Beauty From Pain Blog

So it’s the long-awaited promised post on ‘what gives hope’, as detailed in my previous post ‘the giving of hope‘. 

‘What gives hope?’ is a question that everyone is likely to have slightly different opinions on – usually based on their own experiences. 

So what I was thinking I could do for this blog post was to give my own thoughts on what has given me hope and to ask others to give their own thoughts on leaving a comment. 

A very wise man recently said to me: ‘I find when writing about hope it sometimes helps to consider things people do or say to take hope away’. I gave this a lot of thought, and I do agree with it, but I thought ‘why not look at it from both sides?’ Look at both side:, what gives hope and then what takes it away. 

So the next blog post will be on the subject of ‘what takes hope away’.

So what gave me hope? What did others do which give me hope and allowed me to improve? What did others which do gave me hope and allowed me not only to improve, but to thrive?

Seeing all that I am

I have been open about my mental health problems for a long time. Something that has been hugely helpful is that people have generally seen beyond those issues and seen all that I am. They have generally seen me not just as someone who is mentally unwell, but seen beyond the illness and seen everything else that I am too. A friend, a good laugh, good company (sometimes!), a caring person, a humourous person, a hard worker, someone who was just as able to do a good job as she always had been, etc. Many people around me continued to see all these things in me, and this in turn allowed me to see me for all that I am – not just someone who was mentally unwell. 

Most of all it was about seeing me as Amanda the human, not Amanda the mental health patient.

People believing in me

When I became unwell, I probably stopped believing in myself. When I became long-term suicidal I did not believe that I would get through it. I constantly felt a devastating sense of despair that left me unable to have any belief in myself or my ability to survive it. But I could see that there were others around me who believed in me – and this eventually played a part in allowing me to find some belief in myself. 

The reactions of others when I shared 

Many people who have mental health problems are not open about them. 

I wasn’t at first. I was ashamed. I worried about what people would think of me. It wasn’t just about worrying about what others would think of me, but more so about not wanting people to treat me different. I was also concerned about worrying others. 

In the beginning apart from the professionals there were only about two or three people who knew that I was experiencing mental health difficulties. 

With time, I began to share with others. The one most common reaction I got was that people empathised. In return people shared details of how they themselves were unwell, or had been unwell. Or stories of how family members or others closed to them had experienced difficulties. Some even disclosed that they themselves had been so unwell that they had been an in-patient in the local psychiatric ward. 

These responses gave me a lot of hope. They showed me how commonly people experience mental health difficulties – that I was far from being the only one. 

They reassured me that I wasn’t a freak, that I wasn’t a complete fuck-up, and that many around me were experiencing, or had experienced, similar issues. Maybe they hadn’t, or weren’t, experiencing them as badly as I was at that time, but to know that these issues were quite common, and were experienced by those all around me, gave me a lot of hope. 

Others being patient with me

When I think particularly of those who were in a position of support, with the exception of one (and no doubt she will be mentioned in the next post about the taking away of hope), they were patient with me. They didn’t rush me. I felt like I was never going to get better. I felt like I would always be stuck in that hell.

But I don’t remember them rushing me, I don’t remember them indicating to me that I should have improved by now, or anything similar. That helped. It gave me hope that there were others around who were going to be there no matter how long it took. My recovery was a journey, a journey with no end point, and it wasn’t a race. Knowing that there were people supporting me, day by day, not rushing me, gave me hope that they would be there no matter how long it took me to get well.

The belief that I could make something good come out of my experiences

This one is more internal rather than related to anything anyone else did.

At some point I realised that I could make something good come out of my experiences. I didn’t know when or how. But deep down I knew I could. I didn’t know if it would be anything big, but I thought that if I was able to help even one person as a result of my experiences  then that would be something good. 

I clung on to that thought. It gave me a lot of hope. 

With time it also took me out of my own situation, and allowed me to see the bigger picture, and that it is not all about me. 

This thought that I could make something good come out of my own experiences allowed me to see my own self-determination, and my own self-determination gave me a lot of hope. 

