I am to be interviewed next week by a local journalist who will be asking me questions about my story around developing Pets and Pals. The journalist is writing a piece about services in the city that help people keep independent and went to a local charity called PSS who provide a range of these type of services, for young and old alike, here is the link to their website. I have a long history with this organization which I will touch on in this blog but most recently the Pets and Pals project has been receiving mentoring from a PSS staff member from a project called Mi (More Independence) for the last 18 months. It was Mi that suggested my story would make an interesting case study for the newspaper story. I’ll expect I’ll be talking about how the project has developed, from its initial roots through to where it stands now and the influences and support that has shaped this process. I’ll no doubt mention the PSS support, for example, this time last year organizing pet events as therapy was all talk, it was when my mentor Blythe asked me what was stopping me organizing my first event and I couldn’t come up with an decent answer that I thought I had better get on and set a date. Now we have set a date for an Anniversary Event in Sefton Park and have received a small grant to hopefully make it go with a bang. I’ll blog about it next month.
Regarding the history I have with PSS I may mention that back in the early ‘90’s I had a job with them. I worked for 18 months as a project worker supporting people who had physical disabilities who wanted to live in there own homes. At the time I struggled with the role and some of the pressures overwhelmed me to such an extent that we, PSS representatives and myself agreed to part company- I wasn't exactly sacked but not far off. Years later, when I was struggling with my mental health in a more open way I received an offer of group therapeutic support from one of their mental health services. I vaguely recall visiting the service in question and being showed round. No doubt that troubled shared history was one of the factors that made me reluctant to take up the offer at that time. Some years later, 2009, I returned to this service and accepted the offer of support- this proved to be a very important decision in me beginning a long road to recovery from enduring depression.
The group therapy was delivered over 6 sessions, with a maximum of ten participants and two facilitators. They provided two different introductory courses, one looking at self esteem and raising mood, the other anxiety. Sessions include a mix of information and opportunities to share experiences. I still remember in the first course the facilitator on one of the weeks responding to the excited and enlivening conversation taking place by putting down his notes for the session, smiling and commenting that he would pass on his plans for information sharing that day. This sensitivity to the dynamic in the group was a real skill that I’ve seen again and again while participating in the group activities there. The ethos of respect and tolerance is a huge draw for me and has encouraged me to give it a go with a range of activities while using the service, from bee keeping to writing and lots of other stuff in between.
I began working as a volunteer there about three years ago in a peer support role. This entailed becoming qualified via a five day course, receiving supervision and finding a role within the centre program to contribute. This preparedness to continue to work with people using the service over years allows for people like myself who have lost a lot of confidence due to poor mental health to slowly rebuild it through taking on new challenges. With this arrangement, comes the knowledge that if I take a wobble, the problems and dilemmas I am experiencing can be better managed because I am surrounded by those people that I know and trust.
In sharing my recovery story I want to touch on the crucial role of time. That conditions such a depression, can eat away at our sense of worth in an insidious way for many years due to the stigma of mental health and the fear to explore the issue with friends and family. I would like to make another dog reference here, I had a black dog and his name was depression by Matthew Johnstone. An excellent pictorial depiction of depression by an artist who has been there and relates his story via cartoons. I came across it at a time when my concentration was shot and other self help manuals were using language that may as well been in double Dutch for all the sense I was making of them. I often kept this book by my bed and the pictures along with a line of dialogue gave me heart to get out of bed and face the world. It Its become well known in mental health literature and is now on line and I would recommend you have a look yourself here.
My interview is going to be conducted over the phone and last about half an hour. I’ll get a transcript to agree or otherwise before it goes to press but it has been useful writing this blog in helping me collect my thoughts, cheers for listening!