Mind With A View

In this episode, I talk about loneliness, and the misconceptions some people may have about what loneliness actually means, it's not always about being physically alone, one can suffer from loneliness when being around people. Also the various reasons and life situations of how loneliness can occur in a persons life, and the impact loneliness can have, the affects on ones physical health and mental health. I'll also be talking about my own suffering of prolonged loneliness and the difficulties I have in social situations for example which then exacerbates loneliness and isolation.

In this episode, I talk about workplace bullying, and specific types of bullying, and what affects it could have on people, their health and wellbeing. What makes a bully target a person, is it because of their weaknesses or indeed their strengths that they feel threatened by, there are many reasons this may happen, but on the other hand, there may be no real reason, it may just be the simple fact that a person may be targeted due to speaking up for themselves or speaking out about an issue and so on, hence they may be targeted by people as retaliation. These types of cleverly intricate, subtle, and covert methods, are still classed as a type of bullying. A person may start to feel left out, avoided, ostracised, excluded from various things in the workplace, obstacles put in their way in order to prevent the person from developing in work roles and so on. These types of actions, are still classed as bullying. There are so many people around the world that go through such traumatic times, and once they feel they can speak about it, there is support out there and people that can guide them and support them. 

In this episode, I talk about the ongoing stigma and discrimination encountered towards Personality Disorders, especially Borderline Personality Disorder, it's the most stigmatised of all mental illnesses. What ways can sufferers change these kind of wrong attitudes and wrong approaches that some mental health professionals have when dealing with people who suffer from BPD and what ways we can work together to bring about a change, and become more trauma informed. Things have to change, for every person worldwide that suffers from PD.

In this episode, I talk about a difficult and sensitive subject, childhood sexual abuse and the effects on mental health into adulthood. I think it's important for people who want to open up about such traumas are given the opportunities to do so, in an educational way within mental health services, to work together with mental health professionals to bring about more awareness and understanding about everyday kind of triggers. It's important for people that want to talk about their life experiences to be given more opportunities to turn it into an educational piece of work.

In this episode, I talk about in detail the life I had with my late partner Roger. Talking about this in detail, has been a help to me, as a way of healing from grief. Roger passed away from MND / ALS (Motor Neurone Disease / Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). Hopefully this episode would also resonate with anyone else that has had to go through something similar, caring for the person they love through a terminal illness. I have difficulty seeing Roger on that last moment when the doctor was beside him, and Roger made the decision for the effects of the morphine to just finally let him pass away peacefully. So in this episode I go from the very beginning, how me and Roger met, and everything in between, right through to the end and how it felt when I lost him. Recording this episode was like a therapy session for me, I feel proud of myself for being able to talk in detail about the love of my life Roger, how we met, how great our relationship was, and how I felt at the end, and how do I feel now, 8 years on from his passing. The support I have from Mersey Care NHS through the difficulty I have coming to terms with my partner's loss has been invaluable to me, my CPN is a vital support, helping me to talk about Roger and how I feel now, and finding ways to manage that loss, no matter how many years later.

In this episode, I talk about my experience of having low self esteem and my lack of confidence, what are the causes and why the need to feel reassured often, is it an insecurity or lack of confidence and what is the root cause. 

In this episode I talk about the difficulty of being overly sensitive, highly sensitive, which coincides with suffering from trauma and Borderline Personality Disorder, and being unable to regulate my emotions. I also talk about Black and White thinking, and "splitting" as it's known to people that suffering from BPD or EUPD (Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder).

In this episode, I talk about how difficult it can be within mental health services for BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) service users to talk about racism to non BAME professionals, and how there needs to be a change in attitudes and overall culture within services, in order to empower BAME service users to openly talk about how racism affects their mental health in daily life. I also talk about my own experiences on how racism affects my mental health.

In this episode, I’d like to talk about the Covid-19 vaccine, and how especially some people with mental health problems might feel hesitant to have the vaccine. So I just thought I’d talk about my experience of having the vaccine and the worries I had beforehand which also played on my mental health problems, hopefully by talking about it, it may help in some way to reassure other people with mental health problems, that may have the same worries I had before getting the vaccine.

In this episode, I talk about the difficulties I went through over 20 years ago when I lived in Yemen, in my 20s. Difficulties in terms of my mental health problems, and being unable to seek the appropriate help for those difficulties. I worked in a political newspaper over there (The Yemen Times newspaper). But in terms of my mental health it was very difficult to seek professional help when I was living in Yemen, due to the country's lack of funding for mental health services, and peoples perception of what mental health problems mean, due to how some people are brought up to think mental health problems means you're possessed. This is all due to lack of education and awareness around mental health and lack of funding. It made me sad knowing that some people have to live like that for so many reasons that are out of their control. Imagine how lucky I was to get back to England/Liverpool at that time, to finally receive the mental health support I needed.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Gary Crosbie, who works as a Patient Advice Liaison Service officer, within Mersey Care NHS PALS and Complaints service. I asked him about his work in the organisation, to give more of an insight into his varied roles. And how his work has adapted the past several months during COVID-19. I've known Gary for a number of years as he's an important part of my support network. He really does go above and beyond into the work he does, he's one of the nicest people you could ever meet.