There's Always Light at the End of the Tunnel

Nobody is immune from a mental illness. There is no special vaccine that can prevent a mental illness. There is however ways of looking after your mental health in order to reduce the chances of you suffering from a mental illness. These ways include eating right, exercising, getting enough sleep etc.  But no matter how much we look after ourselves we are still not immune to those bad days, the days where we want to stay in bed, curl up in a ball and wish we could go back in time. We are not immune to these bad days and every now and again it is these bad days that remind us we need some looking after, we need to take some time out or that we just need to do something, which we enjoy. For me it is these bad days that remind me that I need to give myself a break, look after myself and do something positive for me.  This week I had a bad day. I woke up and I was not in control of my mind. I was at the mercy of my thoughts, feelings and emotions. ...

Once again I am very sorry for the lack of updates on my blog recently, I have been so busy with everything I just haven’t had a chance to sit down and write but that is all going to change! Ok so this post is going to be a bit different and I related to something with is very important to me.  When a person is suffering from self-harm they try to keep it a secret, they keep it hidden, an internal secret that they cannot trust anybody with. I know this because I was like that when I was self-harming. I would do everything and anything to hide my cuts, I would not tell a soul and I would avoid any awkward questions about why I wanted to wear long sleeves all the time especially in good weather. I went through all of the thoughts about what my family and friends would think, how people in society would judge me and what would happen to me if people found out that I was self-harming.  People think that often people who are self-harming are looking for attention but that is no...

Today I was thinking about writing about the budget that came out yesterday but then I remembered something important about this month, something positive and something, which I really want to share with you guys. On the 14 th of this month marked a very important day for me. The 14 th of this month marked 2 whole months without self-harm. The day before I got my leaving cert I was feeling low, anxious, lost and confused and I didn’t know what to do and as a result of all of these mixed feelings I took them out of myself to get some form of relief. It wasn’t a bad incident of self-harm but nevertheless it was still an incident of self-harm, which shouldn’t have happened, but it did and I regretted it. To be honest I hadn’t really thought about this important date until today and I am extremely proud of myself. I guess I am more proud of this 2 month milestone because for the past four/five months I haven’t had support from the adult services as there is a whole range o...

Today as part of my college course myself and a group of my peers were required to visit two youth work projects in Dublin’s inner city. This visit was a real eye opener for me, as I have never really worker with young people who are from disadvantaged backgrounds or in a youth club setting.  On the bus home after todays visits I found myself asking many questions about what does youth work really mean to me and what does working with young people give me. Well first of working with young people to me is encouraging and motivating them to engage in things they enjoy. It means working with them rather than for them to help improve their lives in some shape, way or form. It means I have to respect them in order for them to respect me and finally working with young people means helping bring about social change in a positive way to help young people learn the necessary skills to improve their lives, reach their full potential and help those around them too. Youth work give...

Having a mental illness is a confusing thing, you find yourself asking many question like why me?, is this real? and how do I make it go away. From experience I believe that it is ok to ask yourself and others these questions, it is important to work to try and understand your mental illness and to help yourself work through things.  At any age a mental illness is a hard and confusing thing but when you are already experiencing a confusing time it is even harder. This already confusing time which I am talking about is adolescents. During adolescents it is a time of experiments, finding yourself and learning new things. All of these things can be hard to manage and create many different questions but add a mental illness into that as your worlds is pretty much turned upside down, well thats how things were for me! While I was going through a tough time with my depression and spent time in hospital there was something which helped me to work through things and put things int...

This week saw the beginning of my college classes. As part of these class we have been working closely on bonding and getting to know each other in order to progress well throughout the next three years together. To allow us to get to know each other better and have a better understanding into each others life we were asked to prepare a life map and then make a presentation to our class regarding our life. I struggled with this assignment. I wasn't sure what I was going to share with my class. The fear of being judged, looked down on and treated like an outcast was at the forefront of my mind over the weekend in which I was preparing my presentation. I have decided to go into college and not tell people about my past, not because I am ashamed but because I wanted people to get to know me for who I am today but my past has made me the person who I am today. I fought with my mind the night before giving my presentation, my mind had all power and was controlling me. It was my mind w...

Bails of hay, real grass, some bunting and a picket fence on the side of the road in Dublin city centre, a site you couldn't miss, well unless you were me and walked right passed it without even noticing but I realised where I was meant to be when I saw some hay in the middle of the street! Today I attended park(ing) day in Dublin city centre to help hand out FREE stickers with the guys from See Change to encourage people to talk about mental health to break the stigma of metal health. If your like me you might not have a notion of what park(ing) day is because up until a couple of weeks ago I didn't know either. "PARK(ing) Day is a annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public places. The project began in 2005 when  Rebar , a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public pa...

On Monday I officially became a college student! Needless to say me being me I was very nervous and not very sure on what to expect. Thinking back now although today is only my third day I didn't really have anything to be nervous about. NUI Maynooth were more than welcoming, friendly and helpful. Beginning college is a new start for me, a start where nobody knows my background. Its not that I am ashamed of my past in terms of my depression and self harm but this new beginning in college allows me to have the chance to let people get to know me for me and not my past, people wont have the chance to judge me on my ill mental health and I am hoping it will stay that way. The aim of Label Jars Not People is to create a society where people with mental health issues are not judged, looked down on and seen as an outcast. My time here in Maynooth will be spent spreading the word of positive mental health and reducing stigma but it will also be a time for me to protect myself from the ...

