Swimsuits and Lingerie for Mental Health Awareness

Last year I had the absolute pleasure of being part of the UK Calendar Girls competition, rasing funds for Mental Health Awareness and The Chestnut Appeal for Prostate Cancer, two charities I find particularly important in our current times. My gorgeous and always supportive husband Stephen drove me to the photoshoot and later on did all he could do so I got a lot of visibility, furthering my modelling career at the same time as promoting the two charities. It was overall a hugely enjoyable and worthwhile experience!

Now, obviously this year the competition hasn't been able to go through (please check their website directly for official statements on the situation), so I wasn't able to re-apply to go on the calendar this year, but I wanted to look back at my experience and share why it was so important to me.

Firstly, it is exactly a year ago today when I had the photoshoot to compete with over 300 other ladies to be on the calendar. It was the semifinals and we had a few weeks to get enough votes to get us in through to the finals, and to me it was a huge psychological and emotional breakthrough, which brings me to the second point: today begins this year's Mental Health Awareness Week, which is a movement that I've been involved with since I first became aware that I could - socially, technologically and practically!

What I mean is, it was not always easy for me to explore, speak up, support or even aid in creating any kind of awareness towards mental health.

There is a lot I've written about me in other places which you can easily find if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, but in a nutshell I'll just say that I was born with a lesion in my brain, I was sexually abused by a complete stranger when I was a child, I was emotionally abused by certain people surrounding me when I was growing up, and even though my family have always been supportive of me, I still grew up in a country where the Catholic mentality and the fear, and even disbelief about depression made it incredibly hard for someone with my levels of depression and PTSD to cope and function normally; and one of the things that I ended up in was a terribly abusive relationship from which I had two miscarriages, and that, coupled with the medication for my mental health disorders, made my metabolism break down and my body end up with a series of issues that to the day, more than ten years later, I'm still unable to fix. That was a big nutshell, wasn't it? My story is long and twisted and I'm hoping to one day being able to tell it in full, but for the time being, a short description has been given to give you an idea of why me posing in swimsuits and lingerie in order to compete with over 300 other ladies for a prime spot on a calendar was actually a pretty big deal.

The amount of emotional and psychological healing that I had to undergo in order to get to that place was incredible, and the amount of emotional and psychological healing that happens during it is something I had never dreamed I would get to! And even though I didn't get into the finals and so was not in the calendar this year, I got close enough to it thanks to all the fabulous support I received, that I definitely felt it had been worthwhile. To be completely honest I'm not sure I'd been the right fit for the finals anyway, as the way they arranged the celebration for the winners meant a really long night of partying and club-hopping, which is not really something I've ever enjoyed, but it's still meant as a series of fundraisers at the end of the competition, so I would have happily done it for the two charities. The charities change from year to year, by the way, so you'd have to look into which charities they'd have taken on this year or which they will work with next year.

Last year, I particularly enjoyed that it was MHA that was being looked after, as I would love to support any Mental Health-directed charity. As well as the mental health issues I have dealt with my whole life, I was also given the chance to do some research for a mental health clinic several years ago. As someone who's had paranoia, dysmorphia, depression and crippling anxiety for most of my life (sometimes even all at once), to raise awareness about mental health is something I consider highly important. As I said above, after the two miscarriages in my early twenties (while already carrying the horrible side effects of PCOS, as well as heavy - although life-saving - psychiatric treatment), my metabolism was never the same. The collagen disappeared from my body, my breasts and my knees getting the worst of it, and doing the simplest of crunches would set off an episode of contractions that would render me useless... But I've always been a very active person! From the long hikes me and my cousins would take over childhood camping trips to long hours of dedicated workout where eventually I would experience serious burnout because of how unstable my metabolism was, to this day, when activity for me is a must! I've always had healthy eating habits, too, with lots of fruit and veg and lots of water, balancing my carbs and protein, etc... However, as many people in my life are aware of, one of the things I suffered constantly in my life in Mexico was criticism over my looks (I have too many curves and wear too little makeup, apparently), so one of the things I was set on for this competition was to not have anything airbrushed, as I genuinely believe that we need to stop telling women (and men, for that matter!) that that we are imperfect - we all have this or that or the other that we're always going to want to change, enhance or eliminate completely, but that doesn't make us imperfect or ugly! Sure, hit the gym, eat better, whatever you want or need to do, but only because that's good for you, not because if you don't do it then you're "not perfect". Same with the makeup - if you're someone who expresses stuff through makeup because of the colours and shades and that gives you an outlet, hooray, carry on! But please stop believing that the only way to be beautiful is to contour and plaster your face away...

So, yeah, I requested for none of my pictures to be airbrushed because I genuinely believe that expresses better my commitment to Mental Health Awareness, and to helping people see themselves as they truly are and experience the beauty of themselves as they are. The competition was open to women of all shapes and sizes, ages 18 - 45. At 38 I am already considered a "mature" model in the industry, thus having only started three years ago means my chances of really getting in are pretty low. As you can see I have been putting my best foot forward, though! I was pleasantly surprised to see that most ladies in the competition had either focused on getting their bodies ready for the photoshoot and thus not required airbrushing, or simply decided to show their scars and weight "issues" in the very same way I did and felt proud of their own strength and resilience! I do hope they all received the support they deserve - in my case I did have a lot of support but I also had some very strange criticism from very unexpected sources, including my husband being told off for sharing pictures that reinforces conforming to traditional beauty - and considering that I was told for over 30 years that I wasn't nor would I ever be considered seen as "traditional beauty", I think it's fair to say that this proves that the whole concept of traditional beauty is wrong anyway (that, or that everyone who called me plain or downright ugly in my past is just plain wrong, although I will admit that I feel utterly vain just writing those words!). In any case, I am of the belief that we are all beautiful in one way or another, but that we're not necessarily beautiful to the same people, and that's okay. That will be an entry for another day, methinks.

Now, I am a model, an actress and a writer, all of it self-made, and all of it ties into the same story, which I strive to tell as I feel others might benefit from my story, so I shall keep releasing bits and chapters as I go along! One of the best things that I gained from it is that I am a life model now, and have started modelling for body artists as well - and both deserve their own entry at some point, because of the beauty of the art form and the experiences as well! I love being a life model for a living and I wish to continue as long as I can! I just want to do all different types of modelling, is all!

And just as an end note, I also love that the Chestnut Appeal was also supported last year, as men often get sidelined when it comes to cancer awareness!

Wishing everyone all the best,

Sandra Cole ~ Actress, Model, Writer, Incorrigible Optimist

Cover photo by Rita Page , MUA: Lydia Grimshaw

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