MENTAL MATTERSIt’s time to talk about recovery! May 2013

Let’s talk recovery

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EDITORIAL

ental Health is slowly but surely becoming lesstaboo in society.Thanks to many initiatives in-cluding the ‘See me campaign’ and ’ChooseLife.’ I think that it’s great that the ScottishGovernernment are committed to reducingstigma towards mental illness and also to re-duce the amount of suicide in Scotland.

It’s not just the Government though who havebeen making strides in this area, a lot of creditneeds to also go to the mental health charitieslike SAMH and Pnenumbra who are givingback across a variety of services from crisissupport to working with addictions.

Of course, there is still a long way to go andI’m hoping that with the launch of this maga-zine: we can as a nation collectively do ourown bit to reduce stigma and raise awareness.

Nobody chooses to be physically ill and like-wise mental illness is no different. I’m looking

for contributors for the next edition of thismagazine, and I hope ‘mental matters’ cangrow.

I can only do so much myself but this is onlythe start of an exciting journey. Please sendany feedback or suggestions for the next edi-tion to random_hollz@hotmail.com

The Scottish people are renowned for beingstory-tellers. In this magazine, I want to sharethe stories that recovery is possible, recoverywill happen and highlight it’s important toshare our stories.

At my lowest point, I thought I’d never get bet-ter, but with a little bit of hope - I do believeagain.

Holly McCormack

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WHAT IS SCOTLAND’S MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID?Independent trainer Amanda O�Connell talks about her career change

RECOVERY FEATUREBeth Burgess talks of hope and recovery from alcoholism and BPD

A SOCIAL NETWORKIs social media a help or a hinderance towards our mental health?

MENTAL HEALTH NEWS / LETTER TO THE EDITORNews from across Scotland/ Comment from the readers

REVIEWA look back at Taking Over the Asylum

DEALING WITH A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS

AMANDA O’CONNELL TALKS ABOUT

GIVING UP WORK TO TRAIN MENTAL

HEALTH FIRST-AID FULL TIME

I recently took the training myself and spoke to the trainer and people

also taking part in the course.

Next time you’re online, head to:

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1110348-what-is-mental-health-frst-aid

EVERYONE is

familiar with first-aid andit's a mandatory require-ment in most workplaces,institutions and everydayorganisations. Someone isalways on hand to stem theflow in a potential crisis –should the need arise. Themajority of us are not walk-ing about secretly maskingas Doctors and waiting topop-out and diagnoseeveryone by an article we'veread on Wikipedia.

In a true crisis, we aretaught mouth-to-mouth,CPR and not to movesomebody who has taken afall. Mostly, it's commonsense but life saving initia-tives are drummed into usall. But where does thatleave someone in a mentalhealth crisis?

SIGNPOSTING FORHELP

In reality, there isn't muchdifferent to the person in-volved. Perception in societyis that there isn't the samesense of urgency and atti-tudes towards mentalhealth in general are stillbehind the times.A simple12 hour course developedoriginally from Australia isa fresh approach to tacklingthese attitudes and sup-porting people in the midstof crisis too.

Scotland’s Mental healthfirst aid (SMHFA) is not de-signed to make anyoneovernight professionals, justlike being trained as a first-aider doesn't make you aDoctor. It's about managingimmediate risks and sign-posting an individual to theright help and understand-ing their point of view. Al-though the NHS does rollout training in Scotland it isprimarily focussed at thoseworking in the voluntarysector and within the NHS.

In times of crisis, an indi-vidual decision could shapea life but for one SMHFAtrainer, her life has beenchanged by a decision to

drop the security of a full-time wage and take the riskof building up a businesswith the aim of passing thismessage on to as many peo-ple as possible across thewhole of Scotland.

COURAGE

Amanda O'Connell madethat brave decision and isnow working independentlyas an instructor all acrossthe country. Courses havebeen set up from Aberdeento Glasgow, with individualsand businesses the maintargets for a reasonable fee.Amanda explains to me whyshe made this radical careerchange.

