There's Always Light at the End of the Tunnel

If you need someone to talk to or are in a crisis and worried about your safety there is always someone out there to listen and give you a helping hand. The Samaritans is an organisation which offers support for people who need someone to listen to them. There is no typical problem that people talk to the Samaritans about so you can talk to them about anything that is making you feel bad or anything that is putting you down. As I was reading through the Samaritans website in religion class one day something came up a number of times and I guess it is important for me to emphasise this as well. In a number of places on the Samaritans website they inform the public that you do not have to be feeling suicidal to give them a call and have a chat. Only one in five of the people who contact the Samaritans are suicidal so if you’re not suicidal but feeling bad and low you can still call them and have a chat about what’s getting you down. I would recommend seeking help if you are fee...

Mental health is something we take for granted. Nobody rushes off to the doctor if they feel low or upset but if you hurt your leg or arm its straight to the doctor. People keep their mental health issues hidden away and there is a huge stigma attached to mental health for that reason. Since there have been many high profile suicides in recent months more and more people are talking about mental health and as a result the stigma is slowing beginning to reduce. But why has it take many high profile suicides for this to happen? Why did we have to wait for young people to die and for it to make the news until we decided to talk about mental health? None the less I take comfort in knowing that the way we view mental health is changing, it may not be the right of things changing but things are changing. Keeping that in mind though do we know where to go and get help? Talking about things is only part of recovery, we need to know where we can go and seek help. We as a society need to b...

I remember the 29 th of July 2005 like it was yesterday. I normal day with a normal, well more like a routine at this stage trip to the hospice. All was well; my mam had been sedated as per usual. She didn’t know if we were there with her, but we were. We were there every day. We sat by her bedside for about an hour or so, as we usually did. Finally it was time for us to go, like every other night I leaned over my mam and kiss her goodbye on her forehead. I whispered “I love you” into her ear as I stood up straight.   Saying goodbye as I walked out of the room was the same as I did every other night, what I didn’t know was this was the last time I would ever tell my mam that I loved her or kissed her while she was alive. Finally the day we had all been waiting for came, the day she passed away. It was the 30th of July 2005. It was the same as every other day; we all went into see my mam in the hospice that evening. My granddad came with us as well; he usually did come with u...

Cancer is something that nobody ever wants to hear about becoming part of their family. At the age of eight I was introduced into the world of a person living with cancer. Words such as chemo and trail drugs became part of my everyday language. I was shoved into a world of hospitals and doctors that I didn't want to be in. I was in an unrecognisable place and I didn't like it, I wanted out but there's was no way out. There was only a long road of pain, suffering, good days, and bad days lying ahead of us. The only way out was to go through it. We had to pull together as a family and face cancer head on. We had to support my mam and help her along. We put everything from the past in the past and we came together as a family to fight against this and that is what we did, we stuck together and fought cancer as a family. A long fifteen month battle with cancer was lying ahead of my mother, but we were fighting with her every step of the way. My mam would have good times w...

Talking is key No matter where you are these days you always seem to hear about another person young or old taking their own life due to bullying. No matter who you are it is not right to bully. The bullies themselves can often have things going on in their own life's that drive them to bully but that doesn't make it  ok , nothing makes it  ok . Just the other day I heard of another young person taking their own life due to bullying in a town close to mine and it brought up a lot of memories and thoughts. I'm not going to write a big long post giving out about bullies and what they are doing to people but I am going to write a bit about people taking their own life's and bullying in general.  I am one of the lucky one in society.  From reading my blog many of you know that I have mental health issues and I have gone through the long process of help. Yes my recovery is long but that's just it, my recovery. I reached out for help and tha...