There's Always Light at the End of the Tunnel

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...