She said: “I realised thatthere were very few coursesout there at evening orweekends. “If someone wanted to dothis course, but wasn't partof their job then mostcourses were at a time un-available to them. “My motivations for settingup a business running thiscourse around Scotlandwere mainly to make thegeneral public more awareof the course, and alsomake it as accessible as Icould for them, particularlyat days, times and locationswhere there were notcourses already being of-fered.”

Talking about mentalhealth every-day can't beeasy but Amanda revealsher motivations behind theproject. She continues:“What I loved most that Iwasn't sitting learningabout the theory behindmental health conditions. “I was learning the practicalskills about how best tohelp people – and it wasthese skills that I needed inorder to make a differenceto people, not theory. “It was an interactivecourse – activities, discus-sions, case studies and filmclips.

“I thought the course wouldbe very heavy in content,but the fact it was so activ-ity based made it enjoyable

and I learned so much fromit.”

EMPLOYERS

Talking to employers aboutyour own mental healthisn't an easy subject tobroach but the opennessAmanda shared with herprevious employer encour-aged this path. Her ex-bossidentified that if they hadperhaps done the trainingthan it would have madethings easier, whenAmanda or any other col-league took ill due to theirmental health.

Amanda explains: “I couldsee that it is not just thosewho work in the care sectorwho need mental healthfirst aid skills – it isEVERYONE as we all havetimes where we are helpingsomeone with a mentalhealth problem. “I felt that offering thistraining would be some-thing I would be good atand I really wanted to makea difference.”

The more we talk aboutmental health amongst so-ciety the more we can ap-proach the subjectsdelicately in the future. Thegovernment has imple-mented a mental healthstrategy although Amanda,like many others, believethat SMHFA should bemade compulsory to em-ployers- like standard first-aid care is.

She continues: “I believethat for every employer it ismandatory to have trainedgeneral first-aiders, itshould also be mandatoryto have trained mentalhealth first-aiders.

NEED TO DO MORE

“But it's not just the gov-ernment that should bedoing more here – it's peo-ple from all walks of life. “I feel at a disadvantagehere as I am wary of cam-paigning for something peo-ple will think I am just outto make money from.

“But we need more mentalhealth first-aiders. Every-where. Throughout allwalks of life.”

Details of all courses inScotland can be found atwww.smhfa.com and for afull list of course byAmanda then head towww.amandamhscot.com

TESTIMONIAL FROMAN�ACTIVE�POLICEOFFICER

“I recently had tovisit a male whohad attempted sui-cide.

I felt that after tak-ing your course Iwas able to uner-stand this malemuch more and beable to speak withhim with muchmore empathy.

Although my uni-form hinderedprogress which re-ally is not a sur-prise.”

Follow Amanda on Twit-ter:

@amandamhscot

RecoveryIT takes a lot of courage to battle through addiction

and come out the other end to tell your story. Add to thatthe amazing grit and determination to help others on asimilar path and you come across one remarkablewoman.

Any addiction can be a dark place, regardless of what it’sfrom. Alcohol, narcotics and even gambling can be prob-lematic to many and it’s an ever-increasing epidemic.

Beth Burgess, 32, lives in London and has turned her lifefrom being on the brink of death to delivering the recov-ery message. A diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disor-der was penned down on her notes but only givenformally after questions from her dad to professionals.

Hospital can be a difficult place to go whilst at your low-est ebb. The complexity of dealing with both an addictionto alcohol and living with a personality disorder couldn’thave been easy for Beth which makes the story of recov-ery all the more heartwarming.

DIAGNOSED

She said: “ I was diagnosed when I had to stay in a Psy-chiatric Hospital after trying to kill myself for the firsttime. “I wasn’t actually going to be told about my diagnosis, it’sjust that my parents saw it on my record during a meet-ing with the Doctor and asked about it. “No-one explained what it was; they just said it was a col-lective of symptoms.

“Even on my discharge sheet, it only said that I had an‘enduring personality disorder’, never mentioning theword ‘Borderline’. “My dad was really concerned though and bought somebooks on the subject as he wanted to know more. “At that point, I didn’t care if I lived or died, so I just ig-nored the diagnosis for several years.

