[image error]Seeing the world through a Mental Cage

I read this on the internet and it reminded me of the time I spent working with Mental Health patients an experience I think it might be worth blogging about:

How often do you sit at home and wish someone would ring you and suggest, well anything rather than these 4 walls? How many of you have had a night out planned, or arranged coffee with friends and suddenly “these 4 walls” seem the only safe haven because it’s the only place you don’t have to pretend you are ok, so you cancel. Or when you are invited out you tell them how terribly sorry you are but you’re already booked up that weekend, when you are actually just really busy holding it together in your safe box. And so the first problem starts, all by itself , people stop asking you and the isolation that at first wasn’t true becomes your only truth.

Please don’t give up on your friends, ring them, go round, even when they don’t want you too, because they really do they just don’t know how to say it. Everyone says: “If you need anything, don’t hesitate, I’ll be there for you “.

I’m going to make a bet, without being pessimistic, that out of my Facebook friends that less than 5 will take the time to put this on their wall to help raise awareness of and for those who have mental health difficulties. You just have to copy it from my wall and paste it to yours (hold down on this post and you will be given the option to copy… then go to your status and hold down to paste).

Please write “done” under my comments when you do! I’ve done this for a friend for Mental Health Awareness!! ❤❤❤

20 years ago Easleigh mental health unit got in touch and asked if I would run a writing class there. Happy to take on a challenge and with nothing to lose I started classes that continued for three years.

Moving, clever, sad and funny, the students turned up every week. I lacked understanding of mental illness so I went in with ideas and the group set the pace .

The results ranged from an apparent cure for agoraphobia to the sad loss of  two students through suicide. Somewhere in the middle was a great sense of achievement and a lot of laughter. These wonderful, brave, people gave a performance, reading their work at a local theatre,

Writing is more recognised as a therapeutic tool than it used to be, but there is lots more that can and is being done. If you have the opportunity to help someone by suggesting they write and share, is there anything to lose?

I greatly believe that life’s problems that affect us all can benefit from writing things down. Please read my earlier  six blogs on Writing for Therapy.

I’ll write blogs about the other groups I worked with – in prison and with the homeless.

Writing  two novels the second to come out in June, has provided a means of escaping into characters’ lives. Poetry is a means of expressing myself and the main goal with my writing is to entertain myself and other people. Perhaps you can do the same. If you teach Creative Writing in mental health areas, please do link up to this blog and share your experiences.

I loved writing this. It gave me so much pleasure to share it with so many people around the world.
http://tinyurl.com/mwsle9h






Filed under: About me, Creative Writing, Romance Contemporary, Therapy Tagged: About me, Creative Writing, Mental Helath, Therapy, Writing for Therapy