Mindset – Page 20 – Sweeney's Blogs

Stuttering in Mainstream Media – Blog 2: Do age and gender affect having a stutter?

July 9, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Ever wondered if age had an effect on if someone stuttered? Do more men stutter? Do men outgrow stutters more than women do?

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be the second blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media series. This blog is going to cover whether age and gender have an impact on if a person stutters or not. It is very important to understand what stuttering is and how it affects different people before we start looking at how stutters are covered in mainstream Media as it allows us to go in with a more balanced view.

I wasn’t originally going to go into the contributing factors in this series but after a few questions asked in the last blog by Sarah Chorley on our Facebook page (thank you for the feedback and the questions!). I am more than happy to tailor what content is covered in each of these blogs to what you all want to see so if you have any ideas or thoughts on what you would like me to cover then please get in touch!

Gender is surprisingly one of the largest factors to look at when finding the difference in people who stutter. I originally didn’t think gender had an influence on people having a stutter but the facts tell a completely different story. An article by The Stuttering Association called On the Gender Factor in Stuttering, can be found here: https://www.stutteringhelp.org/gender-factor-stuttering, provides an in-depth view on how gender and a few factors do have an effect on if a person stutters or not.

What I really like about this article is that it talks about gender differences in the number of people stuttering in different generations. it allows us to look at the factors of gender and age at the same time. The first statistic we are going to be looking at is the difference between male and females at primary school age. The article tells us that there is a difference between the genders, providing us with a male-to-female ratio of 2:1 for children in primary school.

This difference may seem very small but when we put it into context the numbers can be alarming. Let us use a class size of 30, 15 boys and 15 girls for an example. For this example, we are going to say that 5 girls in the class have a stutter. If 5 girls in the class have a stutter it means that 10 out of the 15 boys in the class have a stutter. The ratio shows us that for every 1 girl that has a stutter, theoretically speaking, 2 boys would have a stutter. This statistic is crazy and it just gets more interesting in older people.

The article tells us that for people who are older the male-to-female ratio increase to 4:1 or even greater. Putting this into a very basic example, if we have for every 100 females who have a stutter, there will be 400 or more men that will also have a stutter. This ratio of quadruple the difference between genders is really interesting and caught me completely off-guard.

There are even more alarming statistics in the article which you’re more than welcome to read from the link provided but the ones that surprise me is in regard to stutter recovery. Apparently, men are more likely to develop chronic stutters than women. This can be traced to several different factors. Start, the Stuttering Treatment and Research Trust, https://www.stuttering.co.nz/news/why-are-males-more-likely-to-stutter/, help provide us with a few different reasons behind the difference between men and women.

They explain to us that females are more likely to naturally outgrow their stutters compared to males. The reasons for this as well as the reasons behind men stuttering more than women have not been identified as of yet. It is a topic that is under research and each experiment and researcher has their own view and opinion. It is agreed by nearly all industry professionals that if you or anyone you know does suffer from a stutter then it is best if they seek professional help.

Professional help for stuttering can usually be good as it can help us locate the reason why we stutter and then we can work to combat it. The main problem arises when it comes down to which treatment style works for you. I will be doing a blog on different stuttering solutions in the future but I do have one up on the page already. The blog that I have already written about a stuttering solution is called Rhythmical Thinking and it can be found here: https://sweeneysblog.com/2019/02/07/rhythmical-thinking-a-stuttering-solution/. The blog talks about a coping technique I used, how it works and how it helped me. Give it a read if you haven’t already!

That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading and I hope you’ve enjoyed it! I will be in Rhodes from the 3rd-10th of July so I may be unable to respond to comments as quickly as I usually do. I will try to answer questions as quickly as I can but I will be on holiday so apologies if it takes a little bit longer.

What do you all think fo today’s blog? Did you think that age or gender had an influence on having a stutter before reading the blog? Has anything I have talked about in this blog surprised you? Why do you think men stutter more than women? Let me know what you think in the comments or on our Facebook page! If you have any ideas or thoughts for the future of the series too let me know!

Thank you all for reading and a big thanks for the continued support! Hope you all have a great week and I’ll see you in the next blog coming this Thursday!

Sweeney’s Blogs

Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!

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James

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 10: The Brave Face

June 17, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be the tenth blog in the Looking into Male Mental Health series and is going to be about The Brave Face. Putting on a brave face is a phrase that is commonly used in day to day life. In this blog, we are going to be taking a deeper look into this phrase and then taking a look at the real world implications that it can have.

The term “Put on a brave face” can have several different meanings. The Free Dictionary, https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/put+on+a+brave+face, defines it as “to appear or make oneself seem more courageous, resolute or dauntless than one really feels”. I quite like this definition as it is easy to interpret and I believe that it defines the phrase quite well. I do have my own definition for the phrase which I think puts it in a more relatable light h however.

