Category: Personal Post

Valleys, Mountains and the Land in between

Valleys, Mountains and the Land in between

James 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.

river near mountains

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

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

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

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?

Respect – Is it always earned?

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

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 7: The Facts

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 7: The Facts

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is the seventh blog in the “Looking into Male Mental Health” series and is going to be called “The Facts”. Today’s blog is going to take a look at some of the facts that have been released regarding Male Mental Health and are going to be suggesting reasons for why there is a difference and how we can go about reducing it.

A newspaper article published by The Sun on the 11th May 2018, can be found here: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5911685/male-suicide-rates-uk-awareness-the-samaritans-2018/, gives us an insight into the differences between male and female suicide rates. The article informs us that the suicide rate in men is up to three times higher than female suicide rates. This statistic is really worrying and it is only the tip of the iceberg to what the article tells us.

According to The Sun, approximately 84 men commit suicide each week. This number alone is alarmingly high yet it gets even worse when we apply it through different timespans. If 84 men commit suicide each week, we can work out that approximately 4,368 men commit suicide each year. This number is absurdly high and action needs to be taken now in order to counteract this.

If we apply these statistics to the average lifespan of a citizen of the United Kingdom, which is around 80-81, then in one person’s whole lifespan there could be between 349,440 and 353,808 male suicides. Now, these facts are not intended to scare people but more so to inform them of how serious a situation this is. Even though these statistics are only an estimate, and they are taken from an article released in 2018, they still paint an unsettling image into the modern world.

Even though the figures we have calculated so far are alarming high it is still important to remember that suicide rates are still increasing. We can look at statistics all day long and see that there is a clear problem but if we do nothing to address and attempt to counter this issue then the problem is only going to get worse and worse. We need to learn from the mistakes made in the past, we need to focus on how we can grow together, not just as individuals.

photo-1499244571948-7ccddb3583f1

Change and adaptation are two of the things that humans are the best at. It’s what helps us learn from our past mistakes in order to make a better future, We need to adapt as a community to the phenomenon that is Male Mental Health. The spotlight has only recently been shone onto the crisis that we are facing and it is our job as a community to ensure that that light does not lose its focus.

It is all well and good for us to simply look at the statistics and hope everything is going to work itself out. If we do this then the number is only going to increase and increase until change and adaptation are no longer options. Steps need to be taken to try and combat these insanely high figures.

I have spoken a lot about why I think there is such a problem with Male Mental health in most of the blogs in this series. Although I mainly focus on stereotypes as the largest one there are still plenty more that arise. This is where the main problem comes up with Mental Health as a topi, although we can categorise some things as similar between different people, there are still and forever will be personal problems that are added to the mix.

As I have talked about in a number of blogs, identifying your limit is crucial as one of the main factors in tackling Male Mental health. Learning when enough is enough and what your limit is can save your life. Valuing the fact that life is about equilibrium, a balance can allow you to gain valuable insight into how you can grow as a person and not overwork yourself.

When I originally started writing today’s blog I was going to talk about a lot more statistics, however, after I wrote the first few paragraphs this quickly changed. We as a society often focus too much on statistics and they are often used to distract us from the actual matter at hand. However, that is not what I wanted for this blog. I wanted to use real facts that have been calculated and released to really show how important the topic of Male Mental health really is. The facts that I use are used to back up my points, not to distract people from them.

That is all I want to talk about in today’s blog. I have been holding back on doing this blog for quite some time as it is a very serious topic but it is one that I need to talk about before going further into this series. As for the future of this series, the polls that I ran last week have shown me that people do like this series and do want more blogs in it. I will be doing a few more personal blogs into my battles with mental health in the upcoming weeks as well as different theories and ideas that I can think of into how to tackle the global phenomenon which is Male Mental health.

What does everyone think of today’s blog?  Do the facts surprise you as much as they surprised me? Does seeing the facts make you want to try and combat them? If so how do you think we can combat them? Are changes being made? If so then are these changes enough? Let me know what you think in the comments or on the Facebook Page!

