Ok, Since the disastrous death of my last blog I have gotten out of the habit, but I am thinking that it might be a good time to start blogging again. Not sure if it is because I am feeling especially expressive or just inspired by the fact that its sunny outside now and my fears of vitamin D deficiency have finally dissipated...
Anyway, I am going to start of by writing a little bit about mentoring...
"The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself"
Ok, I am useless at following advice. At many points in my life I have been on the receiving end of a lot of good advice, which, If I am honest, I never really took the time to really listen to and follow. Not sure if this is down to personal stubbornness or perhaps at the time the advice itself did not seem relevant, either way I think that out of all the pearls of wisdom that have been thrown my way; I have not really been the model advicee and acted upon it.
And now I find myself volunteering as an online mentor. The guys that I am speaking to are of varying ages, youngest so far has been 14, oldest 67. The website is based around anonymous support from normal people, who are qualified in the sense of that they have experience in the problem you are currently encountering.
In honesty I was a little apprehensious about responding to people who are experiencing mental health issues, especially the people having trouble with self harm. After having such a poignant experience with self harm, I was pretty freaked out that it was going to start me off on a downward spiral if I was to come into contact with people who were actively doing it. Surprisingly though, It has had the complete opposite effect.
Having come through after 3 years of it, I am now being able to give people some food for thought on the matter which is actually based out of reasonable experience. Too often the response to self harm is based along the lines of "Pull yourself together! If you want attention just ask" But I don't think that it is like this all the time. Whilst the advice I have been giving people has not really been of a soft shoulder to cry on nature, I think that it has been well met judging by the attitude of the responses.
From experience I would say that self harm is a horrible symptom born out of complete mental anguish and frustration. I do not think that every case of it is purely someone trying to make a statement to the people around them, The cries for help come from other far more subtle locations. The starkness and brutality of self harm is usually mistaken as the cry for help because it is so real, it is something tangible that other people can see with their own eyes, when the true problems go unseen.
All in all, this is turning out to be a very mind opening experience, and whilst I am only really starting out, I honestly think that this is something I could dedicate a lot of time to. The responses I have had from some of these guys has been truly heart warming, And whilst on more than one occasion, my responses have been referred too as "Ball Breaking" The people I have been communicating with really seem to be taking the advice on board. I will not go into all of that though because I think it would be a little out of context here.
That's it for this little snippet, My alcoholic endeavours of the past two days are finally catching up with me, so I am off to bed, take care all!
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