3D Jigsaw

The theme for Mental Health Awareness Week 2025 is ‘Community’.

To mark the occasion, our colleague Martyn has shared a reflection on the communities that have supported them throughout their recovery journey. Inspired by a 3D jigsaw they received; Martyn uses the puzzle as a metaphor for the interconnectedness that community offers.

3D Jigsaw

My partner recently bought me a globe for my birthday. It came in a set of flat, wooden sheets—laser-cut, ready to be pieced together.

I love intricate kits like these—they absorb my mind for a while. They’re something I can concentrate on to keep the noise in my head at bay.

These kits represent something more than a distraction. They show the importance of interconnectedness. Each piece of the kit needs all the others. If one-piece breaks or is lost, the kit is not complete and won’t work. The sections have different levels of importance but they all link into a complete whole.

It took me a long time to realise that life is much like these kits. I have suffered from mental health and addiction issues for most of my life. For many years, I was absorbed by the chaos of it—seeking solace in my own company, cutting myself off from a world I feared and simply did not understand.

Circumstances, in the end, forced me to change. I ended up on a psych hold in a hospital in Kent. I had fought with my deteriorating mental health for years, as well as self-medicating with cocaine to try to survive day to day. I was a mess.

The hospital stay allowed a reset and a chance to come to terms with my illness and addiction.

When I was discharged, I referred myself into the local Drug and Alcohol Recovery Service. I began to see the advantages of not being cut off from other people.

I started to attend a peer support group to support my recovery and found myself gaining far more than I ever thought I would. I saw that opening myself to the support of others was so good for my mental health—talking through the challenges that my C-PTSD (though it took many years to finally get a diagnosis) caused me every day, and the fight with my addiction that was driven by my poor mental health.

Friendships formed, trust began to be fostered, real and meaningful connections began to be developed. Just like the sets I love, I began to feel I was part of a much larger whole, and that it was helping me cope so much better.

As the years have slipped by, I have built connections into the communities that surround me. I had spent so long just hiding from the world that I hadn’t realised that I needed the very people I had shunned, in favour of my hurt loneliness.

I don’t attend recovery groups like I used to, but I have expanded my support by attending sessions to feed my personal interests, building friendship groups that have fostered a set of individuals whom I trust and who support me.

Like the globe kit, these are not easy or simple; they take time, concentration, and perseverance. But when I sit back and see that orb lit up on my shelf, I pride myself on a job well done. When I take the time to look at the community I interact with, I realise that it protects and encourages me towards health and wellbeing.