Thank you all for reading today’s blog in the Looking into Male Mental Health series! Let me know what you all think! I appreciate all feedback, 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!

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James Sweeney

Change – A small word with a big footprint – James Sweeney

Mo’s Room – Poem

Mo’s Room – Poem

James 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!

ÂŁ5.00

James Sweeney

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 4: Personal Experience 1

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 4: Personal Experience 1

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is the fourth in my Looking Into Male Mental Health series and is going to look into my experience with mental health. I have mentioned a few times in my previous posts that I have gone through a lot of mental health problems in the past. I am going to be going over briefly what caused these, how I learned to resolve and manage them and how I try and balance things out in life so that I do not get overcrowded.

This is the first time that I am doing a blog this personal so I am going to be extra careful in how I phrase things and how much detail I go into. This blog is going to talk in detail about how the bullying I went through when I was younger affected me and grew without many people noticing. I am going to do more blogs like this in the future where I talk about how I struggled and how I managed to fix myself but I thought I would start here.

The mental health issues that I have been diagnosed with and have worked through have been Severe Anxiety, Depression and PTSD. I had the bad luck of encountering all of these at the same time due to a build-up of several factors which I will be talking about in a little bit. It took me a while to admit to myself that I actually had problems that I needed to solve but I quickly learned that it only got worse with time when trying to beat it by myself.

There was a range of factors that led me to have mental health problems, one of the largest was bullying. Bullying has been a large portion of my life and is a topic that I feel very strongly about. I have been bullied in the past, some cases it was only short term bullying but others lasted several years and really damaged my self-confidence and the image I had of myself.

The worse bullying that I faced was by one person for around ten to ten and a half years. Looking back at it now I realise how smart the person was actually bullying me. They started out by making comments about my hair colour, my freckles and other general comments then progressed into more offensive, deeper hitting topics. After realising that bullying me with comments about my appearance didn’t really bother me they began to bully me about my stutter.

My stutter has been a condition that is very personal to me and something I have tried to control over a number of years. I get very defensive about my stutter and I try really hard not to stutter much but sometimes I just cannot help it. The way that my stutter works is that it tends to flare up when I am feeling extreme emotions. This can mean that it flares up when I’m really happy, angry, sad, excited, nervous and in many other cases.

When this bully started to bully me simply for having a stutter it slowly began to erode at the defences that I had been putting up. After this went on for a while and they saw that I wasn’t reacting to it they decided to up the level and start isolating me from my friends. This particular bully would speak to people when I wasn’t there saying that I was talking about them behind their back, a thing that I would never do.

At first, when I got told that this was going on I didn’t think it would make a difference to my friends or my social life however it all changed in a few weeks. I stopped getting invited out with my mates and I began spending more time by myself in my house. This rise in the level of bullying was when I started to realise that I was struggling. I had been bullied due to my appearance, my stutter and now my social life had started to break.

The bullying stayed at this level for a few years and then it began to increase again. Before the level of bullying increased I counted that the bully had turned around 37 people against me. I had done nothing wrong and I couldn’t understand why people weren’t speaking to me and why they were actively ignoring me. My trust in people took a huge fall at this point and I only really trusted friends that lived close to me that I had known for years.

The next level of bullying started when I was walking home from school. I began to walk home by myself after school. This was because the bully lived near me and they would walk back the same way home that I did. It was at this time that some of my older friends began walking back with me. They would talk to me as they would usually and for the first few weeks I started to think that things were going back to the way they used to be.

After a few weeks, I started to realise that everything I was saying to my friends was being told to the bully. I found out after school that after I went home my friends would tell the bully everything I said to them and it would be used against me as ammunition.  This strange reality that was happening hit me hard. I started to notice that I was becoming more and more isolated and that the people I trusted were in with the bully.

The bullying did rise another level one final time before I put my foot down. I went off school for a while in Year 11 to have life-threatening surgery where I lost 3 foot of my small intestine (I might do a blog on my medical condition in the future). I came back to school 2 months early when I could barely walk with a six-inch scar going down my stomach. It was at this point where the bully decided to throw his comment at me. They just looked at me in front of all of the mates and said: “Can I store my change in your stomach James as you’ve lost some intestine?”. This one line broke something inside me.