I like to define “put on a brave face” as a mask that we use to hide our real feelings. Even though this definition may seem very similar to the one written by The Free Dictionary, I feel like my definition encompasses a larger demographic. Like most pieces of work, however, it is all down to your personal preference. A lot of the blogs that I write do come down to personal interpretation. If you prefer a different definition to the two that I have written here that is completely fine, the points remain the same throughout the definitions, it is just the wording that changes.

When relating this to the world in general there are lots of different avenues you can take. You can apply this term to current world problems, politics, relationships or simply too personal life. The most common adaption of this phrase is when it is used in a personal way. It is very common that people put on a brave face when dealing with Mental Health problems.

It is very common for people or even society, in general, to turn a blind eye to problems like Mental Health simply due to lack of understanding or situational awareness. People often hide their problems and hope that they will go away with time. This style of coping does simply lead to an increase in the number of problems with no solution being found as your head is buried in the sand.

Unfortunately, people nowadays do actively try to avoid solving their problems. This can be caused by a number of different causes. Some of the problems that cause people to avoid solving their problems include lack of time available, fear of not being able to solve the problem, lack of resources available to fix the problem and many more. When people do put on a brave phrase it can often lead to an increase in the number of problems they face. This then triggers the Rollercoaster Effect that I mentioned in the fifth blog of this series, https://sweeneysblog.com/2019/05/14/looking-into-male-mental-health-blog-5-the-rollercoaster-theory/.

We are now going to take a brief look into how this phrase can directly link back to Male Mental health specifically. Put on a brave face can easily be linked to Male Mental Health. Although I do bring it up a lot in this series I think that a large proportion of that can be linked back to male stereotypes that have been created by society. Men are painted as people who do not need to share their problems, they are meant to be people who solve everyone else’s problems including their own. These stereotypes do much more harm than good.

It is very easy to think to yourself that if you leave a problem for long enough then it will fix itself, this, however, is not the case. It takes a lot of courage to admit that you have a problem or to admit that you need help but when you do it can make life so much better. Trying to find help for your problems is an entity that is undervalued in modern day society. Sourcing help for your problems is almost like you are breaking the mask that you put on when you put on a brave face. Breaking the cycle is paramount to breaking the cycle and is the start of solving Mental Health problems.

That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! What do you all think? Do you put on a brave face? Does it have a positive or negative effect on your life? How can we break the cycle of putting on a brave face? How do you think putting on a brave face relates to mental health? Let me know what you think in the comments!

Thank you all for reading! Let me know what you think! All feedback is appreciated – be it positive or negative! If you have a minute or two spare please leave a rating and review on our Facebook Page! I am thinking of launching a new advertising campaign soon, let me know what you think I should do!

Sweeney’s Blogs

Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!

£5.00

James

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 9: Personal Experience 2

June 11, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be about one of my personal experiences when it comes to Male Mental Health. The aim of these personal experience blogs is to show that even when you are at rock bottom there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. I myself have gone through a number of problems when it comes to mental health and I believe that by mixing facts and personal experience help present a balanced picture on what mental health really is and how it affects us all.

The self-hate/doubt mechanism is a coping technique that I first started using when I used to get bullied a lot in school. The technique itself is a very poor one that only went on to make me feel worse about myself as you will see when I go into how the technique itself works. It is a coping technique that I used when I was desperate and it is a very bad way to go about life. If anyone reading this blog does do this to themselves then I would urge them to seek help. Even talking through your problems with a person you trust is a much better form of release rather than getting trapped in a cycle of self-hatred.

The main principle for the self-hate cycle that I created was simple. I would constantly put myself down and degrade myself before others had the chance too. Even though it didn’t make me feel better in my head at the time I was just thinking that it would be easier if I put myself down, instead of someone doing it for me. This cycle was my way of not letting others hurt me, I would break myself instead of giving someone else the chance too.

Once you put yourself in this cycle it is very hard to break after you start using it. The cycle tends to get more and more aggressive to the point where you cross-examine and doubt every action you take. It is an extremely dangerous cycle which is why I wanted to talk about it. If you know anyone who is currently, unfortunately, using this coping technique or if you use it yourself then it is key that you break the cycle. I fully comprehend that this is easy to say and to actually break the chain requires a lot more work but if the cycle isn’t broken or at least reduced then you will sadly end up in a very dark place mentally.

As I mentioned in a lot of my previous blogs Mental Health is a very complicated topic. It is very very rare that the problems people face stem from one source, it is often a mixture of several sources/problems all at once. This is where the self-hate cycle becomes even more dangerous. If you adopt this technique as a form of coping when you are already experiencing problems then it starts to become too much to handle.