Allowing me to see that I am my own best mental health worker

One of the best things that one of my supports did for me was to allow me to see that I am my own best mental health worker. That idea was one of the things that gave me the most hope. There is not always someone else around to provide support, and I have less professional support now than I have had in three years. But this idea that I am the one who can best help myself gave me a lot of hope, and a lot of faith in my own abilities to get myself through and to keep doing so. 

There are lots of other things which gave me hope. But they are the things that spring out most for me.

At this point, it is over to you. 

If you are, of have been, mentally unwell, what has given you hope? In particular, what have other people 

And if you haven’t been mentally unwell, I hope that this post and its related comments give you some insight, and some direction when helping others. 

And remember, you don’t need to be a mental health worker, or indeed to work in any position of care, in order to help others – there are people all around you experiencing mental health problems; you interact with them every day. 

Filed under: mental health awareness | 2 Comments »

Dear Amanda of 12th July 2011

Dear Amanda

How are you doing? Pretty shit, huh?

I know how much you’re struggling right now, and I’m here to tell you that it’s going to be ok.

I know that things are feeling pretty desperate right now. You’re off work sick. But it was you who decided that you had to take that time out. After taking four overdoses in three weeks, you realised that something had to give, and that you had to spend some time working on trying to get yourself well. I know how you throw yourself into work, and that that was a big decision for you, and I am proud of you.

You really are putting so much effort into trying to get yourself well, but I know how hard it is – every minute of every day.

This morning you sat down with your CPN and planned out what you thought you needed to do to get well. Even then, before you knew you were your own best mental health worker, you seemed to be taking charge of your illness, and that is great.

In what you wrote earlier today you said ‘I am not going to be another suicide statistic’. I know you have decided that, whatever happens, you are not going to die by suicide. That was a really tough decision, wasn’t it? Well, the good news is that you are here, end of April 2013, nearly two years later. You are still here, and still going strong.

Sometimes you will hate yourself for making that decision. Because suicidal thoughts still plague you more than anyone really realises. You still think about it a lot, sometimes even makes plans. But you’ve made a firm decision that you won’t die by suicide, and yeah sometimes you’ll hate yourself for making that decision, because sometimes you just want an escape from it all so badly,and you will think that it would be just so much easier if you hadn’t decided on that, but overall you are going to be so, so glad that you stuck around.

Things are still very hard two years later. Again, much harder than most people have any real idea of. But you do a good job of covering it up.

I know you listen to that song ‘Beauty from pain’ a lot.

I know that it really helps. The idea that:

‘When all this has passed, I still will remain. When all this has passed, there’ll be beauty from pain’. 

That it’s not just about getting through it, and still being here. That you’ll make something good come out of it. That it’s not just about you. That there’s a much bigger picture. That you will make ‘beauty from pain’.

In what you wrote earlier today, you wrote:

LONG-TERM

•  I want to help others benefit from my experiences.
• Don’t know how yet but hopefully I will figure this out with time.
• Don’t pursue this at the expense of my own wellbeing
• BUT I am confident that keeping this as a focus will help me get through things.

I know you are thinking ‘long term’ there. I’m not sure how long term you are thinking, but I remember some of the things that you were thinking of for the medium term, and they lead me to believe that you were really perhaps thinking about the really long term with this, like in several years time.

Well, you know what, at this point, in less than 2 years, you’ll have made a lot of beauty from pain.

Seeing that bigger picture has been the biggest motivator in helping you get well. Ah no, sod it, you’re still not perhaps ‘well’. What is ‘well’ anyway? You’re still unwell. But that’s ok. You’re managing it. And you’re making that beauty from pain. You’re not letting your illness stop you making good things happen. You’re doing good, girl.

You’ve set up two peer support groups. Ok, one of them you’ve only set up recently, and it is still getting on it’s feet, but even that has helped people.

A year ago today you started a blog. No surprises you called it ‘beauty from pain blog’. Predictable as ever, huh? You tried not to write the blog about ‘you’, but more about sharing some insight in the hope that it might help others. And it did. It does. And that’s good.