Everyone around me started to laugh and I thought that I was completely alone. This was one of the main factors that completely broke me. After writing this I have decided that I will do more blogs in the future like this as it is quite long now as it is, that is without me adding in more points. I do not want to make the blogs too long that the main point of them dissolves.

Thank you for reading this weeks blog in the Male Mental Health series! If you are wondering what this blog has to do with mental health then it is meant to show how factors can build if not acted upon and how they can lead to you struggling unless you know when enough is enough. I didn’t put my foot down soon enough which is why I still struggle with the drawback effects now.

What do you all think of this week’s blog? Has bullying affected you in the past? How did you get past it? Do we as a society need to learn to identify secret bullies? What can be done about bullying that we don’t even see? Let me know any answers you have to these questions and your thoughts on today’s blog! There will be a few more blogs like this that talk about how I learned to overcome my problems in the upcoming weeks so stay tuned if you’re interested!

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

My Head is a Maze – Poem

My Head is a Maze – Poem

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to be a poem I have written called “My Head is a Maze, and takes a look at some of the thoughts that started to creep back into my mind when I was going through a series of negativity cycles. The blog may seem very sad, but the important thing to remember is that i got through it, and it made me a much better person overall!

Here’s the poem:

My head sometimes feels like a neverending maze,

With corridors changing and turning  leaving my thoughts in a daze,

An exit never in sight despite trying all the available ways,

The mood quickly lowers, in dire need of a raise,

Is this forever or is it just a some temporary phase?

My mind often wonders, conclusions it does draw,

Thoughts whizzing and whirring leaving my head in a blur,

A grip on reality can sometimes be hard to secure,

A sense of normalness often seems impossible to restore,

Is the reward for these phases worth the emotional seesaw?

When times get tough we can easily begin to isolate,

Our self-image in our minds we start to depreciate,

We usually undervalue the amount we have on our plate,

People start losing focus and cannot think straight,

It’s during these times that we need to accept help to help balance the weight.

My head sometimes feels like a neverending maze,

With corridors changing and turning  leaving my thoughts in a daze,

An exit never in sight despite trying all the available ways,

The mood quickly lowers in need of a raise,

Is this forever or is it just a phase?

Thank you for reading my new poem. What do you all think? Let me know in the comments down below! What style of poetry do you like to see? has your head ever felt like it was stuck in a maze? What helps you to rediscover yourself?

Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed! There’s always more blogs to come so keep looking. Give the page a follow and like our Facebook page to keep in the loop for when new blogs are released!

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!

ÂŁ5.00

James Sweeney

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 3: Help is out there

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 3: Help is out there

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is the thirds blog in the Looking into Male Mental Health Series and is called Help is out there. This blog is going to talk about what kinds of help is out there, how you can get in and how it can make the world of difference to you. I am going to be briefly talking about how I reached out for help and how services like counselling helped me solve some of my problems. I will talk about the problems that I faced and how I overcame them in more detail in next weeks blog as that is going to be the more personal blog in the series.

Help can often show its face in many different forms. Help can come in the form of friends, family or maybe a service such as counselling. Usually, people tend to learn the way they deal with mental health in their own way. For me, it took me a while to admit but the way that I coped was with counselling and with stress handling practices such as meditation.

Often the thought of asking someone for help is what people find the hardest. The thought that you will be seen as weak often forces people into hiding how they really feel. People tend to isolate themselves from others in hopes that they can solve their problems. The way in which we isolate ourselves is very clever. We tend to act as if everything is normal, we laugh and make jokes when inside just wants to break. It is this invisible isolation, this embedded fear that leads people to really struggle and can cause serious damage to their mental health. However, help is out there and being able to seek it is a strength often underappreciated.

The first place I tend to think of when I think of help is counselling. The ability to talk through your problems in a judgement free environment can often be a real burden off your shoulders. Counselling provides us with an extra tier of support, a fresh viewpoint, a change in perspective of how we see our problems and most importantly a form of release.

