Challenging Thoughts & Feelings

It has been a while! Hello. Hopefully you’ll be pleased to hear that the time since my last post has been spent working especially hard on becoming more well (I struggle to use the word Recovery for some reason…I think because I feel it is thrown around a bit flippantly). I have made a hell…

The Not Knowing Stance

Absolutely key to Mentalization Based Treatment, of which I am very fortunate to be undergoing in an intensive rehabilitation iinpatient service. I am almost 14 months in and for the first time am seeing significant positive change and hope for the future.

Re: The Guardian’s Report on Locked Mental Health Rehabilitation Wards – A Patient’s Experience

The Guardian has published an article about locked mental health rehabilitation wards that has a lot of interesting figures in and some perspectives on the purpose and morality of wards such as these existing. This article and the figures within need to be looked at with balance and with regards to whether each ward does…

6 Months in to Personality Disorder Placement

As I type this, I’ve been meaning to do so for so long that I’m now actually closer to 7 months of being here. Where is here? Well, to me it is the place that has given me hope of a life. For the first and only time, I feel like I no longer am…

Intro to MBT Booklet – PDF to Download

Recently I created a summary booklet about Mentalization Based Treatment under the supervision of the MBT Coordinator at my placement. The staff here have found it really helpful and they’re going to start giving it out to those receiving treatment to aid understanding. There isn’t much ‘easy-read’ or introductory information about MBT out there so I thought others may find it helpful, too.

The PDF is available to download here: MBT leaflet – PDF Download

A preview of the booklet is below:

I hope you found this helpful – feel free to print it off for yourself or share it.

What is Mentalization? (MBT)

My placement is based upon the Mentalization Based Treatment model; this is a NICE recommended, evidence-based treatment for personality disorders (although it is less well-known than DBT). I’ve had a day where I’ve needed some help distracting myself and keeping busy, so one of the MBT Practitioners here asked me to have a go at summarising Mentalization and the model we work with in to something that can be transformed in to a booklet for staff members (e.g. HCAs and nurses who haven’t had specific training in MBT) and new patients.

This is my first draft and I thought it might be useful to share it more widely for anyone curious about MBT as I know I struggled to find easily-accessible material when this placement was suggested to me.

“Because you are alive, everything is possible.” -Thich Nhat Hanh

Monstrous Mental Illness

is a painting I did last week when really struggling; I just needed to get what I was feeling out so it is a rough, emotion-filled picture with no fore-thought or plan. It depicts the dark, overwhelming monster of mental illness feeding on despair and blocking out the colour of the world and vibrancy of life. It can feel like the very substance of ‘you’ is being sucked away, becoming more and more faint, dominated by this inexplicable darkness…yet you know that just out of reach is a colourful, textured and varied world.

TOXCITY LEVEL EXCEEDED

TRIGGER WARNING: overdose

Today has been a day of fighting that bastard of a monster who takes control of my head and heart. I think of him like this:

That monster convinced me that even by sitting with other patients or staff I would spread the toxicity inside me to them and even worse that I was having such a bad impact that I couldn’t even just avoid people but would have to die.

I found some tablets on leave. I grabbed them. I meant to take them to punish myself.

But that little bit of Molly somehow battled past the monster long enough for me to grab a member of staff I know and trust. And I wrote a letter explaining, handed it over, and then had a chat with her and a nurse.

The staff were lovely- truly- but I still don’t know if I did the right thing or if it was really selfish of me to not remove myself for the good of everyone else. I still couldn’t sit with my usual group of friends here after the talks and PRN.

A very sad, scared and confused Molly 😦

Is Suicide a Choice? A Survivor’s Perspective

First of all: yes, of course it is a choice. BUT…and this is an important but…a non-suicidal person pointing this out to someone in acute crisis tends to come laden with judgement, whether implicit or explicit, intended or not. It often is: “Well, it’s your choice, so just decide” “It’s your choice, so why are…

“Please, tell me more about my own Goddamn experiences”

Well this really struck a chord; unfortunately I think it will with anyone suffering from mental illnesses, and especially those with the more stigmatized ones such as personality disorders. I genuinely couldn’t even begin to count the amount of times that mental health professionals, with confidence and certainty, tell me rather than ask me (AKA…

Re-training a Wonky Brain

An enormous barrier to recovery for me is a complete lack of self-compassion, self-kindness and self-esteem. This week I decided it was time to try to tackle this head-on and so am working my way through ‘The Compassionate Mind Workbook’ by Chris Irons and Elaine Beaumont. As well as working through the first 3 chapters,…

Forget All That You’re Not

These beautiful words were shared with me today and I just wanted to pass this important message on…

…I hope you can take them to heart and try to remember all that you ARE rather than what you’re not.

A Particularly Jam-Packed Day at a Placement for Complex Mental Illness

Tomorrow has become a bit of an unwieldy beast: 11am Review with Senior Recovery Worker 1.30pm House Meeting 2pm Interviewing New Staff 2pm Session with in-house OT Hoping that overnight I learn how to split myself in to 3 😂 times will be changed but that itself is panic-worthy! ALL THE STRESS in one day.

What Does an Occupational Therapist do in Mental Health? A Lot More Than You Might Think…

As someone fortunate enough to be living in a placement for complex mental health needs with an in-house occupational therapist, not only was my life genuinely saved by her last week  (she is the person that got me to reveal my location and coordinated emergency help, saving my life by a hair’s breadth), I spent…