TIN MAN'S PAMELA ASHCROFT DESCRIBES THE BATTLE TO WIN BACK HER MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH

Think it’s a tough job pitching to journalists?  37 year old PR consultant, Pamela Ashcroft, suffered life-changing injuries when she was hit by a car whilst crossing the road to work.  Here, she shares how she’s battled anxiety, panic attacks, memory loss, speech impediments and cerebral fatigue to win back her mental and physical health, and reclaim that coverage queen crown.

It’s now been two years since my brain was injured in the accident.  I spent four months in rehabilitation, two of these in a wheelchair as I was unable to walk due to a knee injury and a disconnection of the neurons down my right side. Not only was I learning to walk again unaided, but I was learning to talk again as I had difficulty with pronounciation.  Following rehab, I continued working with a neuropsychologist to improve my memory, and then to help manage panic attacks which started after I was discharged, especially when I was walking in open spaces.  

Once I had got the panic attacks under control, I was determined to return to work and thrilled that Tin Man  worked with me on a phased return.  I needed to rebuild my confidence and my resilience really gradually as my brain got fatigued quickly. I also needed to work on improving my memory and cognitive skills such as multitasking. 

Previously I had been good at pitching stories, so in the two short days that I was in the office, I started doing this again. At first, I would only pitch via email, avoiding the phone as I’d lost confidence in both my speech and my memory.  Before I had the accident I was able to just grab the phone and talk to journalists and be at ease, but although my memory had improved vastly since the accident, I still sometimes had occasional mental blocks.  I didn’t want to be a burden to my employer or colleagues and wanted to show that I could smoothly make the transition back to work, so I would head to the toilets and secretly write out a phone script.

This changed after having a pep talk from one of my best friends who is also in PR. He told me just to go for it and my confidence would build, the more I did it.  It reminded me of what my neuropsychologist had once explained to me, that you can’t approach anxiety with one foot in, one foot out, you have to dive in to it. From that moment, I took the same approach with selling in - and just picked up the phone!  Today, I’m much more confident in improvising conversations and I’m proud of the resulting coverage.  I’m always asked to join important sell-ins as my colleagues know I can deliver.

One of the other things that proved a challenge on returning to work, that may seem a tiny thing to others, was going out to get lunch on my own. This was related to recently learning how to walk unaided, worrying that I’d have a panic attack, but mainly anxiety about getting lost.  Tin Man had moved offices since my accident so the area was unfamiliar, and I was afraid that my memory was not yet strong enough to get me back to work safely.  So I’d only go out with colleagues or bring food with me.  But I really wanted to work on this as part of my recovery.

Then shortly before Christmas, I saw one of the heavily pregnant directors go out on her own to get lunch.  And I thought, ‘If she can do it whilst in a more challenging state than normal, then so can I!’  And so I dived into that too.

I’m happy to report that my recovery continues;  I’ve just gone up to three days a week, on slightly longer hours.  I continue to pitch to journalists which I love and I’m also broadening my skills, and working with my line manager on my personal development plan attending training sessions and going out to meet journalists in person, not just over the phone!  I’m a part of the mental health and wellbeing taskforce at Tin Man, bringing my own experiences to our policies and processes. And I also go out for lunch on my own whenever I want, trying different places, and haven’t got lost yet!