Life Blogger Series: My Mental Health Journey

Tuesday 02 September 2025

As part of our national Participation Programme, children and young people under the care of Five Rivers take part in skills-based workshops throughout the year. Some of the young people have recently taken part in a life blogging workshop in partnership with the Royal Literary Fund and produced short blogs about their care experience.  

Cruise Star, one of these young people has written this blog about mental health, reflecting on their experience. As with all the young people in our care, our Participation programme is part of the support we offer young people, who are often supported by our Clinical Services team. 

The reason I have chosen to talk about mental health is because I don’t feel as though enough people understand or talk about it. Mental health can affect everyone and it’s crucial that young kids and adults understood that it’s just as important as physical health. In the last couple years, I have had a few friends who have struggled with it massively, and some that have had phases of it being good and bad. Everyone needs to know that there will be a time where things might be messy and that’s okay. It also needs to be said that it’s okay to feel how you feel, and you shouldn’t feel ashamed. You should never feel silly and remember, it is perfectly ok not to understand everything that goes on. 

Mental health is about someone’s state of emotional, physiological and social well-being.  It’s about how people act, feel and think and how you manage it. It can affect the choices you make and how you interact with people in social situations.

Throughout my life, I have had times where my mental health was good and bad. When it became bad, I managed to get out of it and feel good again. I did this by talking to people, creating new connections and through therapy – helping me understand what I truly wanted. The last few months have been difficult for me. I’ve had days where I didn’t want to get out of bed, I didn’t want to do activities I usually enjoy, I didn’t want to socialise or go to school. This all started when I was taking lots of people’s feelings, thoughts and emotions in too much. As they were sharing their stuff, I had a flood of thoughts and emotions come in – it was too much for me. On top of all my stuff I also had to deal with my friend’s issues. Every thought was swirling round in my head and because of that it affected how I was doing at school. I stopped going to lessons.  

When school noticed that things were changing with how I was feeling and behaving they spoke to me about what was going on. I told them so they knew what was going on with me. My school put support in place to make things easier for me, such as putting more TAs with me for lessons. And instead of me going to my tutor in the mornings I went to a quieter place where I was able to go through my day and talk about my lessons and what adults would be around to support me. It was beneficial because it helped me get ready to start my day. I was also able to talk about my home life and the things going on at school and how I felt about it, which helped me to put things in order in my head – helping me control my feelings throughout the day. I started becoming open about how I felt, although this was good and useful it sometimes had some challenges. Things were improving and I was talking more but then things got a little challenging again. The TA’s needed to spend more time with the year 11s for their GCSE’s which meant I lost the opportunity to keep chatting with them. The impact of this meant I lost a bit of trust -my thoughts were knotted, they still are. I talk to people but not as much as I should. I got on with a TA so well that she could pretty much see right through me, she always knew when something was up. I managed to talk to her about most things and I’m very grateful for that.  

It is the summer holidays now and things are on and off with me, sleep patterns are different every night and my appetite varies so much. I have had a few sessions with CAMHS which is helping a little bit, but I don’t feel 100%. I feel lower than 50% but you may not think that because of my masking. One thing I do is say that “I’m fine” but the truth is I’m not. At some point I got to be honest, but I find it hard to be. I feel angry and confused most of the time which affects my behaviour which makes me feel upset and makes me overthink – making me wonder if I’m good enough. One thing I am doing is trying to control myself; I’m not giving up on anything and I’m going to keep pushing because I want to get better. 

The key thing I want to get across is to keep talking to people and surround yourself with people who are making positive impacts in your life. Never give up because there are always things to live for! 

This is a blog written by a young person in the care of the Five Rivers family as part of our Life Blogger Series, in partnership with The Royal Literary Fund.