Dear all, I can’t believe that it’s nearly spring again. It’s so nice to be able to see where I’m going when I leave work at the end of the day, though I have a 30 mile journey so it will be a few weeks before I am no longer arriving home in darkness. I’ve found a lovely cross country route to drive along and am looking forward to enjoying the lovely countryside...anything not to have to suffer the M4 every day!
I found with the dark evenings, that I began to spend some time on facebook which is a bit different from the forums I used to frequent. I’ve been an avid user of forums ever since I’ve owned a PC, mainly on music fan sites chatting away to people who share my (some would say) dubious tastes in music. I have made some wonderful friends who I’ve been to concerts with and who have extended beyond the initial interest groups. We have often discussed that our useage of the forums suited times of our lives when maybe we needed a little extra support or just someone to chat to who understood something we were going through. The forums provided the perfect vehicle to make friends and maybe their initial subject matter for me was irrelevant.
I am gradually getting to grips with facebook, keeping in touch with old friends that I don’t see much and most importantly, using it to very slowly build up a relationship with some extended family members who entered my consciousness rather unexpectedly a couple of years ago. It’s proving to be a fascinating journey!
Socialising online has been a very positive experience for me and I find comfort in the thought that should I ever need support for anything health related, I will have no problem accessing information and forums, and I will be able to find other people who will understand what I am going through.
NRAS does fantastic work using social media to communicate with and to allow communication between people living with RA, including Facebook, Twitter, NRAS HealthUnlocked and our own members forum. I imagine that if you’re reading this blog you may already be aware of the power of social media but if you haven’t yet explored this then please do. Also if you have time we would really value your participation in our current survey The value of Social Media to those living with Rheumatoid Arthritis. You can find the information about this on our website.
Happy socialising!
Deborah x
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