Mental Health Awareness Week (UK) 13-19 May, 2019

[MAS_Nurse]

As many of you may know this week in the UK has been Mental Health Awareness week, and it is both encouraging and important that the conversation surrounding the stigma of mental health has been highlighted in recent years.

When we struggle with both physical and mental health issues new or ongoing, we often experience a cycle of emotions from disbelief, to anger, to denial, to coming to terms with it, this is called the ‘Grief Cycle’ model, first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. We experience a sense of loss, of ending, because the good health we once relied on, maybe took for granted, has gone and we cannot do the things we used to do, and we find it hard to accept, to adapt and though our minds still think we can do them, our bodies are no longer playing ball! It takes time to process our emotions and come to a place of acceptance. Only then can we start to move forward, to make adaptations, to plan, to allow hopeful expectation to rise inside us to create new beginnings.

So may we encourage you if you are struggling to see a way forward or, if you are further along that journey and beginning to experience hope for a new beginning, let us know. The main purpose of this forum is to provide a safe environment to share and receive peer support. If we all can help lift some of your burdens by sharing then please do. If you have some good news to share then let us know. If you have tips that will help someone then let us in on them.

Do remember to check out our Pinned Post section for free mental health guides, international crisis support helplines, etc.

If you live in the UK keep these crisis support helplines handy:

**New** Give us a shout for support in crisis : Text SHOUT to 85258 (24 hrs support) giveusashout.org/

The Samaritans Tel: 116 123 [24 hours line]

NHS: 999 [Emergencies]

NHS 111 [Non-Emergencies]

MIND UK charity: Helpline Tel: [phone] [e-mail] Text: 86463 mind.org.uk/information-sup...

SANEline Tel: [phone] [4.30pm – 10.30pm daily] sane.org.uk/

Best wishes,

MAS Nurse and Moderator

[PNIAuthor60]

My mental health issues orginated living in an alcoholic household where the emotional needs of my siblings and I were seriously neglected. Not until decades later did I learn that all three of us suffered the same effects - you see I was adopted into the family at six mos of age, my siblings born miraculously after me as my parents had been told they could not conceive by natural means.

Each os us struggled with very low self esteem, a bout with our own alcoholism and many suicidal attempts not knowing how to identify, manage or articulate our feelings. My eldest brother, Steve, drank until he died last June.

I suppressed my feelings of bitterness, anger and resentment for decades resulting in compromised mental and physical health which resulted in diagnoses of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in 1994 due to reduced blood flow/oxygen according to a portion of my medical record; diagnosed with Fibro in 2002 and PTSD in 2007 following a marriage of domestic violence and the suicidal death of my second husband who routinely told me,"If you leave me for any reason, I will kill myself before paying you spousal support."

I have diligently been educating myself on these issues so as to improve the quality of my life and been blessed by wonderful therapists and especially the communities to which I belong here.

My Christian faith has kept me buoyed with hope believing that God loves me and I do hope to publish my recovery story before my life ends to encourage others of the resiliency of the human spirit. I have had a portion of my story published in a medical newsletter as writing has been my path of self-discovery.

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MAS

The problem I have is no relief since 1984, I have been retired since then. At sixty eight nearly sixty nine my problem is the weakness caused by my disability and my Memory Concerns, that really showed their metal yesterday.

We were trying to relate to an activity and situation down over the years. I remembered it as about five years ago and Hazel corrected me and said it was nearly fifteen years. The same was related to another situation and I was out again, upwards twenty years. We have been here now since early 2009, again I put it down to five years since we moved.

I am very unsettled, today the latter date had been reinforced by hospital records.

As we get older time can become very problematic especially when we need to remember vital past events. Days pass and it is difficult to relate to activities past. This can be problematic to a greater degree if we have a Chronic Disability or a Mental Health Condition and a Short Term Memory Disorder.

It must be terrible if conditions are linked to a Dementia in its extensive variations.

I suppose this is made worse if the person is lonely or removed from their Home and put into a Nursing Home, their lives become confusing and complex especially when friends, family or neighbours do not visit and they become lost in a strange place with unknown faces.

Old Age and illness can be amplified as we get older, when the body becomes ill, illness and disabilities seem to progress that much faster and that can really concern the elderly as they remember past activities on confused time lines etc

BOB