I'd hit rock bottom after heartache and betrayal, says LIZ JONES. Then I discovered numerology and it transformed everything - here's how you can do it too. Don't scoff until you read this
All in the name of attempting to combat my low self-esteem, crippling anxiety, lovelessness and resulting unhappiness. Not one helped: I was still waking at 4am, negative thoughts spiralling.
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BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Chloe Barber's family want change after teen took her own life
The mother of a teenager who took her own life following spells in psychiatric hospitals says she wants lessons to be learnt from her daughter's Barber, 18, from Driffield, East Yorkshire, had a history of self-harm and was found dead at home by a member of her family on 3 November 2021.A coroner said it was "probable there was no realistic opportunity to prevent her death" and filed a Prevention of Future Deaths Report, raising concerns there was not a "clearly defined pathway" for patients to transition from child and adolescent to adult mental health mother, Kirsten, said she wanted "accountability for the failures" and a "crystal clear path" for patients. Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust maintained that the coroner found "no evidence of causation attributable to us" but said it welcomed an opportunity to "share any further learnings".An inquest into Miss Barber's death last month heard the teenager was referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in 2017 after her first attempt to self-harm when she was bullied at school. According to senior coroner Prof Paul Marks, Miss Barber had a history of taking multiple overdoses and was an inpatient at psychiatric units in Hull and Sheffield after being sectioned under the Mental Health Barber was "adamant in her refusal to engage with adult mental health services" and returned home in July 2021 after a successful appeal to be died four months his report, Prof Marks raised a number of issues which "may have contributed to her death", including the decision to stop a treatment that "may have more than minimally, trivially or negligibly resulted in increased emotional instability leading to impulsive behaviour" near the time of her also noted "considerable uncertainty and ignorance" for the provision of support measures and aftercare, and said the lack of a clearly defined pathway was a nationwide issue."There was also valid concern about the lack of documentation and poor communication between services and partner organisations," he said. Mrs Barber said: "They were supposed to be professionals. They just thought of Chloe as a name on a piece of paper."I'm not sure really what will happen or if anything will change."Pleading for accountability, she said: "Don't we as a family have the right to that, at least?"What are they going to do about the clear lack of transition from adolescent to adult services?"I want Chloe to have a legacy for change and to make sure that any other vulnerable person has a clear pathway from adolescent to adult services."The NHS trust said: "As always, our organisation remains committed to continually learning and making meaningful improvements to the safety and quality of the care we provide."NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care have been approached for comment. Need help? If you have been affected by this story the BBC Action Line web page features a list of organisations which are ready to provide support and advice. Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
Girl left unwatched by agency worker at psychiatric unit was unlawfully killed, inquest finds
A vulnerable 14-year-old girl was unlawfully killed when an agency support worker failed to keep her under observation at a secure psychiatric unit, an inquest jury has concluded. The worker, who used a false identity, left Ruth Szymankiewicz alone even though she had complex mental health issues and was judged to need constant watching because she was a suicide risk. Ruth was able to slip back to her room and harmed herself at the privately run Huntercombe hospital near Maidenhead on 12 February 2022. She died two days later. During the inquest it emerged that the worker, who went under the stolen identity Ebo Acheampong, had never worked at any hospital before the day he was put in charge of observing Ruth and did not receive an induction before his shift. The jury at Beaconsfield raised concerns about training of agency staff at Huntercombe and said contributing factors to Ruth's death included her not being prevented from accessing the material she used to harm herself. She did not receive therapy that may have helped while she was being detained under the Mental Health Act, family visits were limited though they may have helped her wellbeing and she was able to access harmful material on her phone, the jury heard. Speaking after the jury returned its findings, Ruth's parents, Kate and Mark Szymankiewicz, who are respectively a GP and a consultant surgeon from Wiltshire, said: 'There is an empty space at our table, a silent bedroom in our home, a gaping hole in our family that will never be filled. 