Everytime someone in the public eye passes tragically from suicide. It starts to become the hot topic on social media and in the press for a few weeks. Everyone starts to talk more about how we need to try harder to reduce the stigma around mental health issues and suicide, and then as quickly as conversation comes, it goes away again. The important question is, does the temporary heightened awareness and outpouring of grief that we share with strangers on social media, about people we have more than likely never met make us feel more comfortable talking about suicide and mental health issues in the longer term amongst our family and friends?. Does it help to significantly reduce the stigma surrounding suicide?, In my opinion and more importantly, my experience. No it does not.Read More »
Month: March 2019
Whats the damage?
Having the luxury of being able to get off the hamster wheel lately and spend some time to let my mind relax and reflect in peace. My thought pattern I am pleased to say has started to swing in the right direction and a lot of my thoughts have been positive around how I am going to achieve my goals, what direction I should now being going in, and rather than looking back, and going back to a career I know I can make money in but will ultimately make me utterly miserable, I am taking this opportunity to embark on a change of direction.
Trying to start again at 42 years old and venture into an area that I have no experience or qualifications in isn’t going to be easy but at this point I have nothing to lose so I figure it’s the perfect time to try. I also need to eradicate some of the regrets I have about the personal choices that I have made over the years which have ended with me being in the situation I am in now. If I had kept control of my own life rather than giving over that control to someone else, I would have never ended up in the position I find myself in now and there has to be some lessons in that. I don’t want to live my life with any regrets and up-until three years ago I didn’t have any. I now have many, and one of my main aims is to turn this situation around in to such a life changing positive that the regrets I have are drowned by my success and I now feel more than ever , determined to make that happen.
Alone in the Ring.
Alone in the ring.
This is how it feels a lot of the time when you are battling mental illness, alone and constantly fighting. Constantly fighting, but no one has come to watch, they probably haven’t even noticed you are fighting. Lets face it you may not have even told anyone the fight was on!, but you have to get up each day and do it anyway.
Every day you wake up wondering if tomorrow will be the day you give up. The next punch that knocks you off your feet, will you have enough in the tank to get you back up again?, or will that be the day you just stay down. Defeated by the demons in your own head.
It is exhausting, It is suffocating. It is debilitating, and then someone says to you “Just go and do some excercise…it will make you feel better” and as much as it makes you want to swing a right hook in their direction for showing their obvious ignorance to the pain you are in, and as annoyingly irritating it may be to hear, they are right. It absolutely will.Read More »
Winging it with a smile! 