I’m lonely. I’m in my 40s and really don’t think I have any friends. I have people I hang out with, sure. But if it came balls to the wall, not so sure that anyone would be interested, apart from…
Socializing in the Hospital
After being admitted to an inpatient hospital setting, settling down on the unit as best as possible, and changing into hospital garb, there is little to do than to sit and wait for your treatment team meetings, medication administration, meals,…
Psychosis for those who care about someone with Psychosis
What If I Wasn’t Crazy? – An Inside Look, for the Normals, and Other Scary Individuals. The hotel staff pressed his naked body to the ground. His initiation was almost complete. Lots of things buzzed through his mind as they…
SUPPORT: Connectedness to Tackle Loneliness
By Gill Jardine, Counsellor/Psychotherapist When considering the subject of loneliness and how to tackle it, it may be useful to first try to understand what loneliness is. Loneliness is a feeling, an emotion, which is probably experienced by everyone at…
SUPPORT: Connecting with Nature for Mental Health Awareness Week
As we head for what should be the hottest of our seasons, stepping out into nature is perhaps becoming a more welcome activity after what has seemed a particularly long winter. As the sun pokes out through the clouds and…
SUPPORT: Making a case for Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is not the same as ‘being kind to yourself’ or ‘self-care’, although this can certainly be part of it. Nor is it about ‘letting yourself off the hook’ or saying ‘everything I do is fantastic’. For me, self-compassion is…
The Depression, The Distress, The Devi
Nov 2013: night shelter My life is a joke, and this needs to change. Too much debt, not enough success. I’ve achieved some things, but these things seem insignificant compared to my current situation: out of hospital after a breakdown…
SUPPORT – An Introduction to Promoting Understanding through Language
Language, as we know, is a tool. We use this tool to communicate, to connect with one another, to share the experience of our individual lives. This clearly has the ability to be a very powerful tool which can be…
Healing Depression through the Art of Language
I was depressed for a long time, so I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. What I saw there was a continuous reminder of what I wasn’t becoming, but therein lay the problem. I was stuck on this problem…
SUPPORT: Making sense of Mental Health Struggles: The ‘Stress Bucket’ Analogy – Free Audio Book Available
Struggling with our mental health is hard enough, but often the experience is made worse by a side dish of questions and self-criticism. Why is this happening to me? What does it mean? I am weak? Mad? Bad? The reality…
It’s not like the Movies – STRONG ADULT CONTENT WARNING
TRIGGER WARNING – Adult content containing graphic depiction of sexual abuse. Read on with caution. It’s not like in the movies. It’s not always violent, it’s not always obvious, but it’s still rape… According to an article in The Guardian:…
SUPPORT: Relationships and the Pandemic – A Follow up Guide – Free Audio Book Available
We keep hearing the expression ‘household’ recently, talking about what a ‘household’ is allowed to do and what it is not allowed to do. The reason for this is that the government are constantly measuring the effect of the virus…
SUPPORT: Quick Tip Video: How to Reduce Anxiety
Supporting partner of mindsanonymous.com and mental health & wellbeing coach and expert, Tracy Douthwaite from waytowellbeing.co.uk takes us through a quick tip to reduce anxiety.
Should I tell my Work?
I’ve had mixed experiences of telling my work about poor mental health. I struggle to tell those close to me when I’m feeling down or anxious so telling anyone at work seems like the a pretty hard mountain to climb….
SUPPORT: Anxiety – A User Guide – Free Audio Book Available
As an experience, anxiety can be deeply unpleasant, exhausting, a crippling and disabling force that stands in the way of us living the lives we want. When we talk about ‘having anxiety’, or ‘anxiety problems’ we are normally thinking about…
SUPPORT: Relationships and the Pandemic – Free Audio Book Available
Firstly, what is a ‘pandemic’? We can break the word down into two parts 1. pan and 2. demic. According to the Collins English Dictionary ‘pan’ means ‘all or every’ or ‘relating to all parts or members’, the ‘demic’ part…
SUPPORT: Worry or Anxiety? Free Audio Book Available
According to the Collins English Dictionary, ‘worry’ is ‘to be, or cause to be anxious or uneasy, especially about something uncertain or potentially dangerous’. ‘Anxiety’ is ‘state of uneasiness or tension caused by apprehension or possible future misfortune, danger’. The…
Managing Depression
We all know well the typical symptoms of depression, low mood and energy, sometimes to the point of being unable to get up and go to work or even look after your own personal hygiene, but there are so many…
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Letting the Child Grow Up
This is written to share experience of dis-ease of the mindbody and to support others in their own journeys of self-discovery, transformation, and manifestation. I have suffered chronic depression, anxiety, intrusive and sometimes suicidal thoughts and, in hindsight, quite an…
SUPPORT: Living with Uncertainty
This year has certainly been one of uncertainty and change, more than ever we have seen how external influences can impact our mental health and wellbeing. There are many ways we can support our wellbeing both individually and in workplaces…
Grey Tinted Glasses
You are depressed. You can’t see the washing up build into a tower beside the kitchen sink. You can’t see the plants around you dying. You can’t see that your hair, from lack of washing, is starting to look wet….
POEM: The Colour Came Back Into Your Eyes
Fought off the demon hands that bound you to his lies The colour came back into your eyes And with a spark of blue, we knew, right then and there, That you Had saved yourself again. With pride, we announce…
Tales of a Patient’s Mental Health Journey
My advice to anyone going through mental illness is to allow love, friends and family into your life. Don’t shut people out when you are at your most vulnerable. It can be hard to do and you might want to…
Sorry I’m not your Perfect Victim
It was a warm summer evening; I was catching the bus with a friend back to her mums. A couple of guys start chatting to us and happen to be getting off at the same stop. We were 14, they…
Redundancy – Am I Grieving?
Like so many others, I have been made redundant. I loved the job. I like to think I was good at it, but apparently not that good – or so my mind will lead me to believe. In my head…
SUPPORT: Sadness or Depression?
There has always been a lot of mystery and suspicion around the subjects of mental health and mental illness. Am I losing my mind? Am I imagining things? Will I ever stop crying? Frightening concepts creating a sense of isolation…
Could a Schooling Shakeup help Adolescent Mental Health?
A few decades ago I was in school, and although it feels like a lifetime ago, the emotions connected to my experience there are still very prominent. School was pure, unequivocal hell, painfully lonely, I couldn’t do anything right and…
A Letter to my Ex-Girlfriend
When I was eight or nine years old, I remember having a vivid dream which had such an effect on me that I was never able to forget it. A friend of a friend had run away from home and…
Bipolar: The Bungee Experience
I have a bungee cord in my head. I’m attached to a platform and occasionally sit myself up there and look at the world from a great height. But only for a short time while I’m practising yoga, meditation and/or…
I Forgive me
I had a meltdown the other night. After apologising to the people that love me, one suggested I write a letter of forgiveness to myself – and try to stop saying sorry. I always apologise for myself, my feelings, my…
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