{"id":2463,"date":"2020-07-27T13:41:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T13:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/?p=2463"},"modified":"2020-07-27T13:41:11","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T13:41:11","slug":"why-im-supporting-bluebell-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/?p=2463","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m supporting Bluebell Care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Something you may or may not know about Woolly Badger knitting patterns is that 10% of all sales goes to Bristol-based perinatal mental health charity Bluebell Care<\/a>. I possibly haven\u2019t talked about it enough up until now, because I\u2019ve been so busy trying to get patterns ready and test knits done and websites built and all that other bumpf that goes into a knitting pattern business that isn\u2019t just sitting and doing some knitting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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But I want to be very clear on why it is that I\u2019m supporting Bluebell by donating a portion of every single sale I make. It\u2019s because they\u2019re truly amazing, and very possibly saved my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve had struggles with anxiety and depression in the past, and spent my late 20s on and off medication, before finally deciding (somewhere around my 30th<\/sup> birthday) that I just needed the boost that antidepressants give me to be able to function properly. I\u2019ve spent the best part of a decade in therapy. I stopped drinking. I started walking absolutely everywhere. I quit my high-stress job, and moved out of London to Bristol, which is a way more chilled city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, I did everything you\u2019re supposed to do to help manage mental ill-health, and on the whole, it worked pretty well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, after the birth of my second son last year, I found myself dealing with the scarily familiar relentless weeping and feelings of hopeless failure. I knew what it was. I knew what was coming. And I felt totally and utterly powerless to stop it; after all, I\u2019d done all the Right Things and still found myself buried under postnatal depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was awful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank God, though, for Bluebell. I will be singing their praises for the rest of my life. At a point where I was properly despondent, they came along and they helped me. The thing that makes Bluebell different \u2013 and, in my opinion, properly amazing \u2013 is that the women who work and volunteer there have all experienced perinatal depression and\/or anxiety. And they\u2019ve come through it, and got well, and committed to helping other women. They are literal lifesavers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in the winter, when I was feeling Not Good, I was assigned a Bluebell Buddy who came out and talked to me and supported me. I was gently encouraged to go along to Bluebell Place, their hub in the centre of Bristol (which has been closed thanks to Covid, but will hopefully be back soon), and join in some of their weekly groups. They gave me a spot on their Mum\u2019s Comfort Zone course, which was perhaps the single biggest help in my recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when the pandemic hit, they kept their support going through phonecalls, and their facebook page, and even put me forward for a course on Maternal Journal<\/a> (another thing well worth looking at).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And they did all this for free. FOR FREE. I didn\u2019t have to pay a single penny for all this support. Families can access their support regardless of income, which is truly remarkable for mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, of course I want to give something back to them. Of course I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plus, knitting and mental health are good bedfellows. I\u2019ve long believed in the soothing power of knitting. I think it\u2019s the combination of repetitive movement being enough to calm me down, with the sense of achievement from actually making something. I\u2019ve never really analysed it too much, if I\u2019m honest. All I know is that knitting makes me feel better, and that\u2019s all I really need to know. So if I can help other women feel better by donating some of my sales, then I\u2019m going to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m hoping that one day soon I\u2019ll be able to support them in person as well; pre-Covid, Bluebell ran a knitting and crochet drop in called \u201cWoolly Wednesday\u201d, and I\u2019m planning to go and help out there as soon as I possibly can. Because sometimes you do just need a nice cup of tea, a sit down, and a bit of crafting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can support Bluebell directly on their JustGiving page.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Something you may or may not know about Woolly Badger knitting patterns is that 10% of all sales goes to Bristol-based perinatal mental health charity Bluebell Care. I possibly haven\u2019t talked about it enough up until now, because I\u2019ve been so busy trying to get patterns ready and test knits done and websites built and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88940555,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5004],"tags":[9954,1336,729850913,1156898],"class_list":["post-2463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health","tag-charity","tag-knitting","tag-mental-health","tag-pnd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9IH2y-DJ","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88940555"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2465,"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2463\/revisions\/2465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewoollybadger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}