Growing up, I was the ultimate ‘last gal standing’. I’d whizz from work to uni, listen for a couple of hours, dash to job number two (I had three at the time) and then grab an energy drink on my way home to start getting glammed up for Monday night’s rave. Once my girls and I made our dramatic entrance, it was party time. When 3am hit and hundreds of students piled out of the doors while hopping over puddles of sick, I’d still be twerking on the grossly sticky dance floor in my six-inch heels. All I was concerned about was avoiding the spilt drinks and finding out where the after-party was going to take place. Sleep, eat, repeat.

Fast forward to 2017. I’d graduated, dived into full-time employment and launched a side hustle. Great, right? Wrong. Uni had mentally drained me, the party lifestyle had parched my pockets, and I wasn’t digging the new job. But, I did what I’d always been told… kept quiet and carried on with it. After all, my grandparents had migrated to London from Ghana so that their children could “have a better life”. And my mother had stayed at home to independently raise me and my sister so that we too could “have a better life”. With that in mind, how dare I complain as a first gen graduate? I had food to eat, clothes to wear and shelter to keep me warm. So, on I continued.

Being the naïve 25-year-old I was, I did everything humanly possible to avoid conflict with anyone. The mere thought of saying ‘no’ filled me with angst. How could they possibly cope if I didn’t take on whatever task they’d asked of me? What if things were to go terribly wrong and I’d be blamed? Having been raised in a ‘don’t speak unless you’re spoken to’ culture, it would be abhorrent to dispute something. So, I was that person. The avoidant, over-giving, diplomatic people-pleaser who wanted to ensure everyone else was OK even if it was at my expense. Besides, I’d always be the ‘last gal dancing’. I could handle it. Or that’s what I thought.

Quietly, I continued on with my life. I took on lots of unpaid overtime while encountering workplace bullying; I did my best to keep up with friends and family so they wouldn’t feel abandoned, even though I wasn’t coping well; and I pushed on with the side hustle despite wanting to be away from my business partner. No one could help me, because no one knew I was plummeting inside. And I couldn’t ask anyone for help because I didn’t know what I needed. Nonetheless, it was a manageable lifestyle… until October 2018 when my grandmother, who was my best friend, passed away. I crashed. Mentally, physically and emotionally.

This was the most painful and debilitating time of my life. It felt like everything I’d ever known had crumbled and, with the click of a finger, evaporated into an infinite abyss. Meanwhile, just a couple of days after my loss, my manager was asking when I’d be back at work. Grief reared its head in many ways, but to the world, I’d pretend I was holding it down. After all, the people-pleaser in me had to make sure that my family had my shoulder to cry on first. Shortly after, a family friend also passed and, later, I was sexually coerced by a friend. This was now January 2019, and it was safe to say that my mental health had fallen down the gutter and was tumbling through the sewer pipes. Little did I know what was about to happen just two months later.

On the morning of 12 March 2019, I woke up with an excruciating headache and extremely blurred vision. Confused and disoriented, I tried to force myself back to sleep. I failed. The pain was agonising and my vision was worsening by the minute. Terrified, I called 111 (the NHS emergency helpline) and they advised me to make a trip to A&E. Feeling my way around the room with squinted eyes, I managed to get dressed and take a taxi to the hospital. 

“Right, Beverley,” said a concerned-looking doctor. “Unfortunately, we need to act urgently.”

I gulped, panicked, and asked: “What’s happening? Am I going to be OK?”

“You’ll be OK, and we’re going to help you as best as we can. Something’s caused a lot of fluid and tension to build up around your eye, which has now resulted in a severe blockage. We’re going to have to treat you urgently.”

“Oh wow,” I said, stunned, but also worried about what would happen if I didn’t uphold my work responsibilities. “I’m supposed to be heading to Manchester today for a work exhibition as they need my help and I said that I’d…”

“Beverley,” said the doctor, bringing my sentence to a halt, “it’s imperative that we treat you urgently if you want to keep your sight. A normal eye pressure reading is somewhere between 12 and 21. Yours is at 40 and your vision has already been impacted. If we leave it any longer for the fluid to keep building, you could lose your vision altogether. You’re at risk of blindness.”

My heart sank. How did I go to bed with a light headache last night and wake up to my vision deteriorating the next morning? Trying to focus on the doctor’s next steps, I asked: “So, what could have caused this?”

“It’s usually linked to lifestyle,” he explained. “Have you been stressed for a while? Doing more than you should be? Burning out and not getting enough sleep?”

At that moment, a five-year flashback sprinted through my head at speed. Memories were replaying, fast-forwarding and rewinding – both on shuffle and loop. The times I’d said yes to please others but ended up hurting myself. The times I worked non-stop while doing my best to build a side hustle without getting any rest because social media had glamorised sleep as being “for the dead”.

This was a loud, piercing wake-up call. One I needed to answer. I was no longer the ‘last gal standing’. What was suddenly clear was that I critically needed to slow my lifestyle down. And even more so, I needed to develop the courage and confidence to put my needs first.

Over the next couple of weeks, I received tremendous support and treatment from the NHS staff, who were able to bring my eye pressure back down into the normal range. Although my eyesight never went back to how it was prior to the incident, it was mostly restored. From then, I vowed to build the necessary structures and implement relevant strategies into my life that have shifted me from an unsustainable hustle-and-grind culture to one of blended harmony (even when the going got tough). So, I took the following two years to withdraw from everything that was no longer serving me and, instead, I looked after the parts of my life that had been left malnourished and bone dry. 

Since then, I’ve studied to become a trained coach, and in 2021 I founded Vybe365, a coaching, training and consulting company that creates unstoppable people in a world full of limitations. Taking my learnings and actions, I now work with a team of coaches to help people all over the world live the life they deserve – one without regret. 

I learned that if we don’t intentionally rest, our bodies will do it for us – and it won’t be pleasant. I can’t negate the fact that life comes twirling with difficult situations that feel like the thickest blankets of fog, but I can promise that there’s oxygen in the midst of all of this as well. Don’t wait for a scary wake-up call like I did – you shouldn’t have to.

Frame Of Mind is Stylist’s home for all things mental health and the mind. From expert advice on the small changes you can make to improve your wellbeing to first-person essays and features on topics ranging from autism to antidepressants, we’ll be exploring mental health in all its forms. You can check out the series home page to get started.

If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, you can find support and resources on the mental health charity Mind’s website and NHS Every Mind Matters or access the NHS’ list of mental health helplines and services.

If you are struggling with your mental health, you can also ask your GP for a referral to NHS Talking Therapies, or you can self-refer.

For confidential support, you can also call the Samaritans in the UK on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. In a crisis, call 999.

Images: Amanda Summons