WHY I DIDN’T TAKE PART IN DIGITAL DETOX DAY 2020

https://www.digitaldetoxday.org/

I first heard about Digital Detox Day when I visited Zoe Sugg’s Instagram account and read her post on the campaign she’s created alongside I Am Whole to shed light on the negative impact social media can have on your mental health and life in general. Zoe explained that the thought process behind the campaign was based on the realization that we are ‘endlessly scrolling’, comparing, judging, being cyber bullied, losing boundaries, and don’t know when to ‘switch off’ from social media. She says that all of this can be a cause of Anxiety, Depression, Sleeplessness, Loneliness, and low Self-Esteem.

Initially, I almost automatically decided to join in, read up on the campaign, and do the digital detox on September 5^th, 2020 (tomorrow). Then I started writing a post about the campaign for LEAPS (you can read the post here) and talking about my ‘digital journey’ really left me reconsidering my decision and feeling hugely tempted not to partake in the event. Writing about how I’ve progressed through social media and my blog really made me realize just how important the digital world has all become to me and that this isn’t necessarily unhealthy or unsafe.

THE TEN BIGGEST INSULTS IN MENTAL HEALTH

In my previous post, I talked about acceptance in connection with hallucinations and something I said has inspired this post: ‘…people reading this who have never hallucinated might not understand…’ It’s quite a common belief in mental health service users; that those on the ‘outside’ looking in will never understand what they are going through. I think that in fairness, those on the ‘inside’ might never understand what it is like for the people looking in. I’m not going to lie, it’s taken me a long time to be able to see it from both sides because I was so caught up in what was happening to me that when it/I was misunderstood, I’d get angry and defensive. Natural though, right? Like, anyone would be like that if they felt insulted… no matter what the situation.

I really hope that this post does a couple of things: I hope that it doesn’t just tell ‘outsiders’ what not to say but that it also tells them why they might be met with a certain reaction when they do say these things; because I don’t believe they always mean to be offensive. I also hope that it offers some assurance to the ‘insiders’ that they aren’t the only ones these things are being said to, and that they aren’t the only ones to feel insulted by them.

1.      “Shake it off”

“HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT HOW COAL MINING IS RELEVANT TO A MENTAL HEALTH BLOG?!” | #HiddenHistories | AD

When a friend asked me to blog and do social media at an event she was organizing I was immediately up for it. Then she told me it was called Hidden Histories: Mining in the North East and I hesitated… I mean, I know that I’m known for making anything and everything relevant to mental health because I’m a great believer that mental health affects anyone and anything, but I’ll admit; I was stumped with coal mining. So, I did something very different of me; I asked someone else for inspiration! I spoke to one of the key organizers: Soph Hopkins, and she talked about how she and some of the other volunteers had met through mental health services and that they had involved mental health in the event with discussions on our own ‘hidden histories’ (personal experiences), ways that society has changed over the years that coal mining has and there was even a mental health song called Monsters!


There were a few things I took away from the event that I thought were apt for I’m NOT Disordered readers:

WHY YOU NEED TO WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE IN MENTAL HEALTH

1.    ‘Superficial’

When I recently self-harmed I told the Nurse that I’d scared myself with how bad it was because all of mine are usually – then she said ‘superficial.’ And I agreed but told her how much I hate that word and she explained that she uses it in terms of how deep a cut is and not that it’s ‘nothing’ important. I explained that it’s a person’s interpretation of the word and it probably comes from their experience of it being used. I, personally, have always used superficial alongside words like ‘shallow’ or ‘silly’ so it becomes an insult to use it to describe my desperate coping mechanism of self-harm but I now understand that she was using it as more of a medical term than a derogatory one. I think that my interpretation is evidence that firstly, it has previously been used as an offensive comment by professionals who were being dismissive of my self-harm and secondly, that it’s so easy to misinterpret this one word.