“I already had alcoholism and Social Anxiety Disorder tocope with, and to me it was just another label that meantI was a screw-up. “I was briefly offered some sort of specialist help from apsychologist, but he said I couldn’t go if I’d had a drinkat all, even a sip. “So, I stopped going.”

RELATIONSHIP WITH ALCOHOL

For Beth, the relationship with alcohol was a direct linkto social anxiety. It became a compulsion to have abotleof spirits just to cope with the anxiety. Self-medicat-ing is a harsh reality and it becomes a choice to survive.When things reached a critical point though, Beth knewit was time to hit the road to recovery.

Beth explains: “I realised that I needed serious help ataround the age of 27, by the time I had recovered frommy SAD and was trying to seek help for the alcoholism. “I would relapse over and over again because I was so im-pulsive and reactive. “Even when I did manage periods of sobriety, I was soemotionally-driven and angry, that I was still very miser-able.

“I realised I would never, ever be able to stay sober in thelong-term unless I sorted the BPD out. “In fact the constant relapsing was the first time I startedto take the BPD diagnosis seriously. “I looked up all the symptoms again and realised that nottreating the BPD was completely ruining my attempts tomove on, and so I needed to finally deal with it.”

NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS

BPD doesn’t have a simple solution sadly and it’s modernpsychotherapies such as Dialectic Behavioral Therapy(DBT) and Mentilsation therapy that are pioneering re-covery in the field. Beth continues: “DBT has saved mylife. “Funnily enough, DBT enabled me to both recover frommy BPD and also has made a massive impact on my re-covery from addiction.

“Sadly a lot of treatments for Borderline have long wait-ing lists, but this doesn’t mean you can’t do some workon it yourself. “ I had to wait for over a year to get the right treatment,but as soon as I realised I needed DBT, I got books aboutit, found resources online etc, because I felt I couldn’twait that long.”

LEAVING A LEGACY

Beth has used these experiences to turn around both hermental illness and alcohol addiction.Now she teaches pri-vately those skills that were so crucial to her. Beth con-tinues: “There are also people who teach it privately,which is something I do now, and clearly it’s beneficial tobe guided through the lessons by someone with experi-ence; but if you can’t afford that, there is still lots youcan find online for free that can help you get started.

“Just make a start on treatment, the sooner the better.And don’t beat yourself up if it’s one step forward, twoback sometimes. It takes some time and effort to changeyour life! “It’s OK to make mistakes or to feel bad – just concen-trate on making progress.”

The therapy Beth has had leaves a legacy of hope for herfuture and hopes that she can continue to prosper. Astrong positive attitude is a key message that she wishesto convey on her website. She continues: “If you are will-ing to put the work in, your life can get better. “Your emotions, your behaviours, your ways of thinkingcan all be changed so that you’re happier. “Don’t think you are any different than me, that you can’tbe cured, or it won’t work for you. “I thought that and I was wrong. “And I’m so glad that even though I wanted to at times, Inever gave up. Just be willing, be committed to treatmentand you can get better, too.”

More information available: www.bethburgess.co.uk

RecoveryIT takes a lot of courage to battle through addiction

and come out the other end to tell your story. Add to thatthe amazing grit and determination to help others on asimilar path and you come across one remarkablewoman.

Any addiction can be a dark place, regardless of what it’sfrom. Alcohol, narcotics and even gambling can be prob-lematic to many and it’s an ever-increasing epidemic.

Beth Burgess, 32, lives in London and has turned her lifefrom being on the brink of death to delivering the recov-ery message. A diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disor-der was penned down on her notes but only givenformally after questions from her dad to professionals.

Hospital can be a difficult place to go whilst at your low-est ebb. The complexity of dealing with both an addictionto alcohol and living with a personality disorder couldn’thave been easy for Beth which makes the story of recov-ery all the more heartwarming.

DIAGNOSED

She said: “ I was diagnosed when I had to stay in a Psy-chiatric Hospital after trying to kill myself for the firsttime. “I wasn’t actually going to be told about my diagnosis, it’sjust that my parents saw it on my record during a meet-ing with the Doctor and asked about it. “No-one explained what it was; they just said it was a col-lective of symptoms.