'Ruth was an incredible, bright, friendly, loving and adventurous girl with a whole life of joy ahead of her. She, like many other teenagers, developed an eating disorder. 'When, at our most vulnerable as a family, we reached out for help, we ultimately found ourselves trapped in a system that was meant to care for her, to help her, to keep her safe, but instead locked her away and harmed her. As a child who thrived on her connection with nature, she was essentially caged. 'Over the last two weeks, we have heard about the numerous systemic failures at Huntercombe hospital,' the family said. 'It would be easy to be distracted by the failings of one individual. However shocking that conduct might have been, it is paramount that the other wider and more important issues are acknowledged and addressed.' Health experts told the Guardian that many of the issues around the use of agency staff and the shortage of psychiatric intensive care units for children and young people was still a huge problem. Andrew Molodynski, the British Medical Association's mental health lead, said there was a 'gap in accountability' over the training and vetting of agency staff. He said it was often mental health inpatient units, with the most high-risk individuals, that relied on agency staff the most, especially when they had patients like Ruth needing one-to-one supervision. He said this was a 'toxic catch-22 … You end up with very few people who know the ward and know the patients'. Minesh Patel, an associate director of policy and campaigns at the mental health charity Mind, said Ruth's case was 'a clearcut example of the many systemic issues in our mental health hospitals'. He said: 'An overreliance on agency staff can compromise patient safety, quality of care, and in the worst cases lead to serious harm or loss of life.' During the inquest, Dr Gillian Combe, the clinical director for the provider group that commissioned Ruth's placement, said the understaffing seen at Huntercombe still existed. She expressed frustration at rules in England that make it hard for new NHS units to be built, meaning provider groups have to rely on sending patients to private units. Combe said this situation arose after Andrew Lansley's changes to the NHS – described by some as 'creeping privatisation' – when he was the health secretary from 2010 to 2012. She said there were no psychiatric intensive care units for children and young people in the whole of south-west England. Jodie Anderson, a senior caseworker at the charity Inquest, said: 'The jury's findings are a stark indictment of a mental health system that sent a vulnerable child far from home to a private unit with dangerously inadequate care.' Dr Amit Chatterjee, the chief medical officer at Active Care Group, which owned and ran Huntercombe, told the inquest that the company had worked hard to improve recruitment and its induction process. Huntercombe has closed but Chatterjee said the company had increased therapeutic care at its current site for young people, Ivetsey Bank hospital in Staffordshire. The inquest heard that after learning that Ruth had died, the worker known as Acheampong fled from the UK to Ghana. Thames Valley police said they knew his real identity but did not have enough evidence to try to get him back. The use of agency staff in mental health settings has been cited as a big problem in numerous reviews and inquest conclusions. In the case of Lily Lucas, a 28-year-old woman who died in 2022 from excessive fluid intake brought on by schizophrenia, an NHS review found that some agency nurses on her privately run ward did not know how to use 999. A Care Quality Commission report on the Mental Health Act said patients had described agency staff as 'not friendly' and 'less caring' towards patients, and detrimental to morale among permanent staff. In the UK, the youth suicide prevention charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@ and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
The Sun
10 hours ago
- The Sun
Size 26 mum, 28, shares incredible weight-loss photo diary after blasting 7st without fat jabs or the gym
IN poor mental and physical shape, Cassie Morrison turned to food for comfort. But weighing 17 stone at her heaviest, she decided enough was enough, and while she couldn't afford a gym membership, she found a nifty way using her kids to shed an impressive seven stone. 7 7 It was back in 2023 when Cassie's mum forced her to call the doctor. She was depressed, overweight and her personal life was falling part. 'I just couldn't stop crying,' she says. 'Like, literally. I'd wake up in the morning and I would start crying, and would be having a mental breakdown from seven o'clock in the morning. "I told my parents I just didn't want to be here. I just felt - I couldn't do this anymore' Cassie, from Poole, Dorset, had made herself bankrupt, ended her relationship with her two children's dad, and, at size 26, couldn't bear to look at herself in the mirror. She was also binge eating, overweight and unhealthy - and felt terrible about herself. So taking her mum's advice, Cassie, now 28, made an appointment to see her GP. 