This Week in Mentalists – The Telling Stories, Sharing Pain Edition

Greetings peeps and welcome to this weeks TWIM round-up of what’s hip and hapnin in the world of mentalists blogs.

To introduce myself; my name is OiD (@0iD if you’re a Tweeter) and ”Winner of World of Mentalists Best Student or Academic Blog 2012“… and I’ve not blogged since. Gee, thanks guys, that was the kiss of death to my blogging career! Naa, not reeeely. it’s been the complete and utter lack of time juggling coming to the end of my Mental Health Nursing degree, depressive illness, and being a struggling parent. My pet project is introducing libraries of service user led literature on mental distress and recovery to inpatient mental health wards in order to promote understanding, acceptance and hopefully steer others down their own personal road to recovery

So without further ado, let’s get on with the show.

First off is Monday’s post from TWOM’s very own @VictoriaBetton who’s blog is Digital Mental Health. Victoria was of course talking about my pet love of telling stories to aid recovery.

Should we or shouldn’t we? telling our own stories in clinical practice - at our Leeds Sharing Stories launch event, we were joined by Peter Bullimore, chair of the Hearing Voices and Paranoia networks. He shared his own powerful personal story in which he described the importance of his OT in his path to recovery. He was clear that the fact she shared her own story was pivotal in their relationship – how could he be expected to trust and share with her if she didn’t share something of who she was with him? He argued that being a person as well as a professional is a critical part of engendering trust – this takes judgement and maturity and should always be for the benefit of the person you are caring for; it should never be about telling others what is best for them on the basis of your own experience. So should storytelling be woven into individual OT practice as well as in group work? And what would you share and not share of yourself? What should the boundaries be?

Victoria makes a good argument for the inclusion of story telling facilitated by Occupational Therapists (OT’s) amongst others to foster a positive self image, as well as social inclusion. It’s amazing the times I have lead similar groups for someone to say “but I thought I was the only one to feel/think like this”. A sense of belonging and friendship.

Next on the list for mention this week is a blog by a relative newbie to Twitter and blogging: Steve aka @DumpyStig. Steve’s blog Bipolar Biker has quickly been on my daily alerts list. Always witty, honest and insightful Steve writes as he sees it at the time in a style not a lot different to my own I suppose. Wednesdays post “These shoes are killing me….” is a really great snippet of his life story which I am positive will unfold and give support to many in the future.

They say that you can’t judge a person unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.

And this is true when it comes to mental illness.

If you think of depression, a lot of people will think of it as someone feeling a ‘bit sad’ and that the person should ‘pull themselves together’

But to a sufferer of depression and all its vile relatives, that is like saying that World War 2 was ‘a bit of a scuffle’. And as for pulling themselves together, well, why not ask them to do something that’s more possible? Like growing an extra arm.

It’s top of my blogs to watch in 2013 list folks.

Moving along now to Lottie aka @nuttylotte who’s life story Just Me, Nobody Else is a blog I also love reading for it’s emotional roller-coastering and great style and depth. I can relate to this being a parent also and it gives me a bit of “well, at least I’m not the only one feeling this or that” support. This week Lottie wrote:

The desires to hurt myself in a very bad way are immense……and I mean really strong…..That is part of why I’m here now blogging, I can at least but time even if I cant stop myself from preforming the action……I’ve said in the past I can feel the desired method of Self Harm, I can smell it and most importantly, I can watch it from a spectators view, that 2 beings feels to be very close by at the minute….let me point out here, I don’t want to end my life, but there’s this voice inside taunting me…..telling me it will help, it will just give me that feeling, that feeling like you have just had the biggest sigh of relief ever.  I don’t even know if that makes sense, I can’t explain it in the written sense very well at all…..

Man, I felt that pain all day long as it played on my mind. And it has to be noted all the support Lottie gives on Twitter to others. Keep telling your stories, please, these things need to be heard and understood.

And on the subject of mental distress, @MADDSuspicions   was feeling it this week as well. Noises, voices, fear was for me a little glimpse again of what it is like to suffer from a mental distress that is unpredictable and at times debilitating.

I was stood in my sister’s back garden having a smoke, then it started.  I began to feel paranoid that while I was outside having a smoke they were talking about me inside.   Nothing bad I don’t think, just neutral stuff.  And, I think I imagined they were concerned and had noticed some changes in me.  They may well have done, however I clearly have it in my mind that I don’t like people noticing.

Better than any textbook I’ve read on what it is like to actually feel paranoia creeping up on you, because that’s is how it really is! I think all healthcare students no matter what discipline should be encouraged to explore the bloggesphere for this reason. Stories of power, suffering, hope, loss and recovery.

So to wrap up my little soap-box rant and blog round-up; there are so may great blogs out there sharing stories from a million different facets of life experiences, each one offering a new gift to the reader of understanding and knowledge. So my message to you is, keep on blogging! It is through sharing stories and understanding each other we learn about ourselves and begin to shed light and understanding on this diverse human experience.

Peace and love people!

OiD