“Even on my discharge sheet, it only said that I had an‘enduring personality disorder’, never mentioning theword ‘Borderline’. “My dad was really concerned though and bought somebooks on the subject as he wanted to know more. “At that point, I didn’t care if I lived or died, so I just ig-nored the diagnosis for several years.

“I already had alcoholism and Social Anxiety Disorder tocope with, and to me it was just another label that meantI was a screw-up. “I was briefly offered some sort of specialist help from apsychologist, but he said I couldn’t go if I’d had a drinkat all, even a sip. “So, I stopped going.”

RELATIONSHIP WITH ALCOHOL

For Beth, the relationship with alcohol was a direct linkto social anxiety. It became a compulsion to have abotleof spirits just to cope with the anxiety. Self-medicat-ing is a harsh reality and it becomes a choice to survive.When things reached a critical point though, Beth knewit was time to hit the road to recovery.

Beth explains: “I realised that I needed serious help ataround the age of 27, by the time I had recovered frommy SAD and was trying to seek help for the alcoholism. “I would relapse over and over again because I was so im-pulsive and reactive. “Even when I did manage periods of sobriety, I was soemotionally-driven and angry, that I was still very miser-able.

“I realised I would never, ever be able to stay sober in thelong-term unless I sorted the BPD out. “In fact the constant relapsing was the first time I startedto take the BPD diagnosis seriously. “I looked up all the symptoms again and realised that nottreating the BPD was completely ruining my attempts tomove on, and so I needed to finally deal with it.”

NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS

BPD doesn’t have a simple solution sadly and it’s modernpsychotherapies such as Dialectic Behavioral Therapy(DBT) and Mentilsation therapy that are pioneering re-covery in the field. Beth continues: “DBT has saved mylife. “Funnily enough, DBT enabled me to both recover frommy BPD and also has made a massive impact on my re-covery from addiction.

“Sadly a lot of treatments for Borderline have long wait-ing lists, but this doesn’t mean you can’t do some workon it yourself. “ I had to wait for over a year to get the right treatment,but as soon as I realised I needed DBT, I got books aboutit, found resources online etc, because I felt I couldn’twait that long.”

LEAVING A LEGACY

Beth has used these experiences to turn around both hermental illness and alcohol addiction.Now she teaches pri-vately those skills that were so crucial to her. Beth con-tinues: “There are also people who teach it privately,which is something I do now, and clearly it’s beneficial tobe guided through the lessons by someone with experi-ence; but if you can’t afford that, there is still lots youcan find online for free that can help you get started.

“Just make a start on treatment, the sooner the better.And don’t beat yourself up if it’s one step forward, twoback sometimes. It takes some time and effort to changeyour life! “It’s OK to make mistakes or to feel bad – just concen-trate on making progress.”

The therapy Beth has had leaves a legacy of hope for herfuture and hopes that she can continue to prosper. Astrong positive attitude is a key message that she wishesto convey on her website. She continues: “If you are will-ing to put the work in, your life can get better. “Your emotions, your behaviours, your ways of thinkingcan all be changed so that you’re happier. “Don’t think you are any different than me, that you can’tbe cured, or it won’t work for you. “I thought that and I was wrong. “And I’m so glad that even though I wanted to at times, Inever gave up. Just be willing, be committed to treatmentand you can get better, too.”

More information available: www.bethburgess.co.uk

USEFUL NUMBERSAlcoholics Anonymous0845 769 7555

Gamblers Anonymous0370 050 8881

Narcotics Anonymous0300 999 1212

Samaritans08457 90 90 90jo@samaritans.org07725 90 90 90 (Text service)

Breathing Space0800 83 85 87

SAMH0141 530 1000

Scottish Recovery Network0141 240 7790

NHS 2408454 24 24 24

ispossible

IN 2013 – the

technological advancescontinue to unravelamongst us. In the pastdecade, social media hasgone from the age ofFaceParty, MySpace andBebo – to an age now thataccepts both Facebook andTwitter as a daily necessity.Yes, a bit like food andwater.