When I first started having counselling I did not think that it would help me. I saw me asking for help and talking about things with a stranger as a weakness and something I would never do however that view quickly changed. The counselling sessions that I had allowed me to work through my problems one by one, going into as much or as little detail as I wanted.

During my first few sessions, my answers to the questions asked were often short and defensive but over time I learnt to develop my answers. I learnt that my counsellor needed to understand me as a person, how I think, what I value, how I see the world before he could help me. I began to see that I could answer every question honestly and talk as if I was to a mirror in a way. Although counselling proved very effective for me there are a lot of other forms of help and support that people can try available.

A form of release and help can be as simple as talking to your friends and family. Being able to talk honestly to people who truly know you and value you can be a great aid when trying to conquer the entity that is mental health. Learning to be open and honest is a skill that is becoming more and more valuable in modern day society. Having a group of friends that understand you can really help when you are going through a tough time.

Although it is often overlooked, a simple how are you can make the world of difference to a person. Knowing they have someone to talk to and someone who will listen to them can often make them feel valued and feel like they can get through difficult mental phases. As life continues to accelerate and we take on more and more tasks it is crucial to remember that we need to make time for our family and friends.

If you see a person that you know or even don’t know struggling then stopping to help them or even briefly speak to them can be a real asset for someone. It does not only make you feel better personally but the difference you make to the person you talk to can be lifesaving. It does sound dramatic and drastic but simply talking to people can save lives.

There was a story in the news a few years ago about a boy in America that was about to commit suicide when a boy in his class noticed that something wasn’t right. The boy didn’t overload the boy or criticise him but just had a small conversation with him. Even though the boy didn’t know it at the time but he saved the boys life simply by having a conversation with him. The boy felt like he meant something and sought help and support to get through his tough time.

Social media and helplines can often be a good way to find support in some cases. There are more and more helplines being created by the day in hopes of helping people going through tough times. The growing rate of suicides in younger generations, especially in males is a very worrying site and people are trying to make a difference. There are facebook pages such as Mental Health Believe UK that are created for people who need help and support.

These facebook pages provide a platform for people to communicate with others and find a way out of the maze that is our minds. Helplines are also an often overlooked service. There are numerous helplines open such as the Samaritans whose goal is to help people. They are there to listen to people and to be a way for people to communicate in their own time and in their own space without being judged.

These are just a few of the forms of support that are out there and there are hundreds more. As we talked about in last weeks blog, the ability to know your limits can save your life. Knowing when to say no and when you have too much work on is a vital tool for anybody to have in their corner. Saying I’m struggling is not a weakness, it is a strength and that is what needs to be remembered. There is always help available, sometimes it is on your doorstep, sometimes it is on the phone. Dealing with your problems alone can sometimes work but when it doesn’t, don’t suffer in silence.

Thank you for reading this weeks blog in the Looking into Male Mental Health series! What did you all think? How do you cope when you are going through a tough time? Does social media help or hinder people who are struggling? Do we as a society need to change to try and reverse this crisis?

I’m trying to reach as many people I can with these blogs so if you can share or reblog it will make a huge difference! There are buttons available at the bottom of each blog post which allows you to share the blog to social media or you can share the Facebook page. If you do not know the Facebook page then you can click the Facebook icon on the sidebar and it will take you to the page or you can simply search Sweeney’s Blogs on Facebook.

As always feedback is greatly appreciated! Feel free to donate to the blog if you want too!

James Sweeney

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

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

James 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

Short Poem on Seasons

Short Poem on Seasons

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is a poem that I have written about the four seasons. It is only a small poem but I wanted to keep it simple as I am only recently getting back into writing poems and other forms of literature.

Here it is  and I hope you enjoy:

The year starts off with a cold winter full of snow,
Which makes you sit inside watching your favourite tv show.
Hot water from the kettle is constantly on the flow,
As you sit inside waiting for the cold weather to go.

