HEALTH


BLUE LIGHT WELLBEING


Former officer Hannah Bailey shares her story about mental and physical wellbeing challenges and the life-changing decisions she has made


Hannah Bailey is a former West Midlands police officer who served nearly 15 years in uniform response, local CID, and Major Crime. While she fondly reminisces that in her role as an officer, she enjoyed “fantastic times with great teams and supervisors,” and that “for a large part of it, I was very happy with my career”, something began to change in 2010 when she started to feel she was struggling. “Things started to change and my mental health started to go downhill. It wasn’t overnight, and it wasn’t one particular job,


28 | POLICE | FEBRUARY 2023


there was just a lot that I was seeing and dealing with. “Looking back, I was suffering with


complex PTSD. I wouldn’t have known that at the time, as there was no


“This went on for around 18 months “Everything was piling up, I was frustrated,


awareness around mental health – there was no training or support. I didn’t speak up about my mental health at all and I was really struggling.


overwhelmed and exhausted – I didn’t have the headspace to process anything”


to two years – it was like a drip-drip effect. I had some family issues as well. Everything was piling up, I was frustrated, overwhelmed and exhausted. I just didn’t have the headspace to process anything. “I wasn’t sleeping, I was having nightmares about some of the jobs that I had dealt with in the past,


and I was suffering with hypersensitivity. I didn’t want to show that at work, so it came out more at home. I was very tearful at the littlest of things.


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