The phrase that I quite like to talk about is balancing the books, and it becomes ever the more paramount here. Learning to find a way of releasing can be vital when it comes to breaking the cycle of self-hate. I can’t say one way that works for everyone as there is no one way. You need to find your release and only then will you be able to even attempt to break the cycle.

I have been experiencing the self-hate cycle for a number of years. It took me a long while to recognise what it actually is and then even longer to figure out how to manage it. To put it simply it is very very hard to completely break the cycle, however, it is manageable. Learning the manage to technique to a point where you almost never feel it is vital when it comes to beating it.

That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading! What do you all think? Have you ever experienced the self-hate cycle? How did you overcome it? What do you think leads a person to pick up the cycle? Do we need to learn how to identify when someone is suffering from this management technique?

Thank you all for reading! Let me know what you think via the comments or on the Facebook page! We are nearly at 2,000 total views, great work everyone!

Sweeney’s Blogs

Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!

£5.00

James

Valleys, Mountains and the Land in between

June 8, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be about an old phrase that I read in a Welsh book when I was younger. The phrase translates into English as The Valleys, The Mountains and The Land in between. I cannot remember the name of the book that the phrase was used in but I want to take a deeper look into how the phrase can relate to life in general.

I believe that this phrase has a lot of connections to life in general and think that if we can truly understand it then it can help us find peace in our daily lives. My take on the phrase is simple, I think that the phrase relates to how we live our lives. When we are having a good day then it can feel like we’re on top of the world (or a mountain?) and then when we have bad days it can feel like our mood has slumped, like we’ve gone down a valley.

The phrase helps portray life in a very positive way, which is crucial in modern day society. The way that I understand the phrase is that as the world has it’s mountains and valleys, we can have good and bad days. It makes the whole prospect of having different moods seem like it is part of nature, not a thing for us to worry about, a thing for us to accept.

I really like this phrase as when you are having a bad day, or at the bottom of a valley in this phrase, you know that your mood can become lighter and increase until you feel good about yourself and about life in general.

Now the one part of this phrase that I haven’t talked about yet is the land in between part. I interpret this as when you are feeling calm and relaxed, you’re not exactly super positive or happy but you are content. I think it is when you are feeling neutral and ok with life like you are the land in between a mountain and a valley.

That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! I do have some smaller things to say before the post is finished however but these act more like announcements rather than part of the blog. Firstly I would like to apologise for the blog being later today than it usually is. This week has been my last week of exams at university and I had two really big exams to prepare for. Due to the time needed to prepare for my exams, I have not had the time to write a post as long as I usually do.

Also, I think it’s a good time to update everyone on how the blogs doing. If you are following the Facebook page for the blogs then you will be familiar with the fact that we are smashing through the milestones I set for the age initially. I am very pleased to announce that we are nearly at 2,000 total views. This is a massive milestone for the page as we have only been going for around 4/5 months! After we pass this milestone I’m aiming to hit as close to 5,000 total views by the end of the year as I can!

thanks! paper and black pen on wood surface

The last point that I want to bring up in this post is about promoting the page. I am aiming to launch another set of Facebook ads soon to try and get more people to the page. I am wondering if everyone who is reading this can possibly share the page on Facebook?

Sharing the page helps the page find new viewers who might really relate to the content. There are a few ways you can share the page. You can either do it via the page on Facebook or you can hit the share button at the end of this or any other of my blogs posts.

Thanks for reading today’s blog and I hope you all enjoyed! If you have a minute or two spare please leave a rating and a recommendation on the page! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Sweeney’s Blogs

Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!

£5.00

James Sweeney

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 8: The Stigma in Male Mental Health

June 3, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be the eighth blog in my Looking into Male Mental Health series and is going to look into stigma in relation to mental health. Today’s blog is going to talk about what stigma is in relation to mental health, what causes it and how it affects people suffering from Mental Health problems.

First of all, we are going to talk about what stigma is in relation to Mental Health. The website Health Direct, https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/stigma, describes stigma as ” a mark, a stain or a blemish”. Stigma occurs when “negative opinions, judgments or stereotypes” are targeted at people who are experiencing or have experienced Mental health problems.

It is clear to see that stigmas do not have any positive effects on people who suffer from Mental Health problems, they only add to their problems. It is this point that raises the question why does this stigma actually exist? It is possible to link the existence of this stigma to many different sources but after doing research there are two main causes of the stigma, the media and lack of understanding.

People who suffer from Mental Health problems are often labeled as being violent and dangerous in the media and are commonly associated with crime. In reality, people who do suffer from Mental Health problems are more likely to be victims of crime rather than a perpetrator. This is just one of the reasons why this stigma surrounding people and Mental Health needs to change, people are usually just working off assumptions, not actually looking at the facts surrounding the matter.

