There's Always Light at the End of the Tunnel

The other night I was in NUIM for a careers talk to help me to decided what I want to do after school. I decided that I would go to the talk on Paramedics and fire fighters and that I would also go to a talk on medicine. The first talk was amazing but that’s not why I am writing this post. The second talk was about medicine and there were three part to the talk. When we got to the third part to the talk that's when I learned something that I will never forget. We all know that there is a huge stigma attached to mental health but I always thought that health care professions such as doctors were to try and help reduce the stigma. And well now I know that I am wrong. It was near the end of the talk and we were being told about the different parts of medicine and the different specialities that you can go into after you become a doctor. One of the specialities was Physhcarity( I cant spell that but you know what I mean)  she h...

Mental health can affect anybody and it doesnt make us any different from other people. There is no such thing as normal. Ask yourself the question What is normal?

Stress..... stress can be very hard to deal with and can often affect people in many different ways. It can be both emotional and physical and can often affect people very little to very severe. some people hurt themselves when they feel stressed. When I would feel stressed sometimes I would self-harm because it gave me control in a stressful situation and I was able to cope with what was going on. However the feeling i got of being in control only lasted for a short while as after I self-harmed and my feeling of being in control went again I was out of control due to  the shame of self-harming. I had no control after I self-harmed because I had to wear long selves and hid the marks. It did nothing for me. It only made things worse and it took me a while to realise that using self-harm as a way of coping with stress only caused me more stress in the end. I used being stress as a reason to self-harm but soon I became addicted to it and I was n...

Something that i had to take part in while i was in hospital was a group called mindfulness. This group was all about learning to be in the moment. It can be considered as a type of meditation that helps people to feel more in control of their lives. Mindfulness means being aware of yourself and your surroundings. When you are being mindful you clear you mind of distracting thoughts and tune in to what you are doing at that very moment. This can often be very hard to do when you first try it I know it took me a while to get the hang of it and now I am still trying to get the hang of it. This can help you to deal with some of the hard times and also to help prevent you from self-harming. The basic steps for learning to be mindful are very simple and easy to do: Sit or lie quietly and notice your breath moving in and out. Notice anything else that you feel in your body. As thoughts come in to your head just let them go and not think about them. Remain aware of being in the ...

Often when you first tell your parents that you self-harm they do not understand why you do it and they can often become very sad or angry. It is often very confusing for a parent to be told this and from my own experience this is very true. No matter how much you explain it they will not understand it. So it might help to sit down and talk to them about it. Here are some of the things that might help you to make it clear to your parents about self-harm: They are not alone!! They need to be reassured that there are other parents out there experiencing the same things as they are. Although it is very important that you receive the right help to conquer your self-harm it is also very important that your parents receive some kind of support to help them during this journey with you. It takes time!! It takes time to overcome self-harm it is not something that will just happen overnight. The young person first needs to realise why they are self-harming and see how this kind of behav...

So and I have finally gotten my discharge date and well it wont be long now until I am back home for good!! I have spent almost four months in hospital and in a few weeks when I get discharged I will have spent four months in hospital. It has been a long and tiring road to recovery and now I am on the last leg of my journey. Im always going to have hard times, sure everybody is but hopefully things will be better than before they were when I went into hospital. During my time in hospital I have gained friends and lots friends, laughed and cried but it wasnt all that bad. I feel like a different person now. I know how to cope with things and I am happy with myself. Things have got a lot better fro me and I have to thank all the staff in the hospital, the other patients, my family and my friends. Without all of these people helping me along the way I would not be sitting right here writing this blog post right now. So thank you for everything. Finally getteing my discharge date made me...