A Carlisle woman is on a personal mission to help prevent suicide in Cumbria.
Lisa Birdsall has been working hard to raise awareness and support people struggling with their mental health after turning her life around over the past five years.
Diagnosed as bipolar, she struggled with her mental health from her late teens and dealt with periods of depression, an eating disorder and a suicide attempt.
Lisa also survived the suicide of her only sibling, her brother Stephen, who died in 2015.
Today she is well, managing her mental health, enjoying a successful career and looking after her family – and she’s passionate about doing everything she can to make a difference.
From helping with wellbeing events to organising fundraising days and volunteering non-stop – Lisa does an incredible amount of work to help other people on top of her full-time job.
She most recently became a lived experience advisor for the NHS and is also planning on launching an awareness and fundraising walk in the city called Stride Against Suicide.
She said: “I’m in the planning stage, and would like it to happen in Carlisle. I’m thinking of Bitts Park for a walk of five kilometres.
“My vision is the people who would come to it are the people who have suffered a loss or had thoughts themselves. It might be that they find kindred spirits within the whole process. It could be a natural support group for people.”
As well as being the operations team leader at The Cumberland in the premises department, Lisa is also one of the building society’s first mental health and wellbeing champions.
She works with 18 other volunteer colleagues to raise awareness and help anyone in the business who may be struggling and recently helped put on the firms first wellbeing event.
Lisa said: “We put on a wellbeing day for the whole business. It was a really successful whole day event looking at different aspects of mental and physical wellbeing.
“We had businesses and third sector organisations from across the county come together, such as I Can We Can and the Samaritans, sharing information and support from stalls and people doing talks.
“I’m hugely proud of what we have done as a team. And I’m proud of The Cumberland for their forward thinking and a really quite pioneering approach.
“I have suffered myself with my mental health and I understand just how vital it is to have that support and for it to be recognized that people’s mental health is important.”
But her work doesn’t stop there – she also takes part in a scheme called Suicide Safer Communities which aims to raise awareness and understanding across Cumbria.
It is run by the Shap-based charity Every Life Matters which she became a trustee for after volunteering in their suicide bereavement support groups.
Lisa added: “I started doing lived-experience talks. We got sign-posting fliers out to all the pharmacies in Cumbria and to barbers. Men don’t really like to open up about mental health and how they are feeling. We have trained some barbers as mental health first aiders, so they can spot the signs and sign-post appropriately.”
She has also recorded a training video on supporting those bereaved by suicide for Every Life Matters which is part of a package being rolled out virtually across the county this year via the Cumbria Learning and Improvement Collaborative.
In addition to her work for Every Life Matters, Lisa was taken on as a volunteer by Carleton Clinic mental health service in Carlisle, where she offers insights from her experience for service development, and sits in on interview panels for new staff and takes part in hospital and ward inspections.
Lisa said her own experiences – both with mental illness but also with recovery and moving forward – drive her to help others.
She added: “I think it just comes from knowing, myself, how dark a place that can be and trying to make things better for people so when they do get to that dark place they are armed with tools, and they know where they can get help.
“It is so important to have that education out there and have people with real stories to tell and stories that show it’s a journey you can go on, but things will get better.
“Obviously losing my brother the way that I did plays a huge role in why I do what I do. I want to make the issue of mental health more normal and less shameful and hidden. It’s always on my mind – what more can we do to help.”
