Sarah Collins

1 week ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Sarah Collins

It is 11pm on a Saturday night and I am several glasses of wine in. I am sitting on a long wooden table in a tiny Athenian shop, where our host Anton is filling our glasses with delicious Greek varieties. I listen to the hum of my new friends switching between languages as they chat to each other, from English to Turkish to Greek. We are at the stage of tipsy that allows my friend Ezgi to confidently claim she can taste undertones of cheese in her glass of red.

1 month ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Sarah Collins

I was frazzled, late, tired, hungry and depleted of vitamins when I arrived at the door of a charming nail salon in downtown Athens. It has become customary for me to book a nail appointment when I find myself in need of—apologies in advance—self-care.

1 month ago | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Sarah Collins

Like many OCD sufferers, I have been through several therapists in my time as a certifiably mad person. But this is the first time a therapist has retired on me. My first therapist was a kind, mumsy woman with the most fantastic curly blond hair, who was an expert in cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT. Bog-standard CBT is now frankly old hat in the psychology world, but to me it was revolutionary.

Nov 7, 2024 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Sarah Collins

As I half-walked, half-ran to the first Saturday morning class for my master’s degree at the University of Athens, sweat poured from my forehead. At 9am the temperature was already more than 20°C. I was wearing a particularly useless pair of shoes: platform sandals that my long-suffering boyfriend later pointed out were so heavy they were weighing down my legs. “You may as well have strapped some 2kg dumbbells to your ankles” were his words as I trailed behind him up the hill to the Parthenon.

Sep 26, 2024 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Sarah Collins

I want to tell you about Val. I am introduced to her through the words of her daughter, Sofia, who is addressing a commemorative hearing at the Lampard Inquiry at Chelmsford Civic Centre. The inquiry is examining the deaths of 2,000 children and adults who were inpatients at mental health units in Essex between 2000 and 2023. It is the first public inquiry ever to focus on mental health deaths specifically. I am sitting as far back as I can in the airy chamber; I do not how to be in this space.