#FightingBack: ‘Boxing saved my life’

After watching and reading others’ #FightingBack stories on England Boxing’s social meeting, Jess Benson, from Braintree, who has recently started training at Rayne Boxing ABC, was inspired to share her own…

“At the start of summer 2018, I went through a rough time with family issues and I didn’t really know how to handle it.

“The only thing I thought I could really do was to hide away in my room and hide all my emotions from everyone around me because I didn’t want them to see me as weak.

“Everyone else in my family seemed to be okay, and they didn’t seem to be effected by it as much as I would.

“I had no friends I could talk to, but for one person. He is still to this day, the best friend I will ever have because he was there for me during that hard time. No matter whether it was morning noon or night, I could ring him if I had things on my mind.

“It was during the summer that I developed anxiety and depression and I didn’t know where I belonged, or if I even belonged in this world anymore.

“I’d get thoughts of ending my life, but that one person changed my mind in a second and he made me feel loved and worthy of being someone. He was the only person I could trust.

“By the end of summer, someone had introduced me to the gym and showed me around and when they said to me,” do you want to come to the gym with me,” I was like “hell no, who do you think I am, you’ll never see me go to the gym ever in my life.”

But loooking back at it now, it was the best decision I ever made because it was that day that I found my love for boxing. It’s made me who I am today, and I can’t thank my personal trainer enough for helping me to dig myself out of a very deep hole that I’d been hiding away in for a very long time.

“I look up to so many people and I’ve done so many things since the New Year started that I wouldn’t have ever dreamed of doing last year. Boxing really did save my life. #FightingBack”