'I cried in the surgery. I felt like I was beyond help,' she says. Cassie was signed up for counselling, and with support from an excellent therapist, she decided she realised she needed to make significant changes to her life. So she started to double down on diet and exercise. 'I felt so bad about myself that I was regularly binge eating to make myself feel better," she remembers. "I try not to keep any unhealthy food in the house, so if I was feeling down I would go to the shop and get a big bag full of chocolate and crisps and just eat it throughout the day." But the daily treats left her feeling worse about herself, and the resulting low mood would force her to seek comfort in yet more food. 'I'd felt terrible. I couldn't walk to my parents house ten minutes away without getting out of breath and having heart palpitations, and I felt self conscious about myself, so never took my son swimming," she says. Cassie, who was 17 stone by this point, couldn't afford a gym membership, so instead she turned to short home workouts using her children as weights - incorporating her toddlers into a range of exercises, including squats, shoulder presses, planks and arm curling. They loved it, laughing as she raised them overhead, and the endorphin buzz she felt afterwards was only helped when she saw the weight starting to fall off. But she would slip, fall back into the binges and put the weight back on. 'My therapist believes I have a sugar addiction, because it's the only thing that I really ever go for, whether it's sweets, chocolate, fizzy drinks," she says. "I crave it all of the time and once I start, I find it very hard to stop. And sometimes these binges will last for two or three months at a time, so it's a continued effort every day.' Since her first kid-lift she has lost an incredible seven stone and is now a size ten. And therapy has helped her keep it off. And she's documented her incredible transformation through a photo diary. Self help has also changed her thinking, and she listens to personal improvement books around the flat. 'James Clear's Atomic Habits is a good one. It makes you realise how to change your mindset,' she says. Remarkably, Cassie has now set up a baking business from her own home, which she can run from her own kitchen around the kids. It's doing well and she's out of debt. She's also careful to ensure there are never any goodies or sweet decorations left over. 'When I first started, I used to struggle, and I used to eat a lot of my treats. But now I make sure I don't have any spares," she says. 7 7 7 "I bake everything to order but any extras will get raffled off or donated. I can't keep anything around the flat because if I do, I will get to evening and I will eat it.' And while her children, Rubie, four and Broden, five are now too big to be lifted above her head, she encourages them to join in with her exercise, doing short, low impact workouts using weights and other home equipment. She has now amassed hundreds of thousands of followers online, detailing her weight loss journey. Like most influencers, she is subjected to constant hate. But it is like water off a duck's back. 'It doesn't actually bother me. I've done a lot of work over the years to filter all the negative comments out,' she says. 'Now, I'm just aware that when someone leaves a negative comment, it's a reflection on them; they are just projecting their insecurities. 'I feel very proud of how far I have come. I am happy and healthy now and emotionally and physically strong, and know I am still capable of so much more. Great things are going to happen in my life; it is just a matter of time.' Easy exercises you can do at home MANY effective exercises can be done at home without any gym equipment... FOR STRENGTH Squats: Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, lower your hips as if sitting in a chair, keeping your back straight and chest up. Lunges: Step forward with one leg, bending both knees to 90 degrees, ensuring your front knee stays aligned with your ankle. Push-ups: Position your hands shoulder-width apart, lower your body towards the floor, and push back up. Plank: Hold a push-up position on your forearms, engaging your core and maintaining a straight line from head to heels. Chair dips: Use a sturdy chair to support your body weight, lower yourself down by bending your elbows, and push back up. Single-leg deadlifts: Balance on one leg, hinge at the hips, and lower your torso while extending the other leg behind you. FOR CARDIO Jumping jacks: Jump with feet wide and arms overhead, then return to the starting position. High knees: Run in place, bringing your knees up towards your chest. Burpees: Combine a squat, push-up, and jump into a single, dynamic movement. Mountain climbers: In a plank position, alternate bringing your knees towards your chest. Marching: March in place, lifting your knees high and alternating arms as if running.
