Round Two: To Therapy and Back Again
Therapy. The thing we arguably all need, but most of us never talk about.
Warning: This piece contains discussion of mental health, including references to suicide and suicidal ideation. Reader discretion is advised, particularly for those who may find such topics distressing.
How I describe therapy to those who’ve never been is like those unexpected moments in group conversation when all focus turns to you, how you're really doing. And you’re sitting in that uncomfortable space - fully exposed with all eyes on you for the next 50 minutes.
Even though it’s just the two of you in the room, it always feels more crowded.
There’s you. There’s your therapist.
There’s the version of your therapist in your head—colder, more judgmental.
There’s the version of you that hates you.
The version of you you hate.
And sometimes, like the season finale of a well-loved '90s sitcom, every major and minor character from your life comes into frame and confirms your worst fear: you are not important enough to be here.
But you are.
As of December 2024, 91.2% of mental health referrals were seen within six weeks, surpassing the NHS target of 75%. But the wait between the initial assessment and the start of treatment was still an average of 53 days, with wild regional variation: 12 days in some places, 153 in others. Off the top of my head, I waited around 70 days from confirmation of the referral form to my first treatment.
I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) with comorbid Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and depressive symptoms in 2022. I’m recommended CBT - that’s cognitive behavioural therapy. It's the most common form of treatment on the NHS.
Soon I found myself in a small room painted a vivid shade of lilac, in a practice just off Park Street, Bristol, sitting on a chair louder than the traffic outside. It was my first therapist’s office. He asked me the question I’d been dreading: Why are you here?
“I don’t know really. I think I have to be?”
“Do you want to be here?”
“No. Not really.”
I resisted it from the start. “I don’t need help” had been my mantra through my early twenties. But eventually, it became clear I wasn’t getting better. After the pandemic, a new kind of anxiety took hold. I stopped going out unless I absolutely had to - going to work felt insurmountable. Sleep became elusive. I needed help.
That’s how I ended up in the lilac room, a little under three months after submitting my referral. I was told I hadn’t waited long compared to others. “You’re lucky, you’ve timed this well,” the receptionist told me; it didn’t feel like good timing to me. I weighed up leaving the waiting room and never starting, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t face the judgment from the desk. So I stayed out of spite.
Then came more dreaded questions: What brings you here? What do you want to get out of this? How are you? I gave the same answers every time: “I don’t know” - “Fine.” Flat. Hollow.
A kind of stalemate developed.
“How was your week?” — Fine.
“How’s work going?” — Fine.
“Anything you want to talk about today?” — Not really.
I wasn’t hiding because I didn’t want help. I was hiding because I didn’t think I deserved it.
Eventually, I cracked. Not because I wanted to, but because I was paying for these sessions—even if it was a subsidised rate, it was still taking most of my money each month. If I was going to spend that much, I had to make it count. So I told them everything. Each tiny, rotten artefact was laid out in full view. I kicked myself for not doing it sooner.
I wasn’t eligible for free sessions on the NHS at the time, so I had to fund them by pulling shifts in pretty much every theatre in the South West technical department.
Over the sessions, my confidence grew. My perspective shifted. I realised I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I moved back to Oxfordshire, I finished my degree, and started another, I acted again. For a year and a half, I thrived. I was moving forward in what felt like a hundred directions.
And then, for one reason or another, I wasn’t. The me that hated me was back and louder than ever. I put off asking for help. It’s humiliating to ask for it the first time, but the second? How dare I, how dare I not be fixed after all that work? So I buried it. I convinced myself it would pass. It didn’t. It doesn’t.
In July 2024, I found myself filling out an online referral form at 2 a.m. for CBT.
Have you made plans to end your own life? I clicked ‘No.’
Have you thought about ending your own life? I clicked ‘Yes.’
In the text box, I wrote: “I know I can’t do it, and that’s what’s making me hate myself more.” A little over two months later, I was offered talking therapy online, and I was back in the chair, so to speak.
My second therapist told me in his thick Yorkshire accent, over a patchy Zoom connection, “You have anxiety. You also have depressive tendencies. Probably OCD.” Then he asked, “Any questions on that?” I looked at him, still in my pyjamas at 3 p.m., “Am I f****d?” I asked “No”. He replied, “But I need to know—do you want to do this?” “Yes.”
We met once a week for the next few months, and slowly, I began to unravel it all again.
Had I not got help in the first place, I don’t know where I’d be. I’d probably still be stuck in that flat in Bristol, miserable, with those thoughts circling endlessly.
According to the charity MIND, one in five people will experience suicidal thoughts in their lifetime. It’s more common than we think, and yet it still feels isolating—like something we’re meant to hide.
But luckily, that’s changing, thanks to people like Charlie.
I met Charlie five years ago. We were both actors in the Oxford theatre scene, and they are one of the most open and honest people I’ve ever met.
“I’m a suicide survivor myself, so I know how important this issue is” -
Charlie Hansen
This May, Charlie took on the “5K a Day” challenge in support of CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably). After spending over a decade fighting to access proper mental health care through the NHS, they know firsthand how underfunded and overstretched mental health services can be—and how crucial it is to support alternative organisations like CALM.
“We need to push for better, or we’ll keep losing people to suicide,” Charlie says.
Despite a busy calendar, Charlie made sure to schedule every walk, weaving each 5K into their day with care. “Planning is everything,” they explain. “I chose walking over running because I knew it would be more sustainable with my chronic illness.”
The challenge has brought unexpected benefits too, especially in terms of boosting their mood and helping them reflect on how walking could remain part of their routine beyond May.
“It’s made me rethink the way I move around the city,” Charlie notes. “It’s made me question the obsession with getting from A to B as fast as possible in London.”
When asked what the challenge has meant to them, Charlie recalls a moment that brought everything full circle: a friend told them that by surviving and sharing their story, they’re helping others stay alive too.
“That really stuck with me,” they say.
“If I can improve someone else’s journey, I’d like to,” Charlie adds. “We need to treat mental health not just as a personal issue, but as a systemic one—inequality, inaccessibility, and lack of support all play a role.”
The situation is especially dire for young people. More than 150,000 under-18s have been waiting over two years for mental health support, with 609,000 children and adolescents on waiting lists overall. Cases like Jen Bridges-Chalkley are heartbreaking reminders of what happens when people fall through the cracks.
Healing isn’t linear. I would do therapy again, because it works—not like a magic trick, but like scaffolding you build and rebuild around your life. It’s hard, slow, and often painful. But it's worth it.
So, what is to be done moving forward?
I’m no expert in this, but I feel we need to stop treating mental health as a side note in our healthcare system and start recognising it as needing an urgent rethink.
We’re starting, but it needs more. It needs more than just awareness campaigns—it means real investment. We need a political commitment to long-term mental health reform.
We need shorter waiting lists, earlier interventions, and parity of esteem between physical and mental healthcare—not just on paper, but in every budget, every clinic, every policy decision.
We have to change the system. Not tomorrow. Now.
Charlie’s fundraiser is live until Saturday, the 7th of June - you can donate here.