from our true self and our true essence to feel free. For some, when the loneliness and fear become too much, it can feel like the only way out is to get out. That becomes the reality.
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Our NHS faces many problems in trying to support this growing problem and waiting lists of 9 months and prescriptions of anti-depressants seem inadequate.
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PH7 LIFE has been created as a non-profit organisation that will run 4 & 8-week courses specifically working with people who are suffering from depression. We will integrate Psychotherapy & Counselling with Holistic Therapy and Group Therapy, with workshops 3 days per week to support and enable people to find the lost connection within. Helping them to move away from the past torment into a meaningful life.
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These programs are for people who may be absent from work suffering from depression, have had long-term depression and/or feel stuck and lost and want a new way of thinking. The intent is that depression is dealt with at the earliest stage rather than when it’s too late.
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If people are struggling and want to inquire about this support, please get in touch with us to access this funded program.
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If people are looking to raise money for a good cause and have been touched by the impacts of depression then please get in touch, we would love you to be part of this journey.
WHO IS PAUL?
READ PAUL'S BLOG
READ PAUL'S BLOG
Beamed live to a Sky Sports audience of millions, and in front of a sell-out Crown Ground, the maverick midfielder put then non-league minnows Accrington Stanley on the map with the winning penalty in a shoot-out against then Second Division Bournemouth in December 2003.
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He revelled in the adulation and attention his career brought.
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Twenty-two at the time, he had the world at his feet.
But he liked to party as much as he loved to play, and more than a decade later - away from the game - he hit rock bottom. So low that, he says: “I felt the world would be better off without me.”
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Howarth had forged a successful career as a financial advisor after finishing his playing career.
But instead of contentment the father of two found himself on a pathway to self-destruction – drinking heavily and closing himself off from family and friends.
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Sporting Chance, a clinic which provides help and support for current and former professional sports people experiencing difficulties with addiction, gave him a second chance.
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Now, 20 months sober, he is channelling his energies into the launch of PH7 Wellbeing Centre – a Psychotherapy & holistic health service – based in his hometown of Burnley.
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“I came out of playing football full-time and carried on playing part-time when I left Accrington (in the summer of 2005). I played for Droylsden and Hyde, while building up my career in financial planning,” Howarth, now 36, said.
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“I snapped my Achilles about three or four years ago, ran into some relationship difficulties and it just crept up on me. I just found myself in a place completely on my own, lost, didn’t know where to turn, didn’t know what to do.
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“I was pushing people away and my ego kept me from seeing the truth of what was happening. I didn’t want to show I was hurt or what was really going on for me inside. I acted and manipulated situations around me to make it fit how I wanted it to fit. I realise now I was protecting myself from a lot of hurt inside.
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“On the outside I was perceived to be doing pretty well in life and progressing but underneath I was crumbling. I was in a pretty bad place.
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“To go through professional sport and then to come out of it and go into business and be successful at that – to then find yourself at a place in life where you think the world’s going to be better off without you in it is a pretty dark place to get to.
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“The more that I detached and disconnected from people, the more poorly I got.
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“I went out drinking and partying in my 20s but it never quite got in the way of me progressing. My life was never really unmanageable through my behaviour back then.
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“But the reality is in the end it was torture. The consequences where stacking up and my life became unmanageable. I was drinking when I didn’t want to drink and I remember the trips to the doctors and the anti-depressants and I remember the dark places I ended up in. It was a long, long way away from the partying, and it was so subtle how it kind of crept up on me.”
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There are high profile professionals who have struggled with life after football, such as Paul Gascoigne, Stan Collymore and Paul Merson. but Howarth doesn’t put his problems solely down to facing life without football.
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“As I’m finding out it stems much further back than just having problems with coming out of football and changing your structure and identity,” he added.
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“They are surface things that you can look at and think ‘I get that’.
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“Army lads go through a similar thing. They lose their identity.
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“I’m not sat here because I came out of football. I’m sat here because I have always had a hole inside that I’ve struggled to fill. I’m sat here because I have never understood healthy ways of getting my needs met and how to manage my emotions.”
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It was football, however, that helped to save him.
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“It wasn’t until I got access to Sporting Chance that I really started to be able to understand my situation, and with that went a lot of the fear that I had with everything else – the fear of not being good enough, the fear of not being enough, the same fears that hold so many people back in live, addiction based or not. I’m learning that these are now my greatest assets.
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“I owe a lot of it to Sporting Chance and the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association), because without them I genuinely believe I wouldn’t be here,” he said, admitting he came “as close as it gets” to suicide.
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“Sporting Chance gave me the space and they helped me understand my situation.
“I was there for four weeks after some one-to-one sessions with a trained therapist before a space came up and he felt that was the right place for me and a good opportunity for me.
“I fought it at first. Obviously there’s a lot of fear around going in and why wouldn’t there be – you’re getting asked to look at yourself; you’re getting asked to take away the dummy that you’ve been soothing yourself with.
“It was a difficult time going in and a difficult couple of weeks, but I really grasped it in the end, in the last week or so.”
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After turning his life around, he is hoping to provide a platform to help others through PH7.
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“There are different areas here. There’s psychotherapy and counselling departments which I’m passionate about, we’ve already got a really good team formed here,” said Howarth, who is halfway through a post grad course in psychotherapy, from the Manchester Institute of Psychotherapy.
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“We’re going to be able to offer therapy from people with great experience and a low-cost clinic as well. I’m encouraging all the therapists to do volunteer groups. We’re doing one on bereavement and loss in the new year.
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“We’re providing holistic treatment – reiki and massage, we’ve got two yoga teachers working from here now.
“And then there’s the health side of it which will be nutrition and physio based, acupuncture.
“We’re also going to have a PH7 training academy where we’ll be running accredited courses from workshops to four-year courses.
“Then there’s the PH7 LIFE, which is the charity that we’ll set up. We’ve got some good people involved with that. We’ll be raising money and bidding for funding and we’ll be using the resources from our three areas to bring together the programme and target maybe one year young people with mental health issues, the next year it might be dementia.
“We’re going to keep it fresh. Children’s mental health is something I feel drawn to.”
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Of his own journey, Howarth said: “I don’t drink at all now. Twenty months complete abstinence, and I don’t miss it.
“There’s the odd time when I think ‘I’d like to go and have it somewhere’. But my life’s different now, I choose not to go out. I get my needs met in healthier ways and if you gave me 24 hours to live I’d be sitting back in the chair asking for a cup of tea and some biscuits not a pint of lager.”
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“There are days when it isn’t brilliant and I’m not doing the moonwalk across the landing with a trumpet. That happens. But 90 per cent of the time I’m in a good, stable, happy place and that only comes from changing your behaviour and way of living.
“I feel lucky and grateful that I’ve gone through that and something out there has put me back on the right track.”