An article published by the Time to Change organization, https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/media-centre/responsible-reporting/violence-mental-health-problems, talks about the facts surrounding Violence and Mental Health. In this article, they talk about the British Crime Survey and how the responses from this survey further back up the point that the stigma surrounding Mental health needs to be changed quickly.

The British Crime Survey results show us that around 47% of crime is done by people who are believed to be under the influence of alcohol. This figure alone should act as an eye opener, nearly half of all the crimes committed are often done by someone under the influence of alcohol. The survey also tells us that around 17% of crimes are committed by someone who is believed to be under the influence of drugs.

Surprisingly the survey shows us that only 1% of crimes are committed by someone who is believed to be suffering from a Mental Health condition. These statistics clearly prove that the majority of people who are suffering from Mental Health conditions are not usually dangerous or violent, they are more likely to be the victim fo a crime.

If we add the two statistics for people being under the influence of alcohol and then the people who were under the influence of drugs, it equals 64%. 64% of crimes are believed to be committed by someone who is either under the influence of drugs or alcohol. When we compare this to people who commit a crime with a Mental Health condition we see that there is a 63% difference. It is 63% more likely that a crime has been committed by someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol rather than someone suffering from a mental illness.

Lack of understanding is the other major cause of the stigma surrounding Mental Healths existence. A lack of understanding can often be the main cause of a lot of problems in modern day society. It is often brought up that if you haven’t actually experienced or researched a mental health condition then you cannot actually understand it.

Mental health is such a large topic to look at that, unfortunately, people do end up just assuming that they understand it when in reality they have no idea. The fact that the majority of Mental Health issues can usually be talked through is often overlooked in society. Personally, I have had people tell me that I am too young to have any problems or that I have no valid reason to say that I have a Mental Health condition. It is these people who only fuel the fire that is Mental Health when really they should be helping us extinguish it.

When I was originally planning this blog I was going to do a large section on the effects that the stigma actually has on people suffering from a Mental Health condition but now looking back I feel like it is better to cover in its own blog. I will briefly touch on some of the effects in this blog but will leave the in-depth explanations for a later blog.

The stigma surrounding Mental Health mainly affects peoples self-esteem. The stigma leads to people feeling like they are being judged constantly simply for having a Mental health problem. This feeling of being judged is only going to lower the person’s self-esteem which could lead to them experiencing more problems. This can develop a very dangerous cycle involving mental health which could end with someone getting hurt.

The feeling of being judged can also lead people to begin to isolate themselves. People tend to stop seeking treatment and support when they are scared of being judged. This approach leads to more and more problems. This can create another dangerous cycle where people just add more problems on top of the problems they already have. If they stop getting help to work through these problems then eventually they will break.

That’s all I want to talk about in today’s blog. What do you all think? Did you know about the stigma surrounding Mental Health before reading this blog? If so where did you find out about it? If not was it a useful thing to learn? how could we go about getting rid of this stigma? Is it a personal problem or a problem for society as a whole? let me know what you think in the comments or by getting in touch with me!

Thank you all for reading! Please let me know what you all think. I appreciate all feedback be it positive or negative! If you have a minute or two spare then please leave a rating on the blogs Facebook page, it lets me see if I’m doing a good job or not! Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll visit the page again,

Sweeney’s Blogs

Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!

£5.00

James Sweeney

Respect – Is it always earned?

May 31, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be about respect. I have been interested in doing a blog on respect for quite a while now, I just wasn’t sure whether to do it as a series or as a single blog. What I am thinking now is to do it as a solo blog for now and then if there is interest in it I will launch it as a series in the future, looking at the topic in more depth.

Respect can be shown in a number of different ways. People can earn respect through their age, their status, their job position and their life achievements to name but a few. We are taught when we grow up to always respect our elders, an important lesson I’m sure everyone can agree on but it does raise the question, is respect always earned?

This question is not meant to make it look like I have a lack of respect as this is not the case. I was brought up to always respect people and to treat people the way I would want them to treat me. I am the sort of person who values everyone’s needs before my own, which is an attribute that brings both positive and negative results. It took me a long time to notice that not all people are brought up the same.

Growing up I always use to go for a walk around the country roads near my house. Whilst on these walks we always use to stop and have a chat with the other walkers. This was something that I thought was a very common thing to do. I grew up in quite a close community where everyone knew each other and everyone would more than happily stop for a chat or even just say hello as you walked past.

It was only when I got to Year 11 in school where I decided to do my own little experiment that I noticed that not everyone had the time to stop and talk. The experiment that I did was based off how I got my food during lunchtime each day. During lunchtimes in Year 11 at my secondary school, we were allowed to go into the local town to get our food. This is how I first thought of the idea for my experiment.