Social media has proved tobe a wonderful catalyst inimproving recovery forthose with mental illness.At a simple level, it can actas a bridging tool for iso-lated people to engage andform new relationships. Asa service-user in the High-lands, you could end upembroiled in a debate withothers all across Scotlandand beyond.

TWITTER

Twitter in particular, hasbecome a great tool to facil-itate chats across thecountry. Merging withother mediums like Word-Press – online communitiescan be built and can pros-per. Simply by using ahashtag multiple users caneasily connect in chats.Regular chats already onTwitter include mental-health chat, nurses chatand BPD chat which re-cently celebrated its firstyear anniversary. The sim-plicity of it all is that youcan engage in these de-bates as yourself or underthe blanket of an alias. Atthe end of the day, that'syour choice and if you workas professional then per-haps you are protectingyour own boundaries.

A small contigent will arguethat social media is actu-

ally bad for your mentalhealth. I don't doubt poten-tially some people do livetheir life on these socialnetworks but with every-thing in life, you need tostrike a balance and recog-nise that actually – weshould be embracing this.The NHS seems to fear theunknown and social mediahits the jackpot. However,some initiatives are beingdriven forward and discus-sions are taking place. TheInternet needs to be a safeplace that protects staff anpatients and with simpleguidelines – then this isachievable.

Dr Trevor Lakey works as ahealth improvement officerin Glasgow and is involvedin many projects which putsocial media at the fore-front of all things mentalhealth. A pioneer of theMindwaves project is onesmall strand of the work hedoes. Taking part and view-ing the online chats whichtake place on Twitter issomething that he has en-gaged with and learnsfrom. It provides a platformfor the NHS taking socialmedia seriously and pro-viding projects all acrossScotland.

COMMUNICATING

Trevor said: “My career isall about communicationand dialogue. “Whilst looking online, Icould see more and morepeople using social mediain a professional way,rather than for social linkups.“I attended a conference afew years ago hosted byChris O'Sullivan (he worksfor the Mental HealthFoundation) on socialmedia within mentalhealth.

“At that point, I felt therewas an opportunity to usesocial media in a moreplanned way. “My NHS board didn't havea social media policy foremployees to use it withoutjumping through severalhoops. “Therefore, I decided to setup my own private twitteraccount to use outside ofwork but to explore topicsclose to my job. “I found fairly rapidly therewas a huge benefit of beingon twitter.”

BOUNDARIES

Social media formed a wayin where normal bound-aries were broken downbut still respected. He ex-plains: “I could see thatthere was a growing body ofpeople (professionals andservice users) and I couldsee the boundaries betweeneveryone merging. “Twitter has become a lev-elling tool from having dis-cussions with differenthierarchies. “Also, from a geographicpoint of view – you couldquite easily be having theconversation with someonefrom Brazil.

“I started to learn thingsfrom other initiatives that Icould start to use in myown daily work from placeslike Australia. “Both myself and my col-leagues tapped into thingslike 'Head Space' in Aus-tralia which was a mentalhealth initiative. “With it being a huge coun-try, they needed to useimaginative ways to com-municate and support peo-ple. “Originally that was byphone but it's nowbranched online now.”

DEBATE

If only it was as straightforward back here in Scot-land and debates will likelycontinue over the merits ofsocial media in a medicalcontext. In larger public or-ganisations there is alwaysgoing to be constraints asmore time is need to con-sider things. A growingnumber of people are push-ing for change and mod-ernisation – the time hascome to embrace the tech-nology we have.

It's not just about chattingfor Trevor though as he ex-plains involvement in otherprojects which engage withthe younger generation andaim to provide the tools toeducate them properly onmental illness. He adds:“Young people are con-stantly on the lookout fornew apps and websites thatwill help their own recov-ery. “Already there is a lot ofgod content on the Internetbut we're finding youngpeople don't know where tostart and perhaps gostraight to Google and canend up anywhere withgood, bad or indifferentquality.”

