I shall tell ye through the medium of dance! ~ Little Britain The Ray McCooney character in the BBC comedy Little Britain may have been onto something when he would say that he would express himself through the medium of dance. Dance is a form of expression, a medium of communication using movement, and a non-verbal art form. I've never really been much of a dancer. A couple of weeks ago I attended a two-day workshop comprising dance movement psychotherapy, authentic movement and ecstatic dance! I had very little idea what any of these things were but I found the experience quite illumi ..read more

 The world is full of broken people inflicting their brokenness on others. ~ Dannie-Lu Carr   Earlier this year my psychotherapist reflected back to me my need for authenticity. This was within the context of wanting to be liked and accepted as the "real" me, without having to present a refracted image of my true self. My reckoning was that external acceptance of a portrayal of an imagined self serves only to connect with a facade. The real self remains in a void, remote and disconnected. I had explained I just wanted to be me, to not have to try and be someone or something that I wa ..read more

Loneliness is not solitude. Solitude requires being alone, whereas loneliness shows itself most sharply in company with others. ~ Hannah Arendt It's the afternoon of Christmas day! As I sit and occasionally look out of the window I am struck by the stillness of the world outside. I don't see anyone walking along the street nor do I see any cars. It feels like a place and time in a post-apocalyptic and dystopian future world. The view is foggy. The silence is deafening. The absence of any signs of life is ominous. Yet this moribund state is not a true reflection of the day. Whilst there will ..read more

Those who are constantly accusing others are often the ones doing exactly what they're accusing others of doing. ~ Unknown My blog is like the buses: no posts for ages and then three materialise all at once! Not that anyone reads it, of course, as, despite starting it four months ago it has yet to be considered worthy of inclusion by the almighty and omnipresent Google in their search results. I will persevere, however, as, one day, Google might decide that I am not a total insignificance in which the users of its search would have no interest and decide to start including my blog in its resul ..read more

There's a difference between feeling "a bit under the weather" type depression, which everyone in the world suffers from fairly routinely on their "bad days", and "depression", the chronic mental health condition. The former is something that people might even say with a smile! The latter is an actual psychological affliction the symptoms of which spill out into all sorts of manifestations: lack of motivation, irritability, insomnia, over/ under eating, spirals of negative thoughts, lack of enthusiasm, withdrawal and isolation. Depression creates a dark, morbid and bleak view of the world for ..read more

There's a difference between feeling "a bit under the weather" type depression, which everyone in the world suffers from fairly routinely on their "bad days", and "depression", the chronic mental health condition. The former is something that people might even say with a smile! The latter is an actual psychological affliction the symptoms of which spill out into all sorts of manifestations: lack of motivation, irritability, insomnia, over/ under eating, spirals of negative thoughts, lack of enthusiasm, withdrawal and isolation. Depression creates a dark, morbid and bleak view of the world for ..read more

Loneliness is not solitude. Solitude requires being alone, whereas loneliness shows itself most sharply in company with others. ~ Hannah Arendt It's the afternoon of Christmas day! As I sit and occasionally look out of the window I am struck by the stillness of the world outside. I don't see anyone walking along the street nor do I see any cars. It feels like a place and time in a post-apocalyptic and dystopian future world. The view is foggy. The silence is deafening. The absence of any signs of life is ominous. Yet this moribund state is not a true reflection of the day. Whilst there will ..read more

My brain is lit like an airport So the angels will find me Recruit me She wants me on the show I’m considering as it will give me more exposure Perhaps I could help others by showing my recovery process Sharing my tools and insights ~  Katiejane Garside/ Liar, Flower I'm having so many doubts about so many things so much of the time. I've been asking myself things like why I am writing this blog, why I am running a peer support group, why I did a counselling course and why I attended the recent peer mentoring course. I am wondering what I am able to offer and what I may be gaining. If I ..read more

My brain is lit like an airport So the angels will find me Recruit me She wants me on the show I’m considering as it will give me more exposure Perhaps I could help others by showing my recovery process Sharing my tools and insights ~  Katiejane Garside/ Liar, Flower I'm having so many doubts about so many things so much of the time. I've been asking myself things like why I am writing this blog, why I am running a peer support group, why I did a counselling course and why I attended the recent peer mentoring course. I am wondering what I am able to offer and what I may be gaining. If I ..read more

It's Sunday morning. I'm mentally and physically drained. There's not a single cell in my system that has even a nano unit of energy. This is mostly the result of simply trying too hard and doing too much. This fluctuates with periods of doing virtually nothing other than just waiting for time to evaporate and bring me closer to the future (I have analytical thoughts on this which I will share in another post), a state that is equally draining but perhaps in different ways. Friday was the last of four weeks on Talk for Health, a peer counselling course that I've been doing once a week. By the ..read more