HOW I MADE IT TO MY THIRTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY

So, I’ve said before that when I began hallucinating and made my second suicide attempt in 2009, a number of professionals commented that ‘at this rate’ I wasn’t going to make it to my nineteenth Birthday (which was just a few months away!). At the time, my first was “thank goodness for that!” So now, to be celebrating my birthday and turning thirty-one? Well, it’s a pretty big deal! And I wanted to publish a post that was just as special and just as important…

WHY I’M CAREFUL WITH THIS SORT OF THING:

In my life, I’ve learnt a lot of things the hard way, and one of these lessons in my mental health recovery has been making me more aware of any advice I give around the topic. I learnt this through one of the other inpatients in the specialist psychiatric hospital I was in for two and a half years, asking me what my turning point had been.

In fairness, this girl had become very easily influenced. I mean, when she was admitted to the ward specialising in Personality Disorders, she was the only girl to have absolutely no self-harm scars anywhere on her body. At the time, her method of self-harm was to abuse the medication she was on for a medical condition she had. But, being hospitalised meant that this method was completely taken away from her (and I try to identify with this because my own method was made more difficult too) and so she almost naturally, desperately searched for an alternative coping skill. And I guess that being surrounded by girls who self-harmed in a same, particular way meant that she very quickly and somewhat easily came across the means for doing that. So, by the time my discharge was being discussed, this girl needed plastic surgery on her massively damaging self-harm wounds.

MY LIFESAVERS | WORLD SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY 2020

This year, for World Suicide Prevention Day, I’ve written a post for LEAPS (the group I chair) on their website: www.leapsonline.co.uk but I still wanted some content for I’m NOT Disordered. My piece for LEAPS talks a lot about my suicide attempts and so I thought that in this post, maybe I’d concentrate on some of the many things  (in no particular order) that have saved my life…

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust

(including the Psychiatric Liaison Team and the Crisis Team)

https://twitter.com/CNTWNHS

I’d like to thank my local mental health NHS Trust for four things:

1.      Not being afraid or ashamed to recognize that their service had become inadequate in supporting those with the diagnosis of a Personality Disorder

2.      Providing me with incredible care once they were more adequately equipped

3.      Believing that I could have a happy and successful future

4.      Putting in so much effort to save my life when I was putting effort in to end it

Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

https://twitter.com/NorthumbriaNHS

I’d like to thank my local NHS healthcare Trust for two things:

1.      Going to drastic measures to ensure I had a future when I didn’t want one

2.      Believing that I should be treat as equal to someone who doesn’t have a mental illness

VOLUNTEER’S WEEK | TIPS TO GET A VOLUNTARY JOB, WAYS TO THANK YOUR VOLUNTEERS, HOW ST OSWALDS SUPPORT THEIR VOLUNTEERS, & MORE! | IN COLLABORATION WITH ST OSWALD’S HOSPICE | AD

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted”

Aesop

It’s Volunteer Week!! And to mark the occasion – which is a special opportunity to thank those who really are the bread and butter for a lot of charities and organizations – I’m collaborating with St Oswald’s Hospice to bring you this blog post full of tips to get a voluntary job, ways to thank the volunteers in your organisation, and information on how St Oswald’s are supporting their Volunteers through the Coronavirus Lockdown! Enjoy!

So, quite a while ago I made the decision to apply for a new voluntary role with St Oswald’s Hospice; a charitable Hospice based in the North East of England who provide outstanding, specialist, and expert care to adults and children with life-limiting conditions. I saw the position as a Digital Comms and Marketing Volunteer on the www.do-it.org site (a platform where charities and organizations can post volunteer vacancies) and after reading the job description, I immediately hit the ‘apply’ button and was so happy when I received the offer of an interview with some of the Digital staff at St Oswald’s.