Mental health blog

 We made hanging baskets at the Blackthorn. It was fun. We learned more about plants, like what the feed mixes mean for them if we were buying them. I don’t have a burning new love of foliage but I appreciate it. I had a review with my mentor, Sue. We thought once the crafts finish next week, I could maybe start work in the plant nursery. I’m happy to give that a go. See if I develop a new passion for flowers and plants. I am still looking on the website everyday to see if a course for counselling has opened up in Ashford. But still nothing. I’ll be gutted to wait another year, but I might have to.  

 Am at Blackthorn today. I am here early. Not sure what I will do today yet. It is my crafts day here. I feel good now I am here. I felt bad in the earlier morning. I need to find a way to be more optimistic in the early mornings. 

 I’ve been ill this week, with sickness and diorrea. Haven’t done much this week, just recovering. 

 I went out for free breakfast at a local church with my neighbour, Claire. I was tempted to cancel and get out of it, but I did go in the end and it was really good. We filled in a feedback form as a thank you for breakfast. They are developing their services and were looking for ideas. When I was in bed at home, I was listening to the radio. It was on the today programme first on radio 4 and they announced the death of Andy Rouke. That was a sad shock. He was the bassist from the smiths. As I was getting ready to go out, desert island discs was playing and it was Simon Pegg. One of his songs was a smiths song ‘when will I accept myself?’ Good song.  I’ve been doing scratch art this morning for my Instagram page. It is fairly basic right now, but as I keep going it will get better. I am prepared to try nowadays. If I don’t there’ll just be nothing. That would be sad. 

 I didn’t wake up feeling great and didn’t go into blackthorn today. I regret it now, I missed out on learning something new and having a good experience. I did go and see my support worker later and he gave me some strategies to try and overcome avoidance when it happens. It is by answering some questions and breaking things down. I’ll try it out. I did some menu planning with my support worker for next week so that’s good. I found out that the level 4 counselling course is on the website for September. The one for Maidstone, my local area is fully booked. But there is one in Dartford which I could get to, so I am finding out if that is open and they are thinking of doing one in Ashford as well so that could be an avenue to try.  I feel a wave of gratitude for all the good people in my life. I am lucky to have you. Thank you. PS. Here are my values in a word cloud:

 Yesterday’s course was good. More about values really. We talked a little about the structure of the brain and that we are trying to develop our neo front cortexes which is well possible with effort. Just have to keep recognising the positives in life and evidencing them to keep actively building up more calm and positive responses to life. The tutor was really good and made the course relevant to each of us rather than trying to fit us into the course so that was good. She is going to apply to do a follow up course with us. Today, I went to Blackthorn to sing. It was lots of fun and I felt great during and after. We sang ‘dieu’which the tutor felt might be non pc but we didn’t think so. We sang ‘a few of my favourite things’ which is a nice song. We did rounds of small songs given to us by the tutors. It was a good time.  We had a resident’s meeting today. Apparently it is mental health awareness week and the theme is around exploring anxiety. We looked at ways of alleviatin...

 It’s been a quiet few days. The main event for me was Eurovision. Sweden was in my top ten. Then again, so was Germany and they came last. I guess the voters were not keen on heavy metal. The Finnish song was also fun. I didn’t think the uk entry was that good and they didn’t do well either. Johnny Rotten had written a song for Eurovision, for his wife who has dementia and that was a better more meaningful song.  Today, I am at blackthorn. I will finish the self esteem course off today. I think we will look at practical and personal ways of maintain good self esteem and confidence. 

 Had a really productive time at Blackthorn. We made bread and rolls today. Above is one of the loaves I made. It was fun and not too tricky to do. The last time I made bread was with Jackie in Bilbao about 13 years ago. We made rolls and sprinkled with poppy seeds.  There was someone playing guitar and singing in the cafe, it was a lovely atmosphere. I love a bit of live music in a cafe.  During the afternoon, I saw my support worker. Shaun. We talked a lot about healthy lifestyle. I need to adapt a healthier lifestyle. I also arranged with my neighbour, Tony to start going swimming again from next week so that’ll be a great boost.  

 Not really feeling it this morning. Nonetheless, getting ready to work in the kitchen today. Should be good.  It’s a bit later now. I am here at Blackthorn about 45 minutes early. It’s nice to be early. The grounds here are beautiful. It is a nice atmosphere to be in before starting. 

 Feeling exhausted and a little unwell today. I didn’t sleep the night before last and yesterday’s course was 6 hours long so I haven’t been used to concentrating for that long somewhere for a while. The course was really good. We learned about the difference between confidence and self esteem. Confidence being about more demonstrating ability and esteem more about how we view ourselves. She used an egg as a visual example. The yolk is the self esteem and the confidence is the shell. If you have good self esteem then the confidence will be more secure. I guess we need to aim to be hard boiled eggs. So the yolk and shell are strong.   We know if we have both good confidence and self esteem because we will be resilient. We develop good self esteem by knowing and living our values. Values make us strong and can last forever. We picked out our top ten values from a list. Mine were: 1) Integrity 2) Gratitude 3) Creativity 4) Continuous improvement 5) Love 6) Safety 7) Freedom 8) Co...

 Feeling quite motivated today. I have a self esteem course all day at blackthorn trust. I wasn’t sure if I needed it initially, but maybe I do. I don’t feel fabulous about myself. I hope it is interesting and that I learn and experience something new. I hope I meet some nice new people.

 I have started this mental health blog to track how I am doing, and to try and motivate myself to keep up good mental health even when I do not really feel like maintaining those good habits. Writing things down helps me and doing things like sharing meal pictures and achievements on a blog with people who care seems motivating. I think I am not so good at being alone and have to learn to enjoy my own company in a more healthy and conducive way, not a wasteful way. See how it goes.