Written by Dr. Eric Perry, PhD Image Credit: Pixabay “Adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one.” ~Hans Selye Sublimation is a subconscious psychological defense mechanism whereby we take a negative impulse and channel it into a positive behavior. This is similar to displacement (click here to refer to my earlier […]
via How to Turn Negative Urges into Positive Actions — Dr. Eric Perry, PhD
This is a great post written by a fellow blogger. Be sure to check them out if you enjoy this post!
Self Confidence and Self Worth obviously have a lot to do with how well we do in life. However, what confuses the picture is that the two terms are often used as if they have the same meaning. They are really very different things. Self Confidence is about how we relate to the world. Self…
via Balancing Self Confidence and Self Worth — Self Development dot ga
This is a great post written by a fellow blogger! Check out their other posts if you enjoyed this one!
Hey guys! I wrote a goal planning post last year right after Christmas and it was a big hit! This year I decided to publish a goal planning post a little earlier because I know that I like to get on planning as soon as possible! I’m so excited to share how I’m planning out […]
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Today’s blog is a guest blog written by one of our readers, Rebecca Sutcliffe-Major! The blog is about how being a mother can be a very hard job and to never give up. You may make mistakes from time to time but it is all a learning process. Remember the job you are doing, the value it brings to the world and try not to beat yourself up if things seem to go wrong. Hope you enjoy the blog!
One thing that all mums have in common and most don’t even know it. We all at some point are adamant we are ‘mumming’ wrong. I worked full time in management to help support my family while trying to further my education to better our future. The response I got from others “don’t you miss your kids?”, “shouldn’t you be spending more time with your family?”. Then when I gave up working so I could concentrate on my children and my education I had comments such as “don’t you think you should work to help out your husband?”, “Are you setting the right example for your kids by not working?”. All the while inside my head I’m screaming “ARE YOU SERIOUS!”.
On the outside, I look like I have it all together, on the inside I am full of self-doubt and anxiety. When I worked, I was in smart clothes, makeup done, hair done, nails done but I worried about my kids missing me. Now I’m out of work, I look neglected and I’m worrying that I am not occupying the kids time in the right way like they had a nursery. There is no end!
I was adamant that once I finished work, I would have an amazing routine and do crafts with them, make home-cooked meals and basically be an amazing mum. Oh boy, was I wrong!!
After the first week at home, I was so very tired. ‘Mumming’ full time is hard work. Running after a 1 year old and school runs really take it out of you. Even the little things were hard.
Something as simple as putting down the baby for a nap, then I can shower or clean or do the washing. NO! Baby decided that napping was beneath her and spend 30 minutes singing and shouting before I gave up and brought her back downstairs. But it’s ok… I spent that 30 minutes cleaning the living room, I was productive!
The baby was then in the living room eating a banana while watching tv, coolies… I’ll clean the kitchen. NO! Baby decided that playing on her own while watching tv was not acceptable. I walked into my living room and it was trashed. The one-year-old hooligan had thrown toys, cushions, banana peel everywhere. Clearly, she’s not to be left alone.
Next thought…. Why don’t you help mummy!!! NO! She proceeded to pull things out of the washer before I could fill it and set it going. Then she got distracted …. I managed to put the washer on, turned around…… oh hell, the baby is playing with the cat bowls ….. biscuits and water all over my kitchen.
Bath time …. Ended with both me and my bathroom soaked. We were now late for the school run. I turn up at school soaked and looking like id been dragged through a hedge backwards. Get the kids home my eldest says “mummy why is it so messy?” REALLY KID!!
I managed to get them to play nicely together while I tried to tidy around them, then moved into the kitchen to sort out the washing (which as it turned out I set off gong without putting in any washing powder or fabric softener). Back to the living room……trashed. My husband comes home ….. “what happened here?” I’m stood there, baby in one arm and wet unwashed washing in the other, surrounded by toys. It actually looked like I had done nothing all day.
I felt like such a failure. I can run a business, manage staff, deal with customers, do the rotas, create strategic plans. But I couldn’t keep my cool with the kids, I couldn’t keep my house in check, I couldn’t have tea ready for when my husband got home. I was in jeans and a hoodie all day, no make-up, hair a mess. I looked nothing like I was used to. All these goals that I was adamant I could do, turns out I couldn’t. I thought when I gave up work I would have less stress which would lower my anxiety and make me a happier person to be around. This went on for weeks. I made myself feel worse with all the bad thoughts. My depression spiralled downwards; I could feel myself loosing. I went back to the doctors thinking I was getting too bad and I cried a lot.
