Sister pays tribute to 'kind and caring' mental health worker
The sister of a "kind and caring" mental health worker found dead at her home has paid tribute to her.
Olivia Martinez, from the Pottergate area of Norwich, had spent the past three years working as a peer support worker for the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust.
But the body of the 29-year-old was found at her home by a friend in Waddington Street on Monday, May 5.
An inquest opening into her death revealed that she had committed an act that ended her life.
Oliver Martinez died earlier this month (Image: Submitted) Sharing a tribute with this paper, sister Serena Crofts said: 'We have set up a Go Fund Me to help fund her funeral.
'It is also to be able to make a donation to the Huntington's Disease Associate in her name, as this illness affected her life due to her mum and grandpa having the condition.'
She went on to describe her sister as 'a kind caring young woman' who was 'loved by so many people'.
READ MORE:
READ MORE:
Paying tribute via the Go Fund Me page, she added: 'Anyone who knew Liv, knew that she brightened up any room she was in. Whether that be by making funny TikTok [videos] or just being herself.
'Tragically, Liv lost her battle with her mental health and took her own life. This is something Olivia had been dealing with for over a decade.
'She has left a big hole in so many people's lives but the solace we can take is that she is back with her beautiful mother.'
They family hope to be able to fund a white horse-drawn carriage for her funeral, complete with pink plumes.
Olivia Martinez (Image: Norfolk and Waveney Mind) Ms Crofts added: 'We feel this is something she would adore, along with flowers and making the day as lovely as we can.'
They also plan to donate to the Huntington's Disease Association and Norfolk and Waveney Mind, both important organisations to Ms Martinez.
"She had done a lot of work closely with the Huntington's charity to raise money and awareness of the disease, so any money that is left over afterwards will be donated,' Ms Crofts added.
'We massively appreciate any help given whether it be a little or a lot. Know that no matter what, Olivia loved you all and would be so proud of us all coming together at this time.'
Visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/help-for-olivia to donate.
Do you need support?
Samaritans can be reached 24/7 on 116 123 for completely confidential support and advice.
The NHS First Response Service is available 24/7 on 111 option 2, providing urgent mental health support for people in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Are Millennials ‘Childless' or ‘Child Free'?
To the Editor: 'Why Do Millennials Dread Having Babies?,' by Michal Leibowitz (Opinion guest essay, June 1), left me sad, impatient and energetically questioning her conclusion. Sad to read that she and others in their 20s and 30s are so fearful of having children. Impatient with her portrait of a mental health culture that seems to her to encourage people to live in a world limited by parental abuse and inadequacy. And energetically questioning her conclusion that such a culture is causing childlessness. Young people I know are indeed hesitant about having children, but almost exclusively for the reasons Ms. Leibowitz touches on in the beginning of her piece, but does not return to in her analysis. Some worry about their ability to support children financially, and many are deeply concerned about our country's appetite for authoritarianism and the kind of future that climate change will bring. It is critical to the psychotherapeutic enterprise to recognize the influences — especially the traumas — that have shaped our feelings and behavior. But responsible therapists also do everything possible to help patients and clients loosen the hold of damaging childhood experience, and wrest from its pain the strength and wisdom to live mindfully and hopefully in the present. Most of the people I've worked with on this issue over 50 years — including women who as children suffered horrendous physical abuse — have said that their therapeutic experience made them far more comfortable with having children. Friends who have worked with other therapists say the same. Some do worry whether they will do a better job than their parents, but just about all welcome the opportunity and the challenge. James S. GordonWashingtonThe writer is a psychiatrist and the author of 'Transforming Trauma: The Path to Hope and Healing.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Why six hours of sleep is not enough
