Outdoor Swimming Helps Me Cope

After a devastating loss, Faye Smith from Sheffield found solace on holiday and then swimming at her local lido.

There was ice on the changing room floor and the showers had frozen over, but that didn’t stop me going to my local lido in Derbyshire. As soon as I started swimming I got that feeling of freedom I’d experienced under the blue Australian sky.

In January last year, facing my 50th birthday, I boarded a plane for Australia. It was the first time I’d been on a plane on my own, the first time I’d been travelling – but I knew I’d made the right decision.

In 2011, my ex-husband died suddenly at the age of 47. Two years later, in a rare tragedy, my 12-year-old daughter, Gabi, was diagnosed with non-epileptic attack disorder and drowned in the bath from a suspected seizure. It was so horrific the only way I could carry on was to put my grief to one side.

My 16-year-old son, Zach, was about to take his GCSEs and I ran my own PR and marketing business, so I threw myself into work. I ended up making myself ill with adrenal fatigue, hypothyroidism, anaemia and vitamin D deficiency.