Then it occurred to me, who cares. My children are happy, fed and well looked after. Who cares if my house is a mess, who cares if I am a mess, who cares if my husband has the opinion that I am slowly going insane after watch re-runs of Pepper Pig all day! The only person who actually cared about it was me. My husband and my kids want me healthy and happy, that’s it!
Once I stopped putting all the extra pressure on myself, I got into a rhythm. School run, nap, clean, lunch, play, school run, tea. Don’t get me wrong, it is not easy and most days the cleaning won’t get done until the kids are in bed. My house is nowhere up to the standards that it used to be and I still don’t always have time to sort myself out.
Without putting standards on myself I started to feel better. I was smiling more and laughing more. I’m still struggling with inner demons and I will be for a while. There is no quick fix and some days the only thing that gets me through the day is a cheeky smile from a one-year-old hooligan.
The NHS states that 1 in 10 people have clinical depression[1]. In 2018 Forth conducted a survey which stated that 42% of women admitted that they were ‘too stressed’[2].
The message I want to get out there is ‘mumming’ is hard, you are not overreacting, you are not worthless, and you may have days when you feel like a failure but it’s ok. We are all feeling that way. You are not alone. You may make some mistakes but it is all part of the process. Remember we can only learn from a mistake if we actually make it in the first place.
[1] NHS, Clinical depression <https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/clinical-depression/>
[2] Forth. Great Britain and Stress – How bad is it and why is it happening?<https://www.forthwithlife.co.uk/blog/great-britain-and-stress/>
Thanks for reading! What do you all think? Would you like to see some more blogs by Rebecca? Let me know your answers to the above questions and any other questions or queries you have either in the comments below or via our Facebook page!
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!
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Do you know what inspires you most?
It’s Mental Illness Awareness Week and tomorrow, October 10, is World Mental Health Day. So let’s talk about it! Yesterday I had a wonderful opportunity to speak to a group of elementary, middle school, and high school counselors about mental illness. I’m a presenter for Ending the Silence, a mental health awareness program by the […]
via We ALL Have Mental Health: Let’s Talk About It — Peace from Panic
Fortunes have been made by so-called self help gurus on the topic of self esteem. Hundreds of books have been written and countless others touch on the subject in way or another. I have to admit, I haven’t read any of them. Every thing I’ve ever learned about self esteem was through my own process…
People and indeed the world itself are forever evolving/changing. As times move on the way that we do things and even the way we think develops and evolves. Everything that we do has an effect on us as people and on our Mental Health as a result. As this effect happens the questions still stands: what actually is Mental Health and what actually affects it?
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Today’s blog is going to be about what Mental Health is and how we as a society need to change our approach to Mental Health. I got the idea for this blog by talking to one of my mates at work. We were catching up about the past year in university and we moved onto the topic of academic difference. Now after we finished talking I asked if I can use this for a blog and he said that he cannot see how simply the word different can make a topic link to Mental Health, this is where the idea for the blog came from. In effect, we can link anything to Mental Health which is what I will talk about in more depth later on in the blog.
Firstly we need to take a look at exactly what is Mental Health. MentalHealth.gov, https://www.mentalhealth.gov/basics/what-is-mental-health, describe Mental Health as “our emotional, psychological and social well-being.” They say that our Mental Health has an effect on ” how we think, feel and act” and it influences how we handle things like stress and how we make decisions. I quite like this definition as I feel like it is very close to my own.
To me, our Mental Health is who we are as people. It is how we think, how we process information, how we communicate and develop, Mental Health is us. It baffles me when people say how so many things are not related to Mental Health when in reality they are. Anything that has an effect on society, us as people and the way that we think and feel all make up what is known as our Mental Health. Nearly everything we do impacts our Mental Health and that is what we need to start thinking about. We need to get out of the loop that is Mental Health is only relevant when people are having problems as Mental Health is a constant. Even if we may not be suffering from a Mental Health condition, your Mental Health is constantly evolving and changing. The only way that change in Mental Health is actually going to happen is if we rethink what Mental health actually is and how we tackle it in day to day life.
An example that I like to refer to when talking about this ideology is the different reactions people have when they are going to work. Going to work is a topic that I don’t bring up much on the page but for this example, I think that it fits in well and is very relatable. The reaction that you give to going to work has an obvious link to whether you like your job or not. The way that you feel about your work acts as a foundation to how it impacts on your mental health, in a positive or negative way, and then it develops when we actually are going to work.
Let’s say for this example that you love the job that you are in. If you love your job then I believe it is safe to say that work makes you happy. This means that the foundation of how work impacts your Mental Health is a positive one. If you love your job then for the majority of the time you will be happy when you are leaving to go to work and you will be happy at work. This good mood that you have can correlate to a more positive Mental Health. A more positive Mental Health can link to a more positive look at work and indeed life in general. I am not saying that work determines your look on life but it does play a part.
