“Hope is in short supply when you are depressed. Severe depression is a place of complete, total and utter despair. I needed to understand that I’d been extremely ill and I needed hope that I could and would recover.”
Gill Hayes – TEDx Exeter 2017
Gill Hayes
Depression, Suicide and the Power of Hope
Every day, 17 families in the UK lose a loved one to suicide. Four years after her own suicide attempt, Gill Hayes aims to bring hope to others by sharing her story of recovery from severe depression. In this powerful and deeply personal talk, she challenges the stigma surrounding mental illness and explains how we can all help to save lives by understanding depression.
A four month
sabbatical in the French Alps in 2008 gave Gill Hayes and her family space and
time to think about what was really important to them in life. As a result her
husband sold his business and they relocated to Devon for a better quality of
life for themselves and their children.
Gill decided
to retrain as a yoga teacher. However, ‘living the dream’ didn’t go quite
according to plan and she became severely depressed. By sharing her story of
recovery, Gill wishes to spread hope to others with depression, to challenge
some of the beliefs around mental illness and to encourage us to all to play a
role in the mental health revolution.
Biography published 2017
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