Most surprising of all is that you’ve left that full-time job of yours that you moved to Scotland for. Didn’t see that one coming, did you? Well, get this – you have moved into a mental health career. Doing mainly mental health training, but also some support work. It’s tough. More of a challenge than anyone could ever know. Not in terms of doing the work, your illness doesn’t stop you being great at that! But the practical things, like struggling more with money sometimes, now that you don’t have a full-time salary. But you have followed your heart, no matter how often you doubt yourself and wonder if you’ve done the right thing, remind yourself of that, that you are following your heart, and that that is what matters.

And you know what? When you sit down right now and think ‘no way am I gonna do all that in less than two years?’ well yeah, you can – all you have to do is follow your heart. And that’s all anyone could ever really ask of you, anyway. But that act of ‘following your heart’, that is how you will really make a difference .

You’re going to share this letter that I’m writing to you on that blog and there will be some that read it and think that you’re really so full of yourself. We know the truth, don’t we? We know how things really are.

And you are nothing special. You do some special things, but you are really not doing anything more than just doing what you can.

I know a big part of it is also that you just want it all to have happened for a reason. Why would you spend so long very suicidal and come through it? What would be the point of it? To help others who are suicidal and to help educate others about suicide seems one of the best reasons of all.

I don’t think you are really full of yourself – not based on how you feel inside. And anyway, It is ok to take a step back sometimes and give yourself a little recognition and praise. That’s good. It’s good to recognise our achievements sometimes. Important.

But take a scroll back up there, Amanda. There was something else you said in what you wrote earlier today. It was:

Don’t pursue this at the expense of my own wellbeing

I think you need to remind yourself of that more often. There is a lot that you want to do, a lot of good that you want to achieve. But first and foremost must always be looking after you,and trying to keep yourself well. That is number one. I know you tend to forget that, and really need reminding of that often. So take a step back, look after you, take care of you. You deserve it.

I know how badly you want out right now. I would love to be able to tell you that those thoughts leave you. They don’t. I don’t know if they ever will, but they will still be there lingering, for the next couple of years at least…

I know how much you are struggling. With all kind of things. I would love to tell you that your illness goes. That you get fully well. ‘Recovered’. But you don’t. Not for the next couple of years at least.

Your ‘recovery’ is that you really learn to manage that illness, to cope well with it.

I know it is hell right now, and I’m here to tell you that it will be hell again – at many times – but despite that hell, you can learn to look after yourself and to be ok.

Never give up that hope.

And never forget that you can make lots of ‘beauty from pain’ but you need to look after you too.

And remember, all you can ever do is take each day as it comes.

Keep going.

Lots of love,

Amanda xxxx

Filed under: mental health awareness | 4 Comments »

Back in October I wrote about how a wonderful mental health worker of mine had advised me of how I am ‘my own best mental heath worker‘.  This was a new way of thinking for me. It was the type of approach I have almost always had, but putting it like that, ‘my own best mental health worker’, was hugely helpful. Even when I am sometimes struggling now  it helps a lot – to remind me that ‘I know what to do to get myself through it’, ‘I am the one who knows myself best’, ‘No one knows me better than I know myself’.

When I am alone and feel overwhelmed by everything just reminding myself that I am ‘my own best mental health worker’ helps a lot, and really helps me find my way through.

In that blog post I mentioned that the mental health worker who gave me that advice was from the Scottish mental health charity, Penumbra. I have so much respect and admiration for Penumbra. I have had experience with a couple of their teams, and I have found their person-centered approach, their ability and willingness to see a person’s strengths and see beyond their illness and recognise their potential truly admirable.

Well I have recently been doing some work with Penumbra, and in my induction day I picked up on something else that one of their team said that really inspired me.

Two of the Penumbra team members who were inducting us were talking and I heard one say to the other about a person who had ‘trained them’.

Picking up on this, I asked them: ‘Can I check, I might be mistaken, but when you said there about someone training you, I got the impression you were talking about the service user / client?’

Their response: ‘Oh yes, they are the people we get the best training of all from.’

Now that is an attitude that it would be great to see more of!

And of course they weren’t talking about sitting in training courses being trained by them. This has nothing to do with lectures, workshops or training certificates – they were talking about working with them, supporting them, guiding them, encouraging them, connecting with them…. and therefore, of course, learning from them.

