Leigh

I lost my dad in March 2023. I went to the doctors, and it was a year and half after that, I was feeling obviously low and anxious, and they recommended me to self-refer to Cruse Scotland, and that is why I reached out.

What was your experience of Cruse Scotland’s Counselling service? How has it helped you?

I had eight sessions that were in-person meetings with Hannah, and all the sessions were a general description of how I was feeling, and questions about how I was feeling, what my life looked like, and things like that.

Hannah was excellent. I felt comfortable immediately and appreciated the tailored sessions.

So, I told her that I was creative. So, we had different activities, like writing a poem or a note of things. Or different activities that she recommended me to do moving forward, like making a photo book, things like that.

Overall, it was a great experience. Having sessions in person was supportive and helpful, with sessions tailored and led by me that I could have requested. 

But Hannah was excellent. She was easy to speak to, made me feel very comfortable, and was in a safe environment.

Has Cruse Scotland’s Counselling service helped you process your grief? If so, in what ways?

Yeah, I think it did. I think as well, when I started, I was feeling quite frustrated, and I thought it was not something that could be solved.

It is not like if you lose your job per se, you can; it is still difficult, but you can apply for other jobs, and hopefully you will find one. It is not really a solution that can be solved. There is no end date to it.

And I think sometimes when you are speaking to general people in your life, there can be a rush to have more of a positive answer, it will get better, stuff like that.

Whereas Hannah was helpful, and Cruse Scotland overall acknowledged how I was feeling.

She just said to think about what you can do to make yourself feel better in this moment and acknowledge that it was not necessarily a problem to be solved, but ways that I could work with it to make myself feel better.

Just some kind of tips and tricks with that, like breathing exercises and being positive where I can, but also if there are moments where I'm feeling pretty rubbish, you don't always have to fight through that as soon as you can, just let yourself feel that.

It gave me the confidence to go with that and not have to try to seek a solution to every problem.

Some problems, you must just sit with them. I thought that was helpful and kind of solidifying how I felt with that and not trying to view it as some overall task to fix, but rather small little things that you can do to make it more manageable.

Would you recommend Cruse Scotland’s Counselling service to others?

Yeah, I would. I think that because it is not tailored to a certain age or a certain type of loss, obviously grief can look different for every person, depending on who they lose, or some people might have pre-emptive grief if they know they are going to lose someone.

So, I think in that sense, it did not feel that, particularly with Hannah, it did not feel that she could only have worked with, you know, people of a certain age or a certain gender. It felt like it could be helpful to everyone and anyone who needs it. So, I would 100% recommend it.