Outdoor Swimming Helps Me Cope

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

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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.