From a Survivor

Debbie’s story

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Future Pathways helps people to live the life they want

Debbie is a focused and determined young woman who lives on the west coast of Scotland. When she registered, she hoped to get help to find her records.

Debbie and her Support Coordinator had several conversations. Debbie described frequent panic attacks when meeting new people. This could cause problems when she was trying to use services: for example, she had been de-registered from a GP surgery list after speaking to staff aggressively. 

Debbie wanted to find better ways of coping with stressful, painful, or frustrating situations. Future Pathways arranged for mindfulness coaching sessions.

On the way to her first session, Debbie had a panic attack and could not attend. She was surprised that the mindfulness coach later called to check on her. The coach’s understanding and sensitive approach helped her to decide to try again.

At first, Debbie relied on taxis to get to the sessions (Future Pathways organised these). Now, though, the coach has helped establish a safe and comfortable environment for her, and she could make her own travel arrangements. 

Debbie has learned positive coping strategies to ‘calm down and be healthy’ when negative situations occur. The mindfulness sessions have also helped Debbie to think about how her stress and distress affects her, and how this may in turn affect her communication with others. 

She now feels more confident in how she communicates with other people, and notices a positive difference in how she engages with people and services more generally. We asked her what it is now like for her to go to her GP, and she said:

“I see the difference in how [the staff] respond to me now.”

Impact Report

2016-2019

Now you’ve found out a bit about us, why not find out more about what we do? Our recent Impact Report will provide you with a great insight to what we do, here at Future Pathways