Category: england

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Pushing up Daisies festival 2018

Posted in Calderdale, compassion, englandTagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Our local death festival is fast approaching. For a week there will be all kinds of events exploring all kinds of aspects of death and dying. There will be workshops, talks, films, creative stuff and performances.

All events are free but donations are welcome. The money goes towards necessities like printing programs, tea and coffee and biscuits. Some events you have to book because there are limited places.

Everybody is volunteering their time and energy. At the heart of the festival is the the hope that together we can build more compassion communities.

 

 

The full programme can be found on Pushing up Daisies website

There will be some events looking at suicide

I will be talking about my personal experiences of trying to find ways to live while longing to die. And I am hoping there might be interest in setting up a local peer support group for people who live with suicidal thoughts and feelings.
Peer support for people who think about and long to die is still a hot potato – too much risk assessment involved and a suspicious stance towards those of us who feel like dying… ‘wouldnt a support group just encourage them?…’ But it’s slowly changing with the public realisation that it’s not just a few people who feel so overwhelmed by life that they want to die but actually so common that it must approaching the threshold of being considered ‘normal’. And services and organisation don’t have the resources to offer support to that many people so we to need to start thinking about how we create support in our communities.
I am inspired by my experiences of the support that can happen in hearing voices groups and also by the Alternatives to suicide group in Western Massachusetts that I have been lucky enough to visit.

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And there will be loads of other exciting and amazing stuff – like these ones.

 

 

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To get a better feel of what the festival is like you can revisit the 2017 festival in the video below.

https://youtu.be/r1jF4EmguaY

 

Real lives, real experiences, real wisdom

Posted in england, hearing voices, mental health, resourcesTagged , , , Leave a comment

There is such an untapped wealth of knowledge and wisdom that comes from people’s personal experiences of finding their way through life.

Integrated Voices (its current working title) is a website being developed by Hearing the Voice in Durham and when I first heard about the plan to create this online resource, I got really and properly excited.

I don’t often get really and properly excited. I’m not an excitable person – I am more of a reflective and calm (outwardly anyway) kind of person.

When I do get excited, several of the voices I hear will start commenting on my thoughts and feelings. Especially one voice will get very active, telling me all the reasons why getting excited about anything is a bad idea. I am pretty sure she sees herself as ‘the voice of reason’ but I just find myself feeling more anxious when she comes along. I don’t like feeling anxious. She thinks a bit of anxiety is healthy and will keep me safe. We have debates about this, her and I, in my mind.

As far back as I can remember I have heard and sensed things that other people don’t. Invisible beings – both friendly and scary, critical voices in my mind, disembodied voices from my environment, repetitive voices, loud voices, supportive voices, annoying voices, presences using non-verbal communication and many more experiences like this.

When I was about 8 I realised that not everyone has these experiences and for the following 15 years I tried to figure out what was going on for me. And I was trying to figure it out on my own.

Back then the internet was just in its infancy, so most information came through books. I ended up reading books on spirituality, psychology and psychiatry without finding much that seemed useful to me. Eventually I started reaching out for help from others and in 2005 I joined a project in Aarhus (Denmark) for people who had experiences similar to mine.

It was such a relief to find a community.

Connecting with others, sharing stories, ideas and strategies and getting creative together about ways to cope when things were difficult. Sharing difficulties and joys, supporting each other and witnessing each other’s journeys. It was a new experience for me because I was used to feeling like a bit of an alien and on the outside of things going on around me.

Being part of the project fired up a passion in me for destigmatising experiences often seen as ‘abnormal’ or ‘psychotic’ such as hearing or sensing things that others don’t.

I know that I was lucky to find community and information that was useful to me. I have heard many people talk about how difficult it is to find information that feels relevant to their personal situation.

Even though the internet has come out of its infancy and is now bursting with all sorts of information, it is striking that there still isn’t a website such as the one Hearing the Voice is aiming to develop. There are particularly two things that got me wanting to get involved; the team at Hearing the Voice is looking for diverse experiences and they are wanting to make the website as engaging and accessible as possible.

We believe that it is important that this section of the website is developed by people with personal experience of hearing voices and includes a variety of different perspectives and experiences. We want the website to reach out to as many people as possible, to feel accessible, engaging and ‘real’, and to showcase knowledge gained through lived experience, alongside that which comes from research.