I used to go to the same cafe every day for my lunch at school. The cafe was about a five-minute walk away from the school. Whilst walking to the cafe/sandwich shop I would always say hello to the people that I passed. The experiment here was to see how many people responded when I said hello to them. My goal of the experiment was to see how many people/ if any would actually respond to me saying hello and whether there was a difference in the responses between generations. The results that I did get were very surprising.

When conducting the experiment I said hello to 39 different people that I walked past, not counting other students in my year as they all responded. Out of the 39 people, only 2 people responded to me. One was a lady that use to help out in the local brass band that I was in and the other person was an older lady walking to the shops. If we break it down to the stats it does not look good.

Statistically speaking only 5.12% of the people that I actually said hello to responded. That means a major 94.88% of people simply did not respond to me. We can use these stats as an estimate to enlarge our sample size. Imagine now I said hello to 100 different people. Using these stats we can estimate that 5 of them will actually respond and the other 95 will simply ignore/not acknowledge it. These statistics further ask the question, is respect always given or should it be earned?

I understand that this is only one small experiment that I did but it still does paint quite an interesting picture. The experiment certainly makes me think of how I speak to people who I pass on the street. I always say hello to the people I pass however this experiment shows that the respect may not always be mutual. It’s quite an unfortunate insight into how respect can be perceived but it also makes you think a little bit more into how you treat others.

I am not saying that if you do not say hello to every person you pass on the street makes you a bad person as that is not the case. The main premise is that if someone takes the time to say hello to you then isn’t it a common decency to respond? We can also look at this from a mental health perspective. As I mention in quite a few of my blogs, especially my male mental health ones, simply saying hello to someone who is having a really bad day can make the world of difference to them.

Simply taking the time to have a quick conversation with someone, it doesn’t even have to be long, can really brighten up their day. Let’s try and do another challenge on this page. The next time you go to town and walk down a street say hello to a few people and see how many respond. Let me know how it goes! Did people respond? Were they people that you already knew or people that you have not spoken to before? Did it make you feel better about yourself? Leave a comment with how it went or get in touch with me through the contact page or on our Facebook page!

Thank you for reading today’s blog! What do you all think? Is respect always just given or should it be earned? Is it one or the other or even both? Do you think I should do a whole series on respect covering all areas or leave it as a ew smaller single blogs? Let me know what you think! I appreciate all feedback, be it positive or negative!

Thanks again,

Sweeney’s Blogs

Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!

£5.00

James

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 6: Rebuilding the Jigsaw

May 21, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is the sixth blog in the Looking into Male Mental Health series and is going to be called Rebuilding the Jigsaw. Today’s blog is going to look at how we can learn how to put ourselves back together after going through a rough time and is also going to act as a summary for the series so far.

When you hit rock bottom it’s often hard to see how you can pick yourself up and put yourself back together again. The sense of desperation and isolation can make you feel like you will never be able to be the same again however it is not the case. There is always a way to rebuild the jigsaw that is ourselves however sometimes it is harder to find.

Now as I think in a very theoretical way I like to compare how we rebuild ourselves to how a person might make a jigsaw. There are hundreds of ways to solve a jigsaw, the same can be said about some problems that we encounter. A few of the more common ways to solve a jigsaw puzzle involve starting with the corners, finding 2 random parts that fit together or by simply trying to recreate one section of the original puzzle and working from there. I mention these because it can easily relate to how we can go about solving our problems.

The way we solve pour problems is individual, there is no right or wrong answer for how to solve a problem. Some people find avenues such as counselling and therapy help them out greatly, that is not to say that if you do not find counselling helpful then you are wrong, it is all down to what works for you. From speaking to a few friends it is clear to me the large diversity of solutions to problems. Some people like to talk them out with friends or family, some like to create songs or poems, some people write blogs and some people do a lot of exercise to name but a few.

The point of the blog is not to tell you which way you should use to help solve your problems, but to simply focusing on the actual rebuilding process itself. I am thinking of doing a very deep blog series into rebuilding your mind in the future so I am going to be careful f how much detail I go into at this point. The human mind is an extraordinary entity, one which no one truly understands. The mind is capable of getting over problems, it is just down to if we as individuals can get over them.

The process of rebuilding yourself can be a very interesting one. A common phrase which you would hear a lot if you look into mental health is that you only really understand true pain if you have gone through it and come out on the other side. This comment is often criticised due to the perception of what pain really is. Pain is a word that has different meanings for different people, some people have very high pain tolerance levels whereas others don’t. Little things may affect people greatly or may have little effect on them, it is all down to the person. This just goes to back up the point that rebuilding yourself is a common goal that people try to achieve but the way that you do it is completely down to the individual.