THE FIVE MOST OVERUSED MENTAL HEALTH WORDS

So, a little something happened on my recent trip to London for the RichmondFellowship ENRICH Awards 2019… I was in the bathroom on the train when a faulty cabinet cracked me on the head (the LNER staff were incredible and dealt with the whole thing amazingly)! Still suffering from headaches almost two weeks later, I decided to ring my GP but whilst waiting for the return call, I checked with a Pharmacist if I was doing the right thing in ringing the Doctor. I explained that I was worried because when I’d called, the Receptionist had said that I could only get a phone call returned if it was urgent and I thought it urgent so I told them that it was; but whilst waiting for the GP to ring, I was worried they’d think ‘why has this girl wasted our time? Why does she think this is urgent?! It’s nothing!’ I told my Richmond Fellowship support worker that I think it’s all about the fact that ‘urgent’ doesn’t really have a concrete definition. I mean, it might be in the dictionary, but everyone has their own different spin on it. Everyone rates things on a different scale of urgent-ness! It’s like ‘emergency.’ But it’s all based on an individual’s experiences; if you’ve ever had a broken leg, you might think that the pain was so unbearable you wanted immediate help. You might have seen a relative die and believe you don’t call an Ambulance unless you are… dying, I mean.

DEAR SERVICES, FIVE THINGS YOUR SERVICE USERS NEED TO KNOW

1.       Exactly what their care plan entails

Whether one organization is the service users entire support system or they’re part of a wider network, a lot of trust and faith go into their relationship. Not knowing what to expect from the service and from their allocated worker can be confusing and misleading, making things open for misinterpretation and assumption. Formulating a care plan is one of the most important steps for a service user to begin to trust in a service; it confirms that they’re considering your needs and requirements and are tailoring your care to fit with these. Allowing a service user, the opportunity to have some input into this process is reassuring and rewarding. 

HOW WORDS HAVE IMPACTED MY LIFE | THE POWER OF WRITING

Sticks and stones may break these bones,

But then, I’ll be ready

Are you ready?

-          P!NK – What About Us

The inspiration for this post came from my recent fuss with my medication… After the development of the new delusion/hallucination (which I talked about in this post there was many discussions around increasing my anti-psychotic medication. My Psychiatrist was reluctant; stating that studies show most people with Borderline Personality Disorder rarely benefit from medication and my CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse) played Devils Advocate and attempted to remain neutral whilst clearly supporting the Psychiatrist! So, my medication was increased for twenty-one days and after taking a week to get into my system, it made all the difference. The delusion was gone, and I was safe again. But the professionals are still hesitant in making the increase permanent. As the days have gone on with me waiting for some sort of response/decision from the Community Mental Health Team, I’ve considered whether writing down everything and giving it to my CPN would help. Over the years of I’m NOT Disordered I think it’s safe to say that I’ve learnt the power of writing! But some old fear creeped in… what if I poured my heart and soul out and they still didn’t listen to me? It’d all have been for nothing! Another reason that stopped me from writing it all down was a feeling of stubbornness; they should listen to my words in the first place so that I don’t feel like I have to write them down for them! Either way, it got me thinking about the power of words – both written and spoken.

WHY IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO REPORT ABUSE

So, I had a meeting recently (about a very top-secret project) and during it the issue came up about service users feeling like they’ve experienced a miss opportunity in reporting the abuse they’ve survived.

This often happens immediately when you get involved with mental health services – whether that be inpatient or outpatient/community – because the first contact is usually in the form of some sort of assessment and that often includes the question ‘have you ever been abused?’

For the abuse survivor who has kept quiet, this is yet another opportunity where they’ve not spoken up. Another time that they’ve been too scared to speak. Another time that their abuser has won. When, in reality, if you’ve never reported it before, why would you suddenly decide to? And secondly, if anyone was going to be the first person to be told, is it realistic to assume that person would be a complete stranger who coldly and clinically asks one of the most important questions you’ll be asked in your mental health journey – in your life?