Hearing the Voice

From now and until May 4th I will be trying to collect as many stories, quotes and ideas about coping as possible. These contributions will help shape the Integrated Voices website and hopefully make it feel relevant to a diverse range of people looking for information.

I am getting support from my partner Rufus and help from the team at Hearing the Voice to do this work – and so far I am quite enjoying myself.

To contribute

I am aware that calling it ‘hearing voices’ doesn’t resonate with everyone. We would love to hear from people who have experiences such as djinns, spirit guides, schizophrenia, auditory hallucinations, persecution, electronic harassment, intrusive thoughts, thought transmissions, inner voices, ancestors and invisible presences.

If you are reading this and you have personal experience of hearing and sensing things that others don’t, please consider if you want to contribute in one way or another.

If you are supporting someone who hears or senses things it would be great if you could make them aware of this project and find out if they want to contribute.

There is also a questionnaire for family, friends and supporters which you can find HERE.

Online questionnaire

We have launched an online questionnaire. It consists of about 10 open ended questions about everyday life with experiences such as voices, coping with these experiences and talking about them with others.

Go to questionnaires HERE

If you prefer a word document or paper version of the questionnaire you can contact me to arrange this.

Focus groups

We will be facilitating two focus group sessions – one in Manchester on Friday May 4th and one in London on Thursday May 3rd see more HERE

Interviews

If you would like to share your experiences and ideas about coping in a 1 to 1 interview you are welcome to get in touch. We might be able to meet to do the interview depending on where you live but we could also do it over the phone. We would like to audio record interviews to make sure we don’t miss anything or misunderstand. Any material we collect will be kept securely and won’t be shared with anyone without your permission.

If you are interested or have any questions about interviews, please contact me by email openmindedtraining@gmail.com

Visiting Hearing Voices groups

I am arranging to visit different Hearing Voices Groups in the UK to have informal sessions where people can share their knowledge and stories. If you are a member or a facilitator of a group and you want to contribute you are welcome to get in touch and we can look at different possibilities.

Deadline for participating will be May 4th

Contact me by email openmindedtraining@gmail.com or phone 07926685432

 

Information about Integrated Voices and Hearing the Voice

Hearing the Voice is currently working with members of the voice-hearing community to develop Integrated Voices – a new online resource that will help people find clear, balanced and comprehensive information about hearing and experiencing things that could be understood as ‘voices’.

The hope is that Integrated Voices will make it easier for people to find information about different approaches to hearing voices and ways of supporting those who are struggling with the voices they hear.

The website will have 3 key sections:

  • Understanding Voices
  • Living with Voices
  • Working with Voices

Each section will have modules linking to a variety of resources, multi-media, freely accessible research articles, personal narratives, reviews of the evidence base for specific therapies and (where appropriate) sources of support.

Hearing the Voice (HtV) is an eight-year multidisciplinary research project based in Durham, UK.

It combines insights from the humanities and sciences to provide a better understanding of the experience of hearing voices.

The project is funded by a Wellcome Trust Collaborative Award in Humanities and Social Sciences until 2020.

More information about Hearing the Voice: www.hearingthevoice.org

Threat levels…

Posted in england, self-care, sensitivity, social skills, uncertaintyTagged , , , , , , 1 Comment

I enjoyed the British threat levels hashtag that was trending a while ago. And because there was a little truth in a lot of the statements, I started thinking about my own threat levels and how frustrated I get with it.

It was such a relief to chuckle about those little things but it also made me think that this might somewhat explain why I feel at home in England. The social anxiety, political correctness, the tensions and the propriety obsession. I only feel like the odd one out some of the time 😉

Anxiety is more or less a constant companion for me. So any extra added anxiety or stress is tricky for me. I have noticed how other people can seem to enjoy getting stressed, worked up or scared e.g. watching scary films or having to rush for something or getting in to a debate. Like they get a bit high on the adrenaline. I really, really don’t. When I experience heightened threat levels I feel quite ill and it takes me a long time to recover – or get back to my normal uncomfortable but familiar level of anxiety.

