"The Fund’s emotional support helped me find myself again"

When Lucy and her husband, AS1 Steward Kieran Jones, moved to RAF Marham, they were excited to make it their home. Like many RAF families, they embraced the stability, community and opportunities that Service life brings – but they also felt the challenges of being far from loved ones, preparing for deployments, and managing without the close-knit support networks many civilian families take for granted.

Lucy and Kieran had always dreamed of starting a family. They underwent IVF, which brought its own challenges, with periods of living apart and constant medical appointments adding strain at an already emotional time.

In early 2022, overwhelmed and needing someone outside the situation to talk to, Lucy reached out to the RAF Benevolent Fund after hearing about its wellbeing services.

Lucy explained: "I didn’t need in depth therapy – just someone who would listen so I could offload everything."

The Fund arranged 12 sessions of wellbeing therapy through its Listening and Counselling Service, helping her cope with the pressures of IVF, workplace stress, and the uncertainty of her husband’s deployment. She said: "Those sessions got me through a really tough stage. They gave me space to breathe."

Their daughter arrived the following year, healthy after what had been a challenging pregnancy with complications, a long labour and a postpartum haemorrhage. Five months later, Lucy’s husband was deployed overseas to Cyprus.

Seven months postpartum – and facing the realities of solo parenting far from home –Lucy’s mental health began to decline.

Lucy recalled: “I was hit with this intense anxiety I’d never felt before. I had OCD thoughts, I couldn’t switch off, and I was terrified something would happen to me while I was alone with my daughter. I was too scared to fall asleep.”

Friends on station had moved, her family lived three hours away, and Lucy struggled with driving anxiety. "I had nobody nearby. That’s when everything spiralled."

Remembering the support she’d received previously, Lucy went straight back to the Fund. "It didn’t even cross my mind to go to the doctors. I knew the Fund would respond quickly, and I felt comfortable with them. They’d helped me before."

The Fund arranged cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for Lucy, which included eight video based sessions with a therapist, tailored to help her understand and manage the severe anxiety she was experiencing.

The sessions explored the deeper roots of her anxiety: IVF trauma, miscarriages, pregnancy complications, a long labour, medical emergencies, and her husband’s deployment.

In a typical CBT session, Lucy talked about the situations she found difficult, and discussed how they made her think, feel and act. She then worked with her therapist to work out different ways of approaching these situations. After several sessions, Lucy started to feel a real shift.

She said: "I began doing things I hadn’t managed for months like going into shops without panicking, meeting friends, going for walks, even sitting in a coffee shop again. Little things you take for granted."

Lucy also used Headspace, a guided meditation app offered through the Fund, which helped during challenging moments, especially at night, when anxiety stopped her sleeping. She explained: "Sometimes I just needed a voice to help me relax. The sleep and anxiety meditations helped me drift off when I couldn’t switch my mind off."

Today, Lucy says life feels brighter, calmer and hopeful again. "I now understand what’s happening in my brain and body when I feel anxious. I can reason with myself instead of going straight into a panic attack. I’m doing everyday things again. I feel like me."

Knowing the RAF Benevolent Fund is there continues to give her confidence. She said: "Just knowing there’s always support if I need it means everything. Both times I reached out, the Fund helped me through completely different stages of life. I’m so grateful.

"Without the Fund, I honestly don’t know what I would have done. Having this quick, compassionate support made such a difference. I wish more partners of serving personnel knew what’s available for them should they need support like I did."