We as people need to learn how we put ourselves back together again and then have to learn how we can adapt that into our lives. This topic can be seen as a very general topic about Mental Health as a whole but I think that it fits in with how the series is going very well. The rest of the blog today is going to act as a short summary of what has been covered so far in the series.

Mental Health is a topic that is only recently getting the attention it deserves. The purpose of this series is to look into Male Mental Health and see how we can begin to help people who are experiencing Mental Health problems. The main reason that I believe that Male Mental Health is as bug an issue that it is today is down to stereotypes. Stereotypes have been the cause of a lot of very large problems throughout history. The main stereotype is that men are too touch to talk about their problems and should be able to handle all of their problems by themselves. This stereotype has no merit in my books, I think it is completely ridiculous.

In the personal blog that I posted for this series, I went in depth about how one bully tried to break me and how they slowly began to break away at me. this blog wasn’t posted as an attack at that person, it was posted to show that even though someone can break you, you can always put yourself back together again. If I do more blogs in this series I will do more blogs going into my personal experiences with mental health as well as more theories that I have made in order to help me understand what mental health really is.

That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! Thank you all for reading! What do you all think? Are we still enjoying the series or would we rather it be finished soon? I will be running a poll on the blogs Facebook Page, Sweeney’s Blogs (you can find it by clicking the link in the sidebar or at the bottom of the page), to see what the overall verdict is. How do you rebuild yourself when you have been knocked down?

Thank you all for reading and I hope you have all enjoyed! Let me know what you think in the comments below or via the contact page! All feedback is appreciated, be it positive or negative!

Sweeney’s Blogs

Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!

£5.00

James

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 5: The Rollercoaster Theory

May 14, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to talk about The Rollercoaster Theory, a theory I have created, and how it links to Mental Health. We are then going to take a closer look at how this theory links directly with Male Mental Health and the steps we can take to try and reduce this theory’s effect on people.

The Rollercoaster Theory is one of the many theories that I have created to help visualise how stress and mental health problems can directly affect us. In my experience of creating theories I often find that they are a hit or miss area. What I mean by this is some people can easily relate to them and it can help them understand the thought process of people whereas others who don’t understand them or don’t like them find them useless.

When I first made this theory I made two possible explanations for it. In this blog, I am only going to be going over one of the explanations but if it receives a good response then I might do a second blog going into the theory a bit more.

The basic premise of the Rollercoaster Theory is as follows: We, as people, are the cars in the rollercoaster. The problems and obstacles that we face in life add to the height in the rollercoaster. If we do not find a way of releasing these problems then we slowly go higher and higher up the rollercoaster track. As I have brought up in the past with previous blogs and my balloon theory, everything has its limit. It is this principle which applies to the Rollercoaster Theory as well.

If we go through life no sorting out any of our problems but more so just keeping them going in our lives then we are eventually going to reach the peak of what we can handle. This is the peak of the rollercoaster, it’s from this that we start to go down the rollercoaster, or downhill in real life. This downhill spiral eventually reaches the bottom and then the rollercoaster starts again. This theory could quite easily be called the Hill Theory as the concept is the same however visualising it as a rollercoaster adds to the scale of the theory and it makes it easier to remember.

This theory helps us visualise mental health in a simple and easy to understand way. It helps show us how mental health can make our mood go up or down similar to a rollercoaster and how if we leave our problems to accumulate until we can’t handle them much longer then we will collapse and start going downhill, down the rollercoaster, faster and faster.

Now it goes without saying that the theory can relate to anyone regardless of gender however we are now going to take a look into how the theory can relate to Male Mental Health in more depth. The classic stereotype of men being able to handle all of their problems by themselves and being too proud to talk about their problems links this theory to male mental health perfectly.

The way in which the stereotype leads to people keeping their problems to themselves adds to them climbing up the rollercoaster. The more isolated people become often leads to the more problems they face. These problems if not handled correctly act as a catalyst and propel people up the rollercoaster at alarmingly fast speeds. This causes people to face the downhill turn of events much faster than they usually wood often relating to people struggling severely with things like stress and mental health issues. This is but one of the examples of how this theory links back to male mental health and it shows that steps need to be taken to get people off this rollercoaster cycle.

That is all that I want to talk about in today’s blog! I would talk about the theory in more depth but I do not want the blog to be too long or for it to drag on. If anyone wants me to do an individual blog on my Rollercoaster Theory then let me know and I will start working on it!

Thank you all for reading today’s blog in the Looking into Male Mental Health series! What do you all think? Does the Rollercoaster Theory make sense to you? Do you think that the Rollercoaster Theory links to male mental health well? Do you have any theories or ideas that you use to visualise mental health? How would you get someone off the rollercoaster cycle? Let me know what you think in the comments or by getting in touch with me!

Thanks again for reading! All feedback is appreciated!