Anyway I want to try and look at my threat level triggers and taking a bit of a humorous stance with them. Even though that might not come across in my writing.

So here is the ESMD* threat levels colourcoded overview:

Red alerts (things that make my body feel full of terror. Stress levels out the roof)

  • Waking up in the morning and realising I won’t be able to sleep any longer.
  • Bus or train arriving and it’s packed and i am having to quickly decide whether to get on or wait for the next.
  • Feeling like a tiny spider/aphid/fly is crawling around on my skin no matter how much I try to wipe it away.
  • The phone ringing! Here’s how it goes: withheld or unknown number I feel a little relief as I think I am less obliged to respond. Known caller – total panic and I spend so long trying to decide what to do that it goes to voicemail.
  • Voicemail icon showing up on my phone – do have to listen to it straight away? If I wait the icon just springs at me every time I look at the phone. I use the phone as a time piece – I start calculating whether I’ll need to look at the time any more that day. I put the phone away and for the millionth time start thinking about getting a pocket watch.
  • Looking in the fridge and cupboards and not seeing anything I want to eat. I decide not to eat – panic avoided for a couple of hours…
  • Getting dressed and having limited time to get ready and everything I try on just feels wrong and uncomfortable. Usually my hair then starts acting up too and my hands and arms start hurting trying to sort it out. Eventually go out the door ready to have a tantrum.
  • People getting angry with each other and saying rude things and I cant not hear it.
  • Penalty kicks in football. Or even worse: penalty shoot outs!
  • Packing for travelling.
  • Getting angry about something and not knowing what to do.
  • Something (read any thing) not going according to how I see it in my head.
  • Unpredictability.
  • Uncertainty.

Orange alerts (things that make me feel nauseated and slightly panicky. Stress levels elavated)

  • Whatching a knockout in a boxing match or a bad tackle in a football game.
  • A good book finishing.
  • My partner coming home earlier than expected. No matter how much I have been looking forward to seeing him. Luckily this rarely happens because he texts me advance so I know I have to make the transition from being on my own to being with him. I am just pure grumpyness if I haven’t had a chance to prepare myself. I am only a little bit grumpy and not for long when I have had time to prepare.
  • Being asked to make a spontaneous decision. Or just being asked to make a decision.
  • Feeling responsible.
  • In sports: The underdog looking like they are going to win but then something changes and they loose. I usually have to stop watching (beginning to think I just shouldn’t watch sports…)
  • A plant dying because I forgot to water it or its got some disease I can’t help it with.
  • Slugs eating little seedlings.
  • Food going off and I am having to throw it out.
  • Somebody knocking on the door.
  • Forgetting something. Usually after having reminded myself of it twenty times because I know I can’t cope with forgetting it.
  • Being around intoxicated people. A little bit easier if intoxicated myself but then of course even mild intoxication is like russian roulette (headaches, brain fog etc) so if I have anything remotely important planned next day it is not an option.

Yellow alerts (things that make me feel restless and uncomfortable. This is actually my everyday state… Thought it was normal till I was 24 and started doing bodywork, see blog on bodywork)

  • Opening my email inbox.
  • Finding my phone after having left it somewhere where I cant hear or see it for hours.
  • Encountering a friendly, chatty person and not remembering how I am supposed to respond because I hadn’t prepared myself for being sociable.
  • Enjoying myself with a friend and beginning to feel overstimulated and then getting annoyed with myself because I want to keep hanging out but I know I’ll be grumpy once I come down from being high on social interactions.
  • Waking up briefly for the 5th time in the night and feeling like I’m not sleeping properly.
  • My morning or evening rituals being interrupted by things like: being to tired to do them, having to get out the door a certain time to catch a bus and be somewhere, my hair being so tangled it takes more than 2 minutes to sort out, my skin being so dry and itchy/painful I have to put moisturiser several times after I have lied down to sleep.
  • Feeling ready to sleep after having been up and awake for 2 hours. You know that afternoon dip? Well, mine happens around 11am.
  • Trying to have a nap during the day but giving up after lying there for an hour.
  • Knowing full well that sugar and coffeine will not give me a boost of energy but trying anyway and then feeling sorry for myself when it doesn’t work.
  • Getting annoyed with people talking about having a coffee buzz or a sugar high (oh just go away will you).
  • Feeling guilty for getting annoyed with other people.
  • Not having interacted with anyone but my partner for a week and when I notice it I am not sure what to feel about it.
  • Feeling something and not knowing why.
  • Being told to: ‘just come around’ or ‘give me a call’ and then never doing it. Then being told again and starting to worry about how to explain that it’s not that I don’t want to, I just forget, because most of the time I’m fairly satisfied in my own company. Not that I don’t want to come around or have a chat but if it’s not planned, more often than not I just don’t remember.
  • People bumping in to me. Especially if it’s in a queue and I cant get away and they keep bumping in to me. I have this trick of stepping slightly out of the queue.
  • Bumping into people. It does happen!
  • Walking towards people on the street and they don’t move out of the way before last second and then they’d brush against me if I didn’t do massive avoidance manuevres.
  • People taking me seriously when I am joking.
  • Feeling unsure whether it’s okay to write ‘I  enjoyed the British threat levels hashtag trending’ without honouring the painful context it occured in.
  • Beginning to think too much about what I write or say…