Now we are going to look at the flip side of the coin. let’s say you hate the job you are in. Now if you hate your job then I think it is safe to say that going to work makes you unhappy. This means that the foundation of how work impacts your Mental Health is a more negative one, which is a complete opposite to the last scenario. The unhappy mood and mindset that you get going to or even thinking about work can correlate to a more negative look on life. As said above I am not saying that work determines your outlook on life but it definitely does play a part.
If going to work makes you unhappy or puts you in a bad mood then it is only natural that it is going to impact on other parts of your life. Once you get put in a bad mood it is often hard to not see everything else in that same mindset. So if you hate your job and going to work then if something else happens then you are more likely to approach it with a more negative mindset, hypothetically speaking. This is obviously the other way around if you love your job, I don’t think it is necessary to repeat the paragraph again just to flip everything.
I believe that is all I want to talk about in today’s blog! I hope that I have possibly broadened your horizons into what Mental Health actually is. Mental Health can indeed be everything and everywhere, Mental Health is us as people, it is who we are.
What do you think of today’s blog? Do you think that Mental Health can be everything or everywhere or do you have a different view? What do you define Mental Health as? Let me know what you think of the blog and your answers to the above questions in the comments on this blog or get in touch with me through the Facebook page!
Thank you all for reading!
Sweeney’s Blogs
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James
What is a stutterspiration? How do they help people who stutter? What does it take to be a stutterspiration?
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Today’s blog is going to be the fourth blog in the Stuttering in Mainstream Media series and is going to be about Stutterspirations. Stutterspiration is a word that I have created to help distinguish a certain type of people. A Stutterspiration is a person with a stutter who inspires other people who have a stutter. The main purpose of this blog is to take a deeper look into what a stutterspiration actually is and how they help influence others.
The interesting thing when it comes to stutterspirations is that they can be found in almost all walks of life. A stutter does not discriminate which means that we can find people with stutters in all aspects of the media. In this blog, we are going to briefly talk about a person who I class as a stutterspiration and how they earned success off their talent alone.
The first person that I ever classed as a Stutterspiration is Harrison Craig. Harrison Craig is an Australian Singer who found his fame by winning the second season of The Voice Australia. Harrisons audition is where we first found out about his stutter. If you have not seen his audition or maybe want to rewatch it then you are more than welcome to click on the video below.
One of the things that I find the most interesting with Harrison’s story is that he does not get through via sympathy, he gets through simply down to pure talent. If anyone is not familiar with how the voice works then the premise is simple. Contestants sing on stage with the four coaches turned away from them, if the coach likes what they hear then they press their button and turn their chair. The contestant then gets to decide which team to go on based off which judge/ judges turn around and then progress through to the next stage of the competition.
Now as I said previously Harrisons got through his audition and then indeed went on to win the competition down to pure talent alone. Even though he has a stutter and struggles to full sentences at times without stuttering, his singing is still faultless. This just goes to show that having a stutter should not hold you back, you can still be successful even if you can’t speak without stopping sometimes.
Harrison’s story helped me realise quite a few things about how I approached my life when it came to my stutter. The fact that Harrisons pursued his dream and went on live TV with a stutter solidified the idea in my head that my stutter should not hold me back in life. I started to approach life in a more confident way and started doing things that I wanted to do. This confidence boost was one of the reasons I became a Swimming Teacher and has allowed me to teach numerous swimmers over the past 3 years. A small portion of my achievement has to be given to people like Harrison who showed us that it is possible.
I have had a lot of different people in my life tell me that I cannot do certain things due to the fact that I have a stutter. Harrison’s story is a perfect example as to why they are completely wrong. A stutter does not limit you in regard to what you want to do in life. The only thing that does limit you if you have a stutter is yourself. A stutter may make you take longer to say some things but that does not mean that your voice is any less important than someone else’s.
That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog. Thank you all for reading! What do you all think? Did you know Harrison’s story before reading this blog? Do you know of any stutterspirations in your life? What attributes do you think leads to a person being a stutterspiration? Let me know what you think and any other comments you have about my blogs in the comments of this blog or on our Facebook page.
Thank you all for reading and I hope to see you all in the next blog! Have a great week and remember to Highlight the I in difference!
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Ever wondered if age had an effect on if someone stuttered? Do more men stutter? Do men outgrow stutters more than women do?
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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!
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James
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!
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James
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!
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James
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!
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
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James 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
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James 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
Sweeney's Blogs 