Last year, Cathy McAuley left behind her family, friends, and role as a marketing director in Hertfordshire. She relocated to West Kilbride, Scotland, where she didn’t know anyone in search of a better quality of life.
After becoming very unwell, crippled with depression and anxiety, Cathy turned to volunteering to help fill the void that had arisen in her life. It was in October 2021 that she started volunteering in the BHF shop in Largs.
“Coming here [to the BHF] helped me so much on my journey to becoming my old self,” Cathy tells us.
“Volunteering has brought out skills in me such as creativity, building relationships, and communicating. Being able to call on my technology background with our online listing tool, Shopiago, has been fab and becoming a super-user gave me a real sense of achievement, which has been really good for my self-esteem. Having that feeling of I’m good at this has been missing for a long time."
Commenting on the inclusivity that volunteering offers, Cathy says, “Volunteering is a great leveller. It doesn’t matter what your background is. In the shop every individual is equally important,” says Cathy. Cathy shares that since starting volunteering in the Largs shop that everyone has been sympathetic and understanding towards her situation. “The shop manager is very supportive and has never made me feel embarrassed of my mental health issues.”
“When I arrived here in October 2021, I was a different person in a completely different place. I’m so much happier and productive, and my self-esteem has returned. I don’t suffer with the same levels of anxiety as before and my depression is so much better.
“Volunteering lifts me out of my mood on the bad days. I suffer from insomnia, which is all part of the condition. But volunteering makes me forget about that through camaraderie and humour.”
Cathy has a personal connection to the BHF as she was born with a genetic heart condition that caused an electrical fault in her heart pathways.
“Being born with a heart condition means that it’s always at the back of your mind. You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Cathy has had two Atrioventricular Nodal Re-entrant Tachycardia operations (AVNRT) at Imperial College London to fix the electrical fault, and this is why BHF research is so important. Cathy is now aware of what she can do to look after herself to minimise the chance of needing another operation, such as exercise, reducing tiredness and stress.