*ESMD – Elisabeth Svanholmer Most Days

Sort of related:

I found this read below a while back and it made a lot of sense to me and resonates with my personal experience so I thought other people might find it helpful as well.

Compassionate approaches to Mental Health: Building Compassionate Communities – a two day event March 30 & 31

Posted in change, compassion, Conference, england, mental health, mindfulness, Rufus May, workshopLeave a comment

I look forward to contributing to and participating in this event.

I usually feel wary about conferences because they can be a draining experience for me; too many unfamiliar people, too much information and not enough time or space to have meaningful conversations or to process what I am experiencing. But I also think they are an important way to share ideas and passions. Conferences can offer us opportunities to connect with people with similar interests, we can find support and inspiration and new projects and journeys can emerge.

Rufus and I contributed to the Compassionate Approaches to Mental Health event in November and I went away feeling quite encouraged – both about the possibilities of working together with others to change the culture around Mental Health, but also about changing how we do conferences. For me it all ties together… If we want more equal, inclusive and supportive communities where diversity is seen as an asset, then we need to keep an eye on the spaces we create or participate in. Whether it be our workplace, the daily bus journey, conferences or a learning/school environment.

The wolf we feed will get stronger…

I am a big believer in the usefulness of awareness, constructive critical thinking and being responsible. But I also know that there needs to be a balance – I have had to work on not feeling responsible for more than I can realistically deal with. I keep finding that the serenity prayer is a helpful reminder – it helps me stop, consider, connect with myself and give myself time to figure out what I need to let go of (at the moment – we can always come back to something if we need to) and where my energy will be best spent.

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More about the event from compassionatementalhealth.co.uk

Compassionate Approaches to Mental Health is a two day experiential event designed to inform, inspire and empower people living and working with mental distress.

We’ve gathered influential speakers who are passionate about changing the script around mental health, challenging stigma and raising expectations.

Our aim is to bring together people and families with personal experience of mental health issues, frontline staff, commissioners, managers, clinicians, policymakers and Third Sector staff, to discuss what works for people recovering from a mental health crisis. We’ll discuss a range of approaches that move beyond a medical model, with a special focus on Open Dialogue, mindfulness and therapeutic communities.

Building on positive feedback from our event in November 2016, we’ll go deeper into the issues we explored to ask how can we build compassionate communities in our mental health services and our own lives.  And how can a mental health crisis become a meaningful turning point and catalyst for change.

Read more HERE

Register HERE

Healthy Minds Newsletter

Posted in Calderdale, england, kindness, mental health, self-care, social skillsTagged , , , , Leave a comment

I have been volunteering with Healthy Minds in Calderdale since I moved to UK and have found it a good way to be involved with the local communities. I feel excited about the new developments and thought I would share the latest newsletter.