For those of us who worry about our sleep, every morning is a scramble of mental maths as we turn to our bedside clock and calculate whether or not we've had 'enough'. The current National Sleep Foundation guidelines recommend that most adults sleep for between seven and nine hours per night. This followed a 2022 paper from the University of Cambridge, itself an amalgam of hundreds of studies that followed people's long-term experience of heart disease, diabetes and mental-health difficulties. 'Having a consistent seven hours' sleep each night, without too much fluctuation in duration, was also important to cognitive performance and good mental health and wellbeing,' say the authors of the paper. Those who slept between seven and nine hours reported a lower incidence of these chronic conditions. But what if, for any reason, you consistently don't sleep that much? If you have trouble sleeping, or if you just want to jump onto the latest 5am trend, get up with the lark and to find a couple more precious hours in your day? Does it have real implications – and does it even matter at all? What is the problem with having six hours sleep? The long-term impacts of sleep deprivation So are people who only sleep six hours a night doomed? Strategies to improve sleep quality If you consistently have less than six hours' sleep, the chances are that you are risking health problems. 'On the surface, you will be moody, frustrated and irritated,' says Maryanne Taylor, a sleep consultant from sleep consultancy The Sleep Works. 'On a deeper level, you'll be raising your risks of stress and anxiety – these have a bidirectional relationship to your sleep.' Three key problems are: Sophie Bostock is a sleep scientist and behavioural psychologist. 'We know that poor sleep and mental health are inextricably linked,' she says. 'Poor sleepers are twice as likely to develop anxiety and depression than good sleepers. 'While this is no surprise to those who lie awake at night worrying, there is some good news, too – improving one's sleep will benefit one's mental health.' 'Our brains evolved to see sleep loss as a warning sign,' says Bostock. 'Our ancestors were more likely to be kept awake by predators than by scrolling through their phones, so we respond to short sleep by going into high alert.' Hence, we get more sensitive to potential foes. 'We are more likely to interpret neutral faces as threatening and to withdraw from social situations, diverting resources from the more rational part of our brain and decision-making capacity,' she says. 'Without enough sleep, in the longer term, we struggle to focus, to learn and remember, to empathise and make logical, sensible decisions,' says Bostock. Insomnia is linked to a wide variety of conditions, from obesity to Type 2 diabetes and even Alzheimer's. The reasons were discussed in the May 2019 edition of the journal Experimental Psychology, with theories ranging from blood vessels littered with fatty deposits, to 'cellular garbage' in the brain. According to the research, people who sleep fewer than seven hours a night have a significantly raised level of molecules called microRNAs, which suppress the protein content of cells and have previously been linked to inflammation and poor blood vessel health. Not getting enough sleep makes you more likely to gain weight, according to the analysis of 36 studies, discussed in the journal Obesity. Various studies have shown that poor sleep disrupts the productions of the hormones ghrelin and leptin – the hormones that control hunger. Thus, insomniacs crave fatty, starchy and sugary foods, potentially eating hundreds of extra calories a day in refined carbohydrates The daytime exhaustion means you can't be bothered to exercise and so your weight gain spirals, as does a cascade into other conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. People with a chronic lack of sleep significant risk an increase in Type 2 diabetes, according to a report in the journal Diabetes Care. Patients who suffered poor sleep (defined as fewer than five hours a night) for a year or longer had three times the risk of those who slept six hours or more. As with obesity (also linked to Type 2 diabetes), the underlying cause is thought to involve disruption of the body's normal hormonal regulation, but in this case it results from insufficient sleep. It's well known that sleep is necessary for a healthy immune system, the part of our make-up which tackles antigens, or foreign invaders, as well as 'T cells': white blood cells which destroy virus carrying cells. One study showed that subjects who slept fewer than seven hours a night were three times as likely to catch colds than those who got the full eight, or more. Much modern research indicates that insomnia raises the risk of Alzheimer's. The Harvard Medical School report revealed that people with sleep impairments were nearly 1.7 times as likely to develop cognitive impairments than those without. Researchers from the University of Tennessee noted that chronic insomnia was tied to a 1.5 times higher risk of kidney decline, and an even steeper increase in risk of kidney failure: 2.4 times. A comprehensive report linking insomnia with high cholesterol and blood pressure was published in 2019 by a top American university. People who don't get enough sleep also have raised levels of stress hormones and substances that indicate inflammation, a key cause of cardiovascular disease. Fewer than four hours' a night sleep could double a woman's risk of dying of heart disease. But before you take to your bed in despair, Taylor draws a distinction between short periods of six hours' sleep or fewer, and longer-term sleep deprivation. 