Caroline Aldridge talks about how writing her book He Died Waiting with the Unthank School became a life-changing experience.

A series of upsetting life events, and a creative writing course, culminated in my life-changing direction in a way I could never have envisaged. I was nudged through the unbearable, the unimaginable, and a stoic getting-through-a-day-at-a-time stage, to a hopeful place.

In 2018, I sustained a head injury after a slip on the stairs and as part of my neuro-rehabilitation I signed up for an Unthank School creative writing course with Ashley Stokes. Looking back, I can see I was still very unwell. I was struggling with aphasia, concentration and balance. I had a vague notion that I would write about my son, Tim, who had died in 2014 due to failings in mental health services.

Writing had the desired effect of helping my brain heal and building up my writing stamina and skills so I could return to work. It also helped me to start healing emotionally.

Four years after Tim’s death, my grief was an internalised and private thing. It had got into my bones where no one seemed to notice it but I felt continual pain. Through the reflective process of writing about my most difficult life experiences, I made sense of what had happened. I began to start living again instead of existing.

I was supported brilliantly by Ashley and the group to develop my creative writing skills. I was able to have a go, share in a safe space, and be encouraged. I learnt so much from the relaxed and experiential workshops. I learnt from the feedback and from the other writers. Together we worked through the ethical dilemmas of how to tell a highly sensitive story without hurting people. I aspired to write a book and nobody told me how daft (or difficult) an idea that was.

This process was not pain-free. As I got to know myself better, through the self-reflective process of writing a creative life narrative, I re-evaluated my priorities for my time and attention. Not everyone appreciated that. Perhaps not everyone in my life had noticed how much I was struggling with loss. Three deaths in the family in close succession meant I was quietly, but intensely, mourning. I was wracked with guilt and self-blame about losing a son. When I banged my head, the massive blow was not just physical, it injured my confidence. I went through processing my loss as I adjusted to having a disability. I was not the same. I am not the same. I felt each knock diminished me.

It took me a year to write He Died Waiting: Learning the Lessons – a Bereaved Mother’s View of Mental Health Services, and another eighteen months before it was published. Ashley advised aiming high. He somehow made me believe my book was worthy of publication. I tried agents and publishers without success. I seriously think no woman has ever had such lovely rejection letters. One after another said my story was important but not quite right for their portfolios. Like me, my book does not sit neatly in a category. It straddles genres and appeals to anyone with a personal or professional interest in mental health.

I decided to self-publish. I reasoned I might end up with boxes of unsold books and lose my money but people were losing their lives and I owed it to Tim to try and make a difference. After making pretty much every mistake possible, and the most incredible kindness of others, He Died Waiting was launched in February 2021. It was a lockdown, virtual launch. No nibbles and bubbly but over 150 people showed up. I had already sold out of the first print run beforehand.

I was repeatedly asked to talk to people about my book and if I could deliver workshops but I was too busy working as a social work lecturer to do much. I decided to follow my heart and go where the book led me. So, in the summer of 2021, I resigned from my substantive post to become a freelance speaker and trainer. It was exciting and a bit scary. It was life-changing.

My work now is my passion. I wrote in the prologue of He Died Waiting that in four years I had made no difference at all. Now I can feel the difference. It is tangible. Sometimes I feel it in a reader’s email when they say how it has helped them with their grief or to be more confident in fighting for services for their loved one. I feel it when I am delivering workshops to mental health professionals, social workers, students, or leaders and they empathise with Tim and commit to changing their practice.

Currently, I am very busy. I have been invited to co-write textbooks on social work practice and to speak at conferences or to small groups. I have bookings to deliver workshops, and I am doing a doctorate. The sequel, They Died Waiting: Mental Health Services in Crisis – Stories of Loss and of Hope, is underway. This will be a co-written collection of people’s experiences.

The Unthank School say that if you have a book in you they can help you get it out. I am the proof of their claim. I am thankful for their support and tuition, I would never have achieved this on my own. It has changed my life.

He Died Waiting: Learning the Lessons – a Bereaved Mother’s View of Mental Health Services is available from www.learningsocialworker.com or on Kindle and most e-readers.

The Creative Writing Workshop with Ashley Stokes is taking enrolments for January.

Writing for Wellbeing with Georgina Parfitt is also open if you would like to join us in January.