This attitude is precisely what we need to see more of! I find it truly inspiring, and would like to see more of it.

No one knows more about mental health problems than those who live with them.

And the best learning is not from a textbook or a training course – it is from those who experience it every day.

Just like they are their ‘own best mental health workers’ they also make the best mental health trainers of all!

Filed under: mental health awareness | 3 Comments »

Trigger – suicide

A while back I was visiting a friend who was an in-patient in psychiatric hospital.

My friend was telling me a lot of what was going on in their head. I asked if the nurses knew about it. They said no, that the nurses weren’t asking anything about how they were, and weren’t really taking much interest.

I knew that this was just their perception and may not be fully correct, but I did ask my friend if they would like me to pass on some of what they were saying to the nurses – after all, the nurses would be better able to care for my friend, if they knew more about what my friends was thinking / feeling / experiencing.

My friend gave me permission to talk to the Senior Nurse, and off I went…

I was clear with the nurse that I wanted to pass on information about my friend to him – about what my friend was saying / thinking / feeling… I said that I did not expect them to say anything in return, and knew that they could not discuss my friend with me - confidentiality issues, etc.

I told the nurse that I just wanted to tell him about what was going on in my friend’s head.

Now I was quick figuring out that this nurse clearly wasn’t going to listen… I mean he might be listening with his ears, but he seemed unlikely to actually listen with good listening skills… when he replied to me:

“Oh I know exactly what is going on in their head!”

… This despite the fact that the nurse himself admitted that he’d barely spoken to my friend recently. Hmmnn. Now, unless that nurse was psychic, I’m not sure exactly how he knew what was going on in my friend’s head.

Now unfortunately that’s not the bit that really shocked me. That left me really stunned. The bit that I think we can all really learn something from.

The nurse then proceeded to say to me:

“Did you know that your friend absconded from hospital a few days ago, that they ran off, and text their partner and mother and told them that they were going to kill themselves? Can you imagine what that must’ve been like for their partner and mother?”

Naturally this stunned me. Leaving aside the issue of ‘what on earth was this nurse thinking of telling me this information about my friend? I was just that, a friend, not a family member, a partner, a next of kin, nothing…’ I’d wanted to pass information on about my friend, to have that listened to, not to be told personal information about my friend back in return, and this just wan’t appropriate…

But I let that go…

What concerned me most was the lack of compassion for my friend, the lack of understanding, the lack of care…

I think the nurse was somewhat taken back my response, however…

“Oh, I most certainly can imagine what it must’ve been like for their partner and mother.

What I’d like to ask you is if you can imagine what it felt like in my friend’s head? How desperate they must’ve felt to do that? How low? What distress and turmoil they must’ve been experiencing?

No? If you can’t honestly say that you can imagine what it felt like in their head, then I ask you do us all a favour and stop judging what you can’t understand.

Perhaps look at the reasons why they did that. Stop judging actions but start trying to understand the reasons instead.”

And it is that that I think we can all learn something from.

That rather than looking at actions and judging those actions… we instead need to identify the reasons for the actions and to understand those reasons.

It is the reasons that are important, not the actions!

How can someone in a position of care really help someone if they are judging actions rather than understanding reasons?

How can they show true compassion if they are judging actions rather than understanding reasons?

It’s easy to judge what we don’t understand. It’s easy to focus on the actions that we see and to judge those actions, but if we don’t understand the reasons why, we can’t ever judge the actions.

How would this person know what the persons reasons were?

Ask them! 

And listen! 

Really properly listen with real proper listening skills.

The nurse should not assume that he knows the reasons, after all despite the fact that the nurse thinks that he ‘knows exactly what is going on in my friend’s head’… he can’t.

He can’t know what is going on in someone else’s head unless he asks them… and even if the person tells them, can he ever really still know what is going on in the person’s head? After all, the person might tell him, but he can’t ever really feel what it feels like to be in the other person’s head. 

This is a story that I believe we could all learn a little something from.

If you found this blog post helpful, you might also like:

• Advise for the family / friends of those who are suicidal;
• Often there just is no ‘why‘
• One for the mental health professionals

Filed under: mental health awareness | 9 Comments »