'If a small burst of stress (a job interview, for example) impacts the amount of hours you get, it's unlikely to mean you have an ongoing sleep problem. We all have these blips.' Bostock also says there is no reason to panic. 'All these chronic conditions are multifactorial, so we need loads of subjects to work out the rule of the impact of confounding factors. In the short term studies, typically healthy people recover after several days of proper sleep.' The first step is to make sure you have the bases covered: that your bedroom is dark, quiet and at optimum temperature – between 16C to 18C. Your bedding should be comfortable and, ideally, made of natural fibres. Cut out coffee after midday, and have a proper wind-down routine. If you are suffering with chronic sleep problems, attending to sleep hygiene may not be enough, however. 'We can become a slave to hygiene and in some ways it can be counterproductive,' says Taylor. 'There is so much paraphernalia out there: Spray this! Drink this! The fact is that people who sleep well don't actually do anything. Sleep is an innate process, and we all can do it: it's just about creating the conditions in our brain.' Instead, Taylor suggests adopting a more flexible mindset. 'Bedtime procrastination can cause sleep anxiety,' she says. 'Firstly, it really is OK to stop looking at your work emails after 7pm.' Waking up in the night is part of the natural process, says Bostock. 'Your sleep goes in 90-minute cycles, and people tend to wake up more as they get older.' But problems arise if you wake up and have difficulty falling back to sleep again. 'Many people who wake up at night tell themselves: I have to stay in bed,' says Taylor. 'But this can be the crux of maintaining sleep problems.' Taylor suggests making what she calls a 'nest' outside your bed. 'A comfortable chair or beanbag, lit with dim light, with a book or your headphones, and not your phone,' she says. 'When you feel sleepy, go back to bed. If you have to get up a few times a night to do this, that's fine.' Anyone who's had a run of broken nights will agree with Taylor's philosophy that sleep doesn't do well under pressure. 'Have a look at your sleep narrative,' she says. 'If you are telling yourself: 'I'm a terrible sleeper', 'I won't be able to manage tomorrow,' this can be very powerful and only serve to make you more stressed and less able to drop off. You need to step out of your own way.' Instead, tell yourself: 'It's OK, I will survive', and 'I'm a good sleeper, I'm just having a bad night.' Sleeping well is not just about what happens in the hours of darkness: you set yourself up for the next night the minute you open your eyes that day. 'What do you do the minute you wake up?' asks Taylor. 'If you feel rubbish, do you keep pressing snooze until you jump up in a panic? Do you pick up your phone, and are catapulted brutally into the next day? Of course your sleep will be impacted.' Instead, she recommends easing into the day with a cup of tea, in the light. 'As soon as you wake up, aim to get lots of light into your eyes,' she says. 'Go outside if you can, if not, or at least sit near a window. This banishes the sleep hormone, melatonin, and activates the cortisol awakening response in your brain telling you that the day has begun.' Miranda Levy is the author of The Insomnia Diaries: How I Learned to Sleep Again Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
MP diagnosed with autoimmune condition after illness
An MP says she has been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition months after returning to work following a "life-threatening" illness. Chippenham MP Sarah Gibson was in intensive care at Bath's Royal United Hospital (RUH) after a viral infection to her heart over Christmas last year. In March she started a phased return to work in Westminster but has now said she needs to be back at the hospital for a "short period of monitored treatment". She added her recovery has "proved slower than I anticipated". More news stories for Wiltshire Listen to the latest news for Wiltshire In December, RUH staff told Ms Gibson they were unsure if she would recover after contracting pericarditis following the flu. In a statement, she said: "Over the last 6 months, I have been closely monitored by the fantastic team at the RUH. "They have watched my recovery with eagle eyes, and I continue to be amazed by their care and attention. "I continue to remain fully committed to working on your behalf, albeit virtually, and my office will remain fully operational during my treatment." Follow BBC Wiltshire on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to us on email or via WhatsApp on 0800 313 4630. MP returns to work after 'life-threatening' illness MP spent days in intensive care amid serious illness Royal United Hospital
