I'm entering Miss GB Edinburgh beauty pageant to inspire and empower other women

If you had asked me in high school if I’d ever enter a beauty pageant, I would have run away from you.

But in June I'm going to be standing on stage in front of 350 people in the Miss GB Edinburgh finals at Prestonfield House, which is a really great fundraising event that helps woman-centred charities around the world.

Sarah Neilson-Bell from Edinburgh will take part in the Miss Great Britain Edinburgh pageant in June | Submitted

I’ve had a long battle with anxiety. I was even hospitalised in my teens when I was having bodily reactions to stress – at one point doctors thought I needed my appendix taken out because I was in so much physical pain.

But after a series of tests I got counselling and I learned that I have an anxiety disorder and I've been able to work through that and learn lots of coping mechanisms.

I entered the Miss Great Britain Edinburgh pageant last year after learning about it on social media and I wanted to take part because I think sharing my personal journey could help others and people might resonate with my story.

When you do something like this, it's not about just getting on a stage and being like ‘oh I'm so pretty’ - it needs to be part of something bigger than just yourself, and that’s what made me want to get involved.

I thought, you know what, I would love to have a platform where I can inspire other young women or just people in general that maybe struggle with their mental health so they can get through it, they can learn skills to cope with it.

The Miss Great Britain Edinburgh pageant will be held at Prestonfield House on June 5 | Submitted

Everything that we do within the pageant is about giving back to people and using our platforms to do good and raise money for causes. All the money that we raise on the night at Prestonfield House will go to the Simpsons Special Care Baby Unit.

But I also wanted to use my platform to raise awareness about anxiety disorder through my social media campaign called Thoughts Captive on Instagram. I want to share my mental health journey and I'll try to be as candid as possible with what I share because that's what connects people.

I’ll also be raising money for A-Sisterhood which supports a range of women-centred charities, from helping acid attack survivors in India, victims of female genital mutilation, to girls that have been forced into sex trafficking.

All of the money that I hope to raise will go to all of these charities, so the Miss GB Edinburgh is a great platform to raise awareness about all these issues and that's why I wanted to get involved.

I think that it takes like a certain type of woman to be able to get up on stage and stand in front of hundreds of people to talk about causes that are really important to them. I think that pageants are so empowering for women, where you meet like-minded people and everybody in the audience is there to support you. And I think there's something really special about that.