UK: Green therapy: how tending my allotment helped restore my mental health
Despite having no prior gardening skills, having my own allotment helped me overcome severe anxiety, and now I want to spread the message
By Annabelle Padwick
The Telegraph
5 November 2020
Excerpt:
As my journey continued both on and off the plot, No 27 became a place that was all mine, a place which I could transform and where I could regain some control, crucial for mental health recovery. It was also a haven away from work, university and toxic relationship stresses.
Having the allotment, alongside an incredible friendship and eventually a year of weekly one-to-one psychotherapy at a private mental health hospital, worked wonders for my mental health. The allotment gave me a middle ground between home and the big, wild world. The ground taught me patience, the weeds taught me to remove any negativity in my life and the vegetables reminded me daily what I truly needed to thrive – exactly the same as them. Food, water, love, care, room to grow without weeds strangling my roots, patience, a support system and an understanding that under the surface there is always something going on, just trying to blossom.
Plot No 27 enabled me to experience both giant successes and little failures in a peaceful space, kept hope alive inside me and built my confidence. The psychotherapy enabled me to deal with dark times, taught me how to retrain my brain, gain control of my future and think more clearly. Alongside the friendship, the hospital also gave me a safe place to talk more openly, be totally myself and never feel like I was being judged. This is why I feel that a combination of gardening and psychotherapy is the perfect partnership. Not for everyone, perhaps, but for many people in need as I was.
