Earlier this year I hit a point where I was experiencing both a personal life breakdown and work related stress and burnout concurrently. 

I initially reached out to Vetlife in my acute breakdown stage and received excellent help there. They also signposted me to Vet Support where I received both regular support and coaching in the initial period but also provided regular, and still ongoing check-in for support to help prevent me entering back into the same cycles of stress at work. 

The volunteer at Vet Support has been instrumental in talking me through the stressful events and allowing me to reflect on how I manage my workload and stress levels while still giving the same empathy and support to my work that I will always wish to give. 

Knowing that I have an empathetic and understanding ear to check in with me on an ongoing basis has been a massive support and to be able to have someone who understands your professional challenges and can coach you with this alongside a supporting ear for all else that life can throw at us is an amazing thing. 

I would thoroughly recommend Vet support to those experiencing challenges to mental health within the profession and have done so already.

I spoke to a volunteer last year when my partner was going through a very bad episode with his mental health, being able to speak to someone completely removed from the situation, who was calm, rational, totally non-judgemental & helped me see that I was not responsible for someone else's actions, was extremely helpful. We continued to chat over the next few months, through a very difficult time in my life, & the support & kindness the volunteerextended to me made a huge difference to how I coped during that time. I am delighted that things are now a lot easier but knowing someone is on the end of the phone if that changes, makes a massive difference. Vet Support is a fantastic service & the whole team should be very proud of the help they give the veterinary community in the UK, Ireland and beyond.

The calm emotional support and ability to rationalise more clearly allowed me to not catastrophise and put my issue into some sort of perspective. It was still very stressful but Vet Support helped for sure.