James

Sweeney’s Blogs

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Mo’s Room – Poem

May 10, 2019January 20, 2021James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be a poem I wrote about an old counselors room that I used to go to. The idea of the poem is that the room is like a safe haven where you can go and simply let go of your problems. I wrote the poem in a style that repeats the last two lines at the end of every verse/stanza.

Here’s the poem:

A place to go when you’re happy or sad,

An escape to go to when you’re stressed out or mad.

If you’re feeling stressed and have an impending sense of doom,

When people judge you and just assume,

When your heads a mess and you’re out of zoom,

Take a minute out of your day to go to Mo’s room,

When you’re stuck in a cycle of anxiety and gloom,

To restore your confidence to allow you to bloom,

Take a minute out of your day to go to Mo’s room,

A place to go when you’re happy or sad,

An escape to go to when you’re tired or mad.

If you’re having problems talking to your family,

Or you might be suffering financially,

If it’s prime exam time or you have anxiety,

And you feel your life running rampantly,

A group who would help no matter who you were,

Who would help you see clearly if your mind was a blur,

A place to go when you’re happy or sad,

An escape to go to when you’re tired or mad.

If you need help or just a bit of support,

Maybe you’re going through trauma or an issue in court,

If you’re getting bullied an are too scared to report,

If your minds a mess and you have things you need to sort,

If a friend lets you down and left you and has fallen short,

When you feel like giving up and for your plans to abort,

A place to go when you’re happy or sad,

An escape to go to when you’re stressed out or mad.

If you’re looking for a branch that you cannot reach,

You need advice, not someone to preach,

If you don’t know what to do next, be it University or an apprenticeship,

Or if you are having problems with your relationship,

If you want advice and a helping hand,

Or you want to rediscover yourself and re-brand,

A place to go when you’re happy or sad,

An escape to go to when you’re stressed out or mad.

Thank you for reading today’s blog! What do you all think? Do you have a place to go to release? Does everyone like this style of poems or would you like a different style in the future? What do you like/dislike about the poem? Let me know in the comments or get in touch with me!

Sweeney’s Blogs

Any money donated here will be put back into the business. This can be through marketing campaigns, upgrades to plans or for setting up future events!

£5.00

James Sweeney

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 2: Knowing your Limits

April 23, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be the second blog in my Looking into Male Mental Health Series. Today’s blog is going to focus on the importance of knowing your limits and finding balance in your life which will make a great link to next weeks blog which is going to talk about the help and support that is available.

Identifying your limits can be one of the most important things to do in life. Knowing how much work you can take on and complete at one time can be a tremendous asset to have in your corner. It is often a skill that is overlooked. People nowadays often tend to take on much more than they can handle which eventually leads to them struggling with stress, upcoming deadlines and a vast array of other forms of pressure. This stress and pressure have negative effects on a persons physical and mental health.

A recent video that I shared on the blogs Facebook page, the video:https://www.facebook.com/BBCOne/videos/2559921220689156/UzpfSTM4MjA2OTI2OTAxNzgyMDo0MTQ5MzAyNDkwNjUwNTU/?modal=admin_todo_tour, gives us an insight into how stress affects our body in a number of different ways. The video just further solidifies that fact that we need to learn how much we can handle and then use that to plan how we live our day to day life.

It is a common trend that we as people tend to take on as much as we can at once in hopes that we can somehow balance it all and achieve a standard of work that we want to achieve whilst also retaining a strong and stable mental health. It is a common trend in people especially younger people to somewhat undervalue the impact that stress can have on your health. People tend to become overtaken with their work and then begin to wall themselves off from their family, friends and society itself. This is very common to see with younger men and is a reason why male mental health has become such a worrying entity in today’s society.

In my opinion, it all stems from the age-old stereotype that men are too strong to talk about their feelings and that they can handle everything by themselves. This old stereotype holds no merit in today’s society. It has become a clear sign of someone struggling with mental health problems if they begin to isolate themselves from society yet this old stereotype almost seems to encourage it.

Asking for help and or support can be one of the strongest things a person can do. Knowing that you have taken on too much at once and trying to recover from it is one of the most vital things a person can do to preserve their mental health. It’s all well and good having a lot of things to do each day but if you do not give your mind and body enough time to heal and recover then eventually you will collapse.

It is not a nice thing to say but it is a fact of life. People have a limit to how much they can handle and if this is not respected then people will struggle even more. When people learn of their own limit then it can help them plan out what they need to do each day. This allows people to be organised and will allow them to complete all the work that they need to do.