On Saturday the 14 th  of September to mark world suicide prevention day/week Console held a Walk and Talk event in the Phionex Park. As we (Label Jars Not People)are working with Console this year to raise some much needed funds we were on site to lend a hand where needed. As suggested in the name this event was to encourage people to talk as talking is a key element to positive mental health. The walk/ run began at 10 am with many budding walkers and runners lining up at the starting line ready to take on this challenge in order to make a difference, get people talking and raise some much needed funds for Console. With the weather truing out to be dry and sunny people turned up without delay to take advantage of the good weather all the while supporting this amazing cause. This year from August 2013 to July 2014, our chosen charity is Console: the National charity for suicide prevention. We have chosen this charity as it is such a prominent charity in mental health awareness in ...

Taking time out to reflect is a huge part of my recovery and since I have finished my therapy in CAMHS I have had a lot of time to reflect on things which I have experienced in the past. I often think that I have had too much time to reflect but nevertheless it is important I do that so I can more on. One thing which I never really reflected on or thought about was my three and a half years which I spent attending weekly appointments with my CAMHS team. The only time I wasn't attending weekly appointments was the time when I was in hospital yet I was still very much linked in with the staff there. Now this post is not meant to be about praising CAMHS in Celbridge but I do have to say they were amazing. The support and care I received was top notch and I could not find any faults in it. They were dedicated to providing me with the best care possible and they did just that. They worked hard to get me a place in hospital when I was on the verge of attempting suicide, they worked h...

In the past the government have made many promises to people and have not followed through with their promises, one such promise is the promise of funds being given to the mental health sector in order to improve mental health services and increase staff numbers to allow a better service being provided to the nation regarding mental health. The mental health reform have lunched an eight week pre-budget campaign calling on the government to "Do what works for mental health" by investing in measures that are known to be both effective and cost-effective for improving peoples mental health. This year the Irish mental health reform have decided to do something in order to try and make a difference to the outcome of the October budget, this is something which I highly agree. Mental health reform are asking the government to do what works for mental health. They are asking the government to provide a range of multidisciplinary staff offering a choice of treatment options, provi...

When people hear the word addiction they think of drugs, alcohol, gambling or even tobacco but never do they think of self harm as being an addiction. I used to be a self-harmer thankfully I have control over it at the moment but during my stint in hospital I was told that self harm was my addiction. I had a hard time believing this but after a while I began to accept it. I thought about it realistically, during this point in my life self harm was everything to me, I couldn't function without it in my life similar to the way a person is dependant on drugs when they have a drug addiction. It was hard to for me to get used to the idea of my self harm being considered an addiction, what once began as a way of letting out the pain was now being classed as an addiction. I didn't want to believe it but after a while I realised it was true. My self harm was my way of coping, it was may way of looking for help and after time it had developed into an addiction. I couldn't get enou...

Surrounded by darkness and falling, falling fast. I was lost and didn't know where to turn, everywhere I looked I could see nothing but darkness. I was entering into my own personal black hole something which I now know was my depression. I was trapped and I couldn't see a way out, there was nothing but darkness. I was trapped inside my mind and there was no way out.  You feel alone and trapped with no hope of escape but that is just the depression, there are many people around you supporting you, rooting for you and showing you that things can get better and things do get better. It is hard to describe depression but that statement above written by myself is a pretty good picture of what depression feels like from my own personal experience anyway. People sometimes say that depression is not an illness and that it is all made up...... it is these people who I can not stand, who I believe are the main contributors to the mental health stigma which is present in todays...

Today the group all headed out to Dún Laoghaire for a photo shoot to launch the second year of Label Jars Not People. We were delighted that Norah Casey, noted publishing entrepreneur and broadcaster, joined us and was more than happy to support our project as she too does work to promote positive mental health with Walk in My shoes. It was an enjoyable day and a great way to get our new year off to a start. We would like to thank Ms Casey for joining us and supporting our project. Check out some of the photos below, we struggled a bit when we ere told to have serious faces but we managed somewhat :)

"Hope  is the state which promotes the belief in good outcomes related to events and circumstances in one's life." Source  Four letters make up such a small word with a huge meaning, a word which can mean something different fro each person and a word which can mean the difference between life and death at times. While I was in hospital hope meant that I could get better and get through the tough time I was experiencing and while I am not better and still suffer from depression and self-harm thoughts I did get through that tough time in my life and I believe that if I did not have hope I would have never made it through that time. The times where I sat completing taking my own life it was having hope that things could improve that stopped me. The times I didn't have hope were the times I went through with suicide attempts. Now at the present moment, which is the moment I always try to live in, hope means that I can continue to fight my depression, keep the ...

Yesterday I found myself missing my mam which is not surprising as not a day goes by that I don't think about my mam or miss my mam but yesterday was different. Every year there are two days which I dread and would do anything to avoid and yesterday was one of those days. Yesterday marked 8 years without my mam. The 30th of July is marked in my house with a trip to my mams grave with some nice flowers to show our love and how much we miss her. Yesterday was different though, yesterday I wasn't able to sad or annoyed at the loss of my mam, yesterday I felt numb and empty, I didn't know what to feel. As usual my dad, brother and I went to my mams grave but this year was different for me, I couldn't get out of the car, I couldn't stand at her grave, I couldn't talk to her, I couldn't cry for her all I could do was sit in the car and wait for my brother and my dad. Thinking today about what I was going to write here on my blog I decided to share my confusion...