FIVE LESSONS MY MENTAL HEALTH RELAPSE HAS TAUGHT ME

1.     To ‘self-soothe’ more

      Self-soothe is probably one of my favourite – and most used – Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skill. For so many years I was hard on myself and blamed myself for everything that went wrong in my life. Even the abuse. I thought that I was a bad person and had deserved all of these bad things in my life; the abuse, the bullying, the self-harm, the hallucinations… everything! For a while, I believed that I didn’t even deserve to be alive. So – perhaps – understandably, self-soothing was a particularly difficult skill for me to put into practice and even harder to eventually master. But being nice to myself felt so good that I fought the voices in my head that were trying to convince me that I should be hurting myself and not helping myself. I told them that I’d punished myself enough and that after all these years of self-harming and attempting suicide, I deserved to enjoy simple things. And that’s what my self-soothe techniques are; simple things. Like, lighting a candle, having a shower, doing my makeup or my hair, playing with my pets, spending time on The Sims, writing, reading, watching America’s Got Talent on Netflix… little things like that can sometimes make all the difference when I’m struggling with voices telling me that I’m useless and worthless and deserve to die.

2.     The importance of medication

The catalyst for this relapse has been that I stopped taking the medication I’m on for my mental health (Mirtazapine, Lamotrigine,

TOP FIVE TIPS TO TALKING TO THE MEDIA | MY FEATURE ON C4'S DISPATCHES | AD

I write this off the back of my appearance on the Channel 4 documentary series Dispatches having just interviewed on their special episode going undercover with the largest social networking platform; Facebook!

The amount of praise and just all-round positive comments I’ve been getting has been crazy and I’ve had so many people ask how I managed to stay so calm as I appeared in my interview. It was questions like these, that have inspired this post where I’ll be talking all about the best things to do when you’re having a media appearance – no matter what the medium.

LAUNCHING NTW'S ADULT MENTAL HEALTH NETWORK | AD

Another Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (NTW) event!

The run up to this one was a little bit… well the staff called it ‘woolly.’ Apparently, that was on purpose because the entire event was to launch the brand-new Adult Mental Health Network and with it being such a unique and one-of-a-kind venture, there’s no real model or guide on what it should look like.

The launch event centred around bringing together a huge variety of people from a selection of charities and organisations what ranged from Age UK to Carers Northumberland to representatives of the RESPOND training. Immediately, the atmosphere was incredible – you get so many events where people are there because their manager has asked them to be and you can feel a reluctance and pressure there… At this event though, there was a clear feeling of everyone being there because they wanted to and that they actually wanted to learn.

WALK SIX MILES IN MY HEELS | AGE UK | AD

Two days ago, (July 11th) I was kindly invited to go on a trip with Age UK. They planned a walk through Teesdale Forest and along to the incredible High Force and Low Force waterfalls with a group of around thirty avid walkers and explorers.

A couple of things happened while we were there that inspired this post; the first was when one of the staff pointed to one of my recent, red, keloid, self-harm scars and said “what’ve you been doing? Did you scratch yourself on a tree?” I get that the scars were quite red and perhaps at a glance they appeared to be fresh, sore, scratches but never the less, I was put in an awkward position. When I recently cut my hand and needed stitches I had to tell a lot of lies to a lot of people who asked how I’d done it and I think I was just tired and – to be honest – a little bit ashamed to lie again. I mean I’m one of the people promoting that we talk more about mental health, yet I still resort to lies around my self-harm. So, I replied with “oh! I have mental health problems.” The lady quickly apologised and changed the subject – which I was grateful for.

APPEARING ON KOAST RADIO (106.6 FM) | AD

On Tuesday July 3^rd I’ll be paying a visit to the Koast radio station! Tune in to find out more – 1pm on 106.6 FM!

Follow Koast Radio on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/KoastRadio

MISCOMMUNICATION IN MENTAL HEALTH

My motivation for this post came after my article with Metro went live… a Twitter conversation was started in which various people were talking about how I was lucky in having a positive experience of a psychiatric hospital admission. They talked about the fact that I had all of my possessions around me; a suitcase full of clothes and technology. They didn’t know that I’d been sectioned whilst on an overnight trip which meant that I had everything with me anyway! They didn’t know that the point of the article was to use my experience as evidence that psychiatric hospitals aren’t the stigmatised assumptions of it – it isn’t all padded walls and mattresses on floors. They weren’t saying that hospitals had improved or that they were all like the one I’d been in