Thanks for reading this weeks blog in the Looking into Male Mental Health series! What do you all think of the blog? Do you think identifying your limit is a good thing? Do you know your limit? Is it important to notice when someone is struggling and intervene before they ask for help? As always all feedback is appreciated,

James

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 1: The Introduction

April 16, 2019August 9, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

This is going to be the first blog in a new series that I am going to be doing called Looking into Male Mental Health. There is a forever increasing worrying figure of male suicides in the last few years due to people not seeing another way out. Society is seen to expect men to take on everyone else’s problems but keep their problems to themselves, this causing dramatically high-stress levels which can lead to some men sadly taking their own life.

This series is going to be a more personal series for me as I am going to be talking about the mental health problems that I have encountered, how I learnt how to manage them and where people can go to get the help that they need. Due to the traumatic events that have happened lately, there has been a large spotlight shone on male mental health. The awareness that something needs to be done is increasingly daily however enough things are not being done.

Sadly stereotypes have developed in modern society where men are seen as ‘too strong’ to ask for help. This is madness. Noone is too strong to ask for help, admitting you need help is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength. As I am going to be talking about in a future blog I have had counselling in the past. At first, I thought it was weak and would do nothing to me however after going for a few weeks I found it a great aid to me. Counselling allowed me to talk about the problems that I was having in a judgement free environment and then I could work with my counsellor to help resolve my problems.

People need to be informed of the signs that someone is struggling in day to day life. What quite a lot of people don’t understand is evening asking someone if they are alright can make the world of difference. Learning to distinguish the signs that someone is struggling is key when trying to help them. People often have their own symptoms and signs that they are struggling and simply recognising these can allow you to plan how you are going to help them resolve their problems.

Thank you for reading today’s blog in my new male mental health series. This is as far as I want to go for today’s blog as I don’t want the blogs to be too long that they lose their focus and the point they are trying to make. IF anyone has any questions or thoughts on the new series please let me know. What do you think about male mental health? Do we as a society need to change? Why is sharing problems seen as weak? Does strength in numbers become relevant here?

Thanks,

James

Being Different: Blog 2 – What does being different really mean?

March 5, 2019August 8, 2020James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to the 2nd blog in the Being Different Series!

This week’s blog is going to talk about what it means to be different and how you can perceive what being different really means. The Oxford Dictionary defines different as being ” not the same as another or each other; unlike in nature, form or quality”. This definition and in general the term different can often be perceived as a negative asset to have however it is all based off perception.

I have a long experience in being called different and odd throughout my life. When I first got called it I took it as an insult but after hearing it over and over again I began to take a new twist on it. There’s an old line that states “If everyone in the world was the same then the World would be a very boring place”. This phrase is very very true. We are all different but it is what makes life interesting. Meeting people from different backgrounds, religions, countries, it is something that I have always loved doing and is something that we should all try and do.

Being different does not define as “being wrong”. Simply being different from another person does not make you less interesting or less valuable as a person. That is the point that matters. At the start of this blog, I gave the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of different/difference but now I want to do something a little different, I want to give my own definition to what I see as the meaning of being different.

Being different is being you. It is not simply complying to societies version of normality, it is being an individual, being yourself. If you spend all of your time trying to fit on and blend in with others then you will eventually lose yourself and is it really worth it? Is it worth losing your morals and beliefs simply to avoid confrontation or isolation? That is a point that I want everyone to think about. When walking in life do you walk your own path or do you simply follow the same old path that everyone follows?

The vision that I always used to have about difference was the old Shepherd or Sheep analogy. While this analogy can be good at face value, looking into it there are so many factors. The question that I hear people ask, especially to younger people is are you a follower or are you a leader? In essence this is the same question as the Shepherd and Sheep question and is one that we really need to think of before asking.

Simply categorizing people under two categories does not fit for everyone. Some people may like to lead some things but take advice and follow guidance for others. Does this mean that the are half sheep and half shepherd? As funny as that may look it simply does not work in the grand scheme of things. There are over 7.53 billion people in the world and everyone is different.

Granted some people may have similar traits and interests but that does not make them the same person. We each do different things, feel different, think different, act different, we are different. The real question is do you see difference as a bad thing or an opportunity to broaden your horizons? It is an interesting question which poses a lot of food for thought.

Remember Being Different does not mean “Being Wrong” it means “Being You”.

Thanks for reading this weeks blog in the Being Different series. I hope you all enjoyed this week’s blog. If anyone has any feedback, comments, questions or queries about this blog or indeed any of my blogs then please send a message through the contact form on the next page or on our Facebook page.

James Sweeney

Poem – Looking into the Mind of Mental Health

February 9, 2019November 22, 2021James Sweeney

Looking into the Mind of Mental Health is a poem that I wrote back when I was going through a rather rough patch with my own Mental Health. The poem takes a look at some of the thoughts that can go through your head when thinking of Mental illnesses such as Anxiety, Depression & PTSD.

Here is the poem: