A bit brave

Winter Months January was extremely hard. My headaches were at their worst and it was hard to think straight or consider the best ways forward. My arms were still very sore but despite the fact I was getting invaluable help from the physio progress was slow. I came to the conclusion that I was frightened of hurting myself more, and this was contributing to the headaches. In the winter I had no routine to follow and there was little to do. No choir, light exercise only and too many hours spent in shops and cafes. Weather and dark days are not conducive to walking outside and my SAD made me feel very low.   It was easy to feel that, at present, my life had little meaning and I was just going through the motions of living. I recognised that these thoughts were temporary and that my life would not continue this way. My starting point for improvement would be longer daylight hours and the reduction of the headaches which are completely debilitating. The headaches made those ...

One reason why some people have mental problems is that they suppress their anger. I grew up in a family where everyone was expected to smile, and laugh their way through adversity. Of course, holding anger is a highly dangerous thing to do. For me, even recognising that I am angry is sometimes hard. Now I am living in isolation it is very easy to dwell on negative thoughts far too much. This morning I felt in a rage about the situation I find myself in, not only because I am angry over the government’s mismanagement of the corona crisis, but also the long term inequalities in our society and my inability to do anything about them. Most people like me will be highly stressed about what has happened but feel helpless to do anything about it. So to help me cope I need to get things off my chest. This morning my maxim is 'get angry, not anxious.' For the past 10 years, I have watched our NHS being starved of resources, and doctors and nurses leaving because they feel unsupport...

My grandson is 21. He was born on 23rd November 1998 and from that point on has had a complicated and difficult time. Diagnosed with a serious, life-limiting condition at eight months, multiple operations, deafness, physical and learning disabilities, all compounded by meningitis at ten years old (a result of the refusal of his immune system to grow back following two bone marrow transplants in 2000). Along the way, he has refused to stop or slow down and brought joy and laughter to almost everyone that he meets- questioning them about the motorways they use, the day their bins go out, the tram or train stations they use and the supermarkets they shop at. He is now in his second year at college and loves it (his college in Salford integrate the young adults with additional needs with the mainstream students on one campus). He goes out with his adult social services group, a service that has somehow survived repeated cuts by the Tory government and council over the last ten years. Thi...

It is always good to find confirmation of my own view that people with mental illness are in their own way brave. My thanks to Kate who brought this poem to my attention on our Facebook group, ‘Past, Present and Future.’ Poem: “I Think It’s Brave,” by Lana Rafaela i think it’s brave that you get up in the morning even if your soul is weary and your bones ache for a rest i think it’s brave that you keep on living even if you don’t know how to anymore i think it’s brave that you push away the waves rolling in every day and you decide to fight i know there are days when you feel like giving up but i think it’s brave that you never do This poem says it all.

It is hard to explain, to anyone who doesn’t suffer, the illogicality of a phobia, how mine came about and how it affects me. Some people can’t go into confined spaces and I can see how that can happen. I have never been afraid of spiders but I can understand why some people are. They are alien creatures that can appear from nowhere and move like lightning. There are people who are phobic about ill health and go to extremes in avoiding ‘germs’ and the people who might carry them. This was hard for me to understand until I developed anxiety associated with pain and injury. This phobia seems a little more abstract than many but how and why it happened was incremental and perfectly understandable to me, if not anyone else. It began when I was diagnosed with severe stress and told to rest. I was perfectly relaxed about this but too exhausted to get out of bed. Suddenly I was faced with the prospect of losing the job I had worked hard for over many years. I knew I had to go back to work...

Singing as Therapy  It’s easy to imagine that for those suffering from mental illness most days are the same, always on the edge of crisis. Maybe for some, this is true, particularly when at their worst.   For many of us, our lives are a roller coaster of emotions with good days and bad days, depending on what is happening in our lives and how well we are coping with it. It helps my morale to congratulate myself on surviving a difficult day and I can feel optimistic on good days but there is a continuity of emotional turmoil that remains with me whatever is happening. I only escape from this when I am distracted and involved in something that engrosses me. I have found singing in a choir very therapeutic. Chatting to people, singing uplifting songs, mastering the nuances of the music and learning words, all keep my mind focussed and away from destructive thoughts. I feel the knot in my stomach lift into my chest and then into the air as I sing. On these nights I go hom...