MINDWAVES

The mindwaves project isan online blog which postspositive articles about men-tal health wellbeing inScotland. The content isposted by community re-porters who have real lifeexperience of living with amental illness. It looks toprovide insightful points ofview from those who wemust listen to the most.The benefits of social mediaand these projects is quite

evident and they need timeto continue to prosper,more people need to get in-volved and see the benefitsof embracing the Internet.

Trevor adds: “I think justfrom health service point ofview that we need to com-mit to be in this game forthe long-haul. “We can't do it on our ownand we need to work inpartnership with other or-ganisations.“The catch 22 is that un-less you are using someform of social media as ahealth professional -whether in a professionalcapacity or in your homelife– how do you know whatit's capable of? “They as-sume the risks are higherthan they are.

“You need to develop yourown boundaries and rulesand safety mechanisms –we should be helping peo-ple with guidelines and set-ting those boundaries. “We shouldn't just put theshutters down became it'srisky – we should manageour way out the risks. “A lot of people are now re-alising that if you set a sen-sible guidelines that aren'ttoo restrictive – then thebenefits far outweigh therisks. “If you aren't prepared tolet people try things andget them wrong so you cancorrect them, then you'llnever get far. You learn,you improve and you thentry something different.”

Follow Trevor on Twitter@Synedrum

Social Media:

Dr Trevor Lakey

IN 2013 – the

technological advancescontinue to unravelamongst us. In the pastdecade, social media hasgone from the age ofFaceParty, MySpace andBebo – to an age now thataccepts both Facebook andTwitter as a daily necessity.Yes, a bit like food andwater.

Social media has proved tobe a wonderful catalyst inimproving recovery forthose with mental illness.At a simple level, it can actas a bridging tool for iso-lated people to engage andform new relationships. Asa service-user in the High-lands, you could end upembroiled in a debate withothers all across Scotlandand beyond.

TWITTER

Twitter in particular, hasbecome a great tool to facil-itate chats across thecountry. Merging withother mediums like Word-Press – online communitiescan be built and can pros-per. Simply by using ahashtag multiple users caneasily connect in chats.Regular chats already onTwitter include mental-health chat, nurses chatand BPD chat which re-cently celebrated its firstyear anniversary. The sim-plicity of it all is that youcan engage in these de-bates as yourself or underthe blanket of an alias. Atthe end of the day, that'syour choice and if you workas professional then per-haps you are protectingyour own boundaries.

A small contigent will arguethat social media is actu-

ally bad for your mentalhealth. I don't doubt poten-tially some people do livetheir life on these socialnetworks but with every-thing in life, you need tostrike a balance and recog-nise that actually – weshould be embracing this.The NHS seems to fear theunknown and social mediahits the jackpot. However,some initiatives are beingdriven forward and discus-sions are taking place. TheInternet needs to be a safeplace that protects staff anpatients and with simpleguidelines – then this isachievable.

Dr Trevor Lakey works as ahealth improvement officerin Glasgow and is involvedin many projects which putsocial media at the fore-front of all things mentalhealth. A pioneer of theMindwaves project is onesmall strand of the work hedoes. Taking part and view-ing the online chats whichtake place on Twitter issomething that he has en-gaged with and learnsfrom. It provides a platformfor the NHS taking socialmedia seriously and pro-viding projects all acrossScotland.

COMMUNICATING

Trevor said: “My career isall about communicationand dialogue. “Whilst looking online, Icould see more and morepeople using social mediain a professional way,rather than for social linkups.“I attended a conference afew years ago hosted byChris O'Sullivan (he worksfor the Mental HealthFoundation) on socialmedia within mentalhealth.

“At that point, I felt therewas an opportunity to usesocial media in a moreplanned way. “My NHS board didn't havea social media policy foremployees to use it withoutjumping through severalhoops. “Therefore, I decided to setup my own private twitteraccount to use outside ofwork but to explore topicsclose to my job. “I found fairly rapidly therewas a huge benefit of beingon twitter.”

