I’m going to level with you here.
I am not okay.
Like really.
I opened The Women’s Health Hub in April 2023 with my friend who is no longer a friend. We were meant to be 50:50 responsible. We said we’d give it twelve months and if it wasn’t working, we’d just close it down together. It seemed worth the gamble.
Before our first successful grant application in September 2023, we paid the bills with a mixture of our own cash and me charging for my doula services and creative workshops.
When we set it up, I had no real knowledge of the amount of work it would take. I don’t think either of us did. I truly just thought we could have this lush space and everyone would come together to help make it viable/ to use it/ to tell people about it, all the stuff and that it would just easily be wonderful.
I hadn’t even thought about writing safe guarding policies, becoming an admitted body for DBS checks, navigating the local VSCE politics or any of the other crap. I just wanted a beautiful space that was free to access where people could actually feel listened to.
My friend who is no longer a friend decided she couldn’t work with me in November 2023 and just left - she didn’t find anyone to fill in for her, she didn’t help me to close the space down, she demanded the non-profit pay her £1800 to cover the money she had initially put in pre-grant funding, and she just left.
To clarify - I never wanted to do all of this on my own.
So, we’re now in July 2024. The Women’s Health Hub has been open for 15 months - and for 8 of those months I have been trying to keep all of the balls rolling by myself. Yes, I have some wonderful people working and volunteering with me but, largely, the big decisions and the responsibility all lies with me.
I don’t get to not do the work when I feel ill or tired or I forget.
I don’t get to not do the work if my kids are poorly or if they’re having a really hard time and kicking off every five minutes because it’s too hot and the end of term school chaos is too much for them to handle.
I don’t get to take the day off the day after I facilitated a whole day long workshop where I showed SEVENTY people how to make their own book.
In fact, because I am also trying to finish my PhD in the middle of all of this, I rarely get to take a day off ever. Including weekends. Including lots of evenings.
I just work. Pretty much constantly.
And I don’t know how to stop.
I have people who want to help but I have no idea how to bring everyone together to make a functional team. I can’t cope with any more coaching or team meetings or action plans that I don’t have the headspace to implement. At this point, my autistic brain just does not feel able to do any of that. The overwhelm of the admin and people tasks with the branding with the marketing with the actually doing the lovely work of supporting people - it’s all stopping me from being able to properly find and implement a solution. Other than just continuing to keep swimming whilst half drowning.
I can’t just close the space either. Not only because it’s beautiful and important and is the home now to some amazing people doing amazing work, but also because I have now invested fifteen months of working every day as well as thousands and thousands of pounds. My director’s loan - the amount of money the company owes me - is at £2.5k but if you add on all of the money people have paid me to be their doula or to run a workshop, you’re looking at over £6k of money that would be lost.
Which, whatever, it’s just money and it’s a charity so I wouldn’t be expecting it all back anyways and would it really be ‘lost’ or would it have gone towards achieving something brief but wonderful? I don’t know but I do know that I can’t stomach how unfair it is that my friend who is definitely no longer a friend just got to decide it was too much for her and walk away without any sort of financial or personal impact on herself, whilst I’ve been stuck all alone with the choice between drowning or loosing it all.
I’m not sure what I am trying to say to you here.
I guess I want to show the duality of it.
Like - “hey, I created this beautiful thing and we’ve helped so many women that when I think about it, I get goosebumps and feel so happy and proud that I could cry”.
But then also, like, I can’t keep doing it like this, please someone fix it for me because it’s important.
And I guess I also just want to say that I need to put down some of the things or not show up as fully or consistently here with this newsletter and please could you keep trusting me and supporting me anyway and thanks? Like I know you are also super busy and life is hard but please could you keep sharing my work and asking people to subscribe even if I don’t spend hours writing a really awesome essay?
I’ll have the monthly emails telling you what’s on, and I’m still working away on the Mindful Bookbinding stuff but like, please could you tell other folks how amazing it is so they might pay too? So then my accounts won’t begin to look terrifying because I’m not working every second of the day and I might be able to pay for more help?
Paid folks, please could we wait till September maybe, for our next connection circle?
Please could you email me if you can help in any way and please could you be super specific about how you can help?
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got for you this week.
With love and solidarity and I’m not at all crying whilst writing this,