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Highly Sensitive People in an Insensitive World by Ilse Sand

Posted in books, england, good reads, healing, self-care, sensitivity, wordsTagged , , , , , , 2 Comments

Finally holding the real thing in my hands.
What an amazing journey it has been so far; from meeting Ilse Sand in 2008 because she was one of the only therapists working with highly sensitive people in Denmark at the time, to reading her book the first time in 2010, then moving to England and realising how much I wanted to be able to share Ilse’s writing with people I met over here and while teaching and travelling.
Translating the book was exciting and hard work but the toughest bit turned out to be trying to find a publisher. In December 2015 things suddenly picked up and a contract was signed with Jessica Kingsley Publishers by the end of the year – and now it’s here! All those months and months of work made tangible.
It’s been a great privilege to work with Ilse Sand on getting her book published in English. I’ve learned a lot about how the publishing world works and feel a bit more confident about one day writing my own stuff and getting it out there.

Get the book here

Please note that JKP books are available in UK, US, AUS and Canada – choose your area in top right corner of the website.

More about Ilse Sand and her work: www.highlysensitive-hsp.com

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/highlysensitivepeopleIlseSand/

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Finding belonging, random acts of kindness and other thoughts while travelling

Posted in england, kindness, social skills, travel, wordsTagged , , , 1 Comment

Have just arrived in Gran Canaria airport and am now sitting in a bus. I think we are waiting for other passengers as there is only 4 of us so far… Plane was delayed from Liverpool so it’s now quarter to one and I haven’t had any proper food yet today… Wondering how I will find it here with my diet. When we arrive I will need to go shopping.

The flight felt long but I read my Ian Rankin book while You+me and Sia kept me company on my headphones so time passed alright. There were a lot of families on the plane going on holiday and it made the atmosphere quite friendly – even the delays didn’t seem to bother people too much. Kids were excited and parents seemed relaxed. Most marked was the lack of boozing adults.
When we were descending to land there was a fair bit of turbulence and both adults and kids where exclaiming and giggling – a mix of fear and excitement. Once we landed people got up and got ready to disembark, then after 5 minutes we were told to sit down again as the plane needed to move. People quickly did as told and the plane started moving only to stop after 10 metres. Comments and laughs erupted but our troubles were not yet over. Shortly after we had been allowed to disembark we were suddenly at a stand still again and after a while we were told over the speakers that we would have to be patient as there were no busses available. Still I heard none of the usual disgruntled remarks and complaints that I was half expecting. I thought to myself that British people aren’t half bad, really.

While travelling and living in England I have struggled at times to decipher dry English humour, the reading between the lines and the endless politeness that seems like a protective glaze burned into most people behaviours. I am still learning and trying to understand, sometimes feeling alien and despairing. It reminds me of being in my teens and early twenties when I really felt confounded by all the unspoken social rules in Denmark which it seemed everybody but me had grasped. Now in my early thirties I am having to learn a new set of social rules and skills.
In Denmark it felt painful because I thought I should be feeling some sense of belonging, I couldn’t understand why I felt like such an outsider and had to work so hard to be part of things. At least in England the feeling of being an outsider is relevant but also I am far from the only one. The diversity almost makes outsiders the norm…
Even though social life is a tough nut for me to crack it is also in England I have had the most experiences of random kindness from strangers. The most recent from last night. Yesterday didn’t go as planned at all – Thursday I thought I had it all under control and just needed to do some potting and planting before catching the train to Liverpool to stay the night. I had even packed everything. So ready to wind down and just ease in to my holiday time. But Friday ended up being a nightmare – suddenly I had to sort out loads of stuff and reschedule plans for later in April. Feeling completely overwhelmed my head started shutting down. It took hours to get everything sorted and eventually I left home a lot later than I had hoped.
I arrived at my accommodation at 9pm feeling miserable and ready to have my third cry of the day. But the guy greeting me had other plans; he made me a cuppa, got me to sit down and chatted with me for about 20 minutes, telling me stories from his time in the army and encounters with Danish (drinking) culture. Even though it was just small talk it cheered me up massively and I felt much more grounded and optimistic about my holiday.

I felt grateful and was reminded of other times where I have been met with kind friendliness at unexpected times in a british society that has a certain roughness to it. But it seems that  hardship can awaken awareness and in harsh conditions gentleness can still thrive – maybe it becomes more vital and one feels it so much more. The pain of life is so present in England and it continues to open my heart; I keep falling in love with the jarring contrasts.

But for now I will be taking a break from everything 🌞

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