BOUNDARIES

Social media formed a wayin where normal bound-aries were broken downbut still respected. He ex-plains: “I could see thatthere was a growing body ofpeople (professionals andservice users) and I couldsee the boundaries betweeneveryone merging. “Twitter has become a lev-elling tool from having dis-cussions with differenthierarchies. “Also, from a geographicpoint of view – you couldquite easily be having theconversation with someonefrom Brazil.

“I started to learn thingsfrom other initiatives that Icould start to use in myown daily work from placeslike Australia. “Both myself and my col-leagues tapped into thingslike 'Head Space' in Aus-tralia which was a mentalhealth initiative. “With it being a huge coun-try, they needed to useimaginative ways to com-municate and support peo-ple. “Originally that was byphone but it's nowbranched online now.”

DEBATE

If only it was as straightforward back here in Scot-land and debates will likelycontinue over the merits ofsocial media in a medicalcontext. In larger public or-ganisations there is alwaysgoing to be constraints asmore time is need to con-sider things. A growingnumber of people are push-ing for change and mod-ernisation – the time hascome to embrace the tech-nology we have.

It's not just about chattingfor Trevor though as he ex-plains involvement in otherprojects which engage withthe younger generation andaim to provide the tools toeducate them properly onmental illness. He adds:“Young people are con-stantly on the lookout fornew apps and websites thatwill help their own recov-ery. “Already there is a lot ofgod content on the Internetbut we're finding youngpeople don't know where tostart and perhaps gostraight to Google and canend up anywhere withgood, bad or indifferentquality.”

MINDWAVES

The mindwaves project isan online blog which postspositive articles about men-tal health wellbeing inScotland. The content isposted by community re-porters who have real lifeexperience of living with amental illness. It looks toprovide insightful points ofview from those who wemust listen to the most.The benefits of social mediaand these projects is quite

evident and they need timeto continue to prosper,more people need to get in-volved and see the benefitsof embracing the Internet.

Trevor adds: “I think justfrom health service point ofview that we need to com-mit to be in this game forthe long-haul. “We can't do it on our ownand we need to work inpartnership with other or-ganisations.“The catch 22 is that un-less you are using someform of social media as ahealth professional -whether in a professionalcapacity or in your homelife– how do you know whatit's capable of? “They as-sume the risks are higherthan they are.

“You need to develop yourown boundaries and rulesand safety mechanisms –we should be helping peo-ple with guidelines and set-ting those boundaries. “We shouldn't just put theshutters down became it'srisky – we should manageour way out the risks. “A lot of people are now re-alising that if you set a sen-sible guidelines that aren'ttoo restrictive – then thebenefits far outweigh therisks. “If you aren't prepared tolet people try things andget them wrong so you cancorrect them, then you'llnever get far. You learn,you improve and you thentry something different.”

Follow Trevor on Twitter@Synedrum

An insight from expert

Dr Trevor Lakey

SCOTTISH MENTAL HEALTH NEWS

THE Scottish Recovery Walk 2013 is taking place on Saturday 11th May at the Forth Road Bridge. The event

kicks off at 4PM and will see a group of motivated individuals walk from one end of the Bridge to another. It raisesawareness about recovery from devestating addictions, as well as being fun for all those who take part.

Kuladharini, Director of the Scottish Recovery Consortium said:"With just days to go until Recovery Walk Scotland2013 and over 1000 people registered to walk, it’s time to create history. Never before in Scotland have 1000 peoplestood together on the Forth Road Bridge and given thanks for recovery from addiction. People are coming from theBorders, Ayrshire, Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth, Glasgow, Edinburgh and of course Fife to experience recovert enmasse. They are coming in cars, in buses and on rickshaws, with kids, with Grandmothers and with next doorneighbouts. The Cherry Blossoms are in bloom. It’s time to walk Ladies and Gentleman. See you on the bridge.

To register for the walk, go to http://www.scottishrecoveryconsortium.org

IT’S that time of year again - Mental Health Awareness Week. At Mental Matters, we look to raise awareness

about mental health constantly but fully support the campaign.

The Mental Health Foundation (MHF) will be using the week between May 13-19 to focus on the aspects surround-ing physical activity. On a par with the ‘Get Active’ campaign ran by SAMH - the message is that being more activephysically is going to benefit your overall mental health.

Everyone has mental health and it’s important we all look after our own.

Many events will be taking place across the country and for further information head tohttp://www,mentalhealth.org.uk

#letsgetphysical

LETTER TO THE EDITORLife can be hard. Recovery is possible.

At 13, I started using cannabis and drinking.When I was 18 then I started to go clubbing and to pubs and beganusingmixture of illegal drugs.I was a mess. I went to my GP complaining of voices and I was referred to a Psychiatrist .At 22, Ilost my full time job which I loved and things got worse. I got admitted to hospital for my first of many overdose atempts.I did this till I was 26 when I met another patient on his first admission.Hewas a lot older than me but he just under-stood what I was going and started advising me on how to cope with life and people. We're still in touch now in fact we’rebest mates and see and speak every day.

At the time, the hospital spoke to both my friend and mum and tried to discourage the friendship as it wasn’t appropri-ate. I’d probably still be in hospital today without his support.

His friendship, faith and support have been crucial to me and without it - I'd still be using drugs and drinking. I'd beenwritten off and was getting no real support from anyone and just going round in circles. I'm now 32 and 5 years cleanand sober. I’m even thinking of going back to work. It showsthat with support, encouragement and faith in a person it really can make a difference.

Emma Paslawsksa, 32, West Midlands

REVIEWTaking over the Asylum

OPEN your mind to a story

depicting the harsh reality of lifeon a psychiatric ward. Join thepatients, and prepare to enjoyboth highs and lows throughoutthis emotional roller-coaster.

Taking over the Asylum provedto be a hit in Glasgow at the Citi-zens Theatre and also at theLyceum Theatre in Edinburgh.

DARK COMEDY

This play is essentially a blackcomedy and was originally a suc-cess back in the early 1990s,with a young David Tennantstarring. The Paisley star hasbeen on a constant high since hemovingly portrayed Campbell inthe original television drama.Ken Stott was another notableactor from the original series, re-maining prominent name inScotland today.

Fifteen years on: the play hasbeen spiced up, modernised andadapted for the stage. WriterDonna Franceschild, was keen tostick to (yet jazz up a little) thismesmerising plot involving arange of characters set in a psy-chiatric ward. It’s a play that fo-cuses on playing the role withtruth, whatever that may be. Nomatter how you dress it up

though, Taking over the asylumis, ultimately, a tragedy withjokes.

REALISM

Its dark plot adds to the realismof many who can appreciate timeon wards across Scotland. No-body wants to be there but in thedarkness of the crisis you aregoing through, you can find lightand hope with others who sharea similar journey to you. The er-ratic pace of the script effectivelymirrors rapid mood changes,consistent with some diagnoses,adding drama for the audienceand leaving everyone both ex-hausted and entertained.

The narrative surrounds the rad-ical idea of bringing life into adecaying psychiatric ward. Anun-used radio station is revivedto bring stimulation and activityinto the normally mundaneward. “Ready Eddie’ played byIain Robertson is the radio an-chor man and faces his owndemons as soon as he arrives –realizing just how out of touchthe equipment is.

Help is at hand though, as‘Campbell’, played with so muchenergy by Brian Vernel, turnshis despair into hope by dream-ing of becoming a radio star and

generating plans to raise muchneeded cash for the project.

DELUSIONAL STAFF

Little encouragement is shownby the ward staff to patients –dismissing ambition as delusionsof grandeur. Amidst the knock-backs: true talent shinesthrough bringing hope to serviceusers across the country. Itdoesn’t matter how often author-ities dismiss you because of ill-ness; it’s okay to believe in yourown abilities, prevail and tellanyone; “You’re a loony andproud.” Taking over the Asylumis a story highlighting the con-stant battle between figures inpower and those at their mercy.

The young cast bring freshnessto the topical themes of dealingwith mental illness. The over-ris-ing message that shines throughthe darkness of this play is totreat everyone in life for whothey are and don’t define themby a diagnosis.