Next, we move into Spring where the plants do flower,
Where we always have to expect a short April shower,
As the trees new branches grow in strength and in power,
They look over their new horizons standing tall with posture and power.

Summertime is next with blue sky and sun,
Everyone can relax as their summer break has begun,
Parties and festivals are thrown for people to have fun,
Then they can go and get soaked with a big water gun.

Autumn is next bringing Thanksgiving and Halloween,
Where people can dress up like a king or a queen,
Leaves on trees start to turn brown from their original green,
Then they fall to the ground creating a classic autumn scene.

Thank you for reading today’s blog! What do you all think? Do you want to see more poems on the page? Which season is your favourite and why? If you could change a line in the poem what would you change and why?

Thanks,

James

Alzheimer’s Acceptance: Blog 4 – Personal Experience

Alzheimer’s Acceptance: Blog 4 – Personal Experience

James Sweeney

Hello and welcome to the Alzheimer’s Acceptance Series!

This is the penultimate blog in this series, Personal Experience.

If any of you read the story that came attached to the blog last week you will already know of what happened when my grandmother forgot me for the first time. It was one of the hardest hurdles I have had to jump over in my life. It was a hard hurdle but a necessary one.

Accepting Alzheimer’s is often a challenging but necessary obstacle. Once you accept that someone has Alzheimer’s then it allows you to develop ways to support them. This blog is going to talk about some of the experiences and struggles that I have had in accepting Alzheimer’s.

The first challenging that I had with Alzheimer’s was hearing that my grandmother had the illness. When I was first told by my mother that my grandmother had the illness I did not really know how to react. Thoughts whirred through my mind and I found myself asking should I be mad? Should I be sad? What should I feel?

I couldn’t comprehend how a standing stone in my life had now become like a broken pebble on the beach, broken away from its original self. In these months where I did not accept the illness, it caused lots of sleepless nights and damage to my university work. I had to learn how to be resilient to the illness before it would break me as well. This was but one of the obstacles I learnt to accept.

The next major obstacle came when visiting my grandparent’s house. I use to spend nearly two days a week when I was younger, a time which has sadly decreased in the more recent years. After hearing that my grandmother had Alzheimer’s I found it increasingly hard to visit their house. I was scared of being forgotten and I was scared that the person I would see would no longer be the person I grew up with. Even now after I have fully accepted my grandmother’s condition, I still find it hard to call over as much as I used to. It’s an obstacle that I am close to fully accepting and one that I am still thinking of ways to overcome it.

These are just two of the large obstacles I have had to understand and overcome in regard to my grandmothers Alzheimer’s. There have been many other obstacles that I have learned to accept but I thought it would be best just to focus on one.

Thank you all for reading the penultimate blog in my Alzheimer’s Acceptance series! Next weeks blog is going to be a conclusion to the series. I hope you’ve enjoyed the series, it has been a rather sad but informative series. If anyone has any feedback, questions or queries please get in touch with me!

James Sweeney

Alzheimer’s Acceptance: Blog 3 – Personal Alzheimer’s Story

Alzheimer’s Acceptance: Blog 3 – Personal Alzheimer’s Story

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeny’s Blogs!

This is the third blog in my Alzheimer’s Acceptance Series, My Alzheimer’s Story.

Today’s blog is going to be based around a story that I have written about the first time my grandmother forgot who I was. The story is quite a sad story but provides a real insight into the realisation for how Alzheimer’s can affect everybody’s lives.

The story is only on its draft phase at the minute so there might be changes added to it in the near future. Even though the story does take quite a sad and bleak narrative it is an excellent story to read. It is a very personal story that was quite hard to write.

You can view the story here: Alzheimer’s story

Thank you for reading! I know this blog is shorter than others but the story itself is very long and took a long time to write. Hope you all enjoy this weeks blog, if you do have any comments or feedback please let me know! If you have any questions or queries please get in touch and I will do my best to answer them all.

James Sweeney

Poem – Looking into the Mind of Mental Health

Poem – Looking into the Mind of Mental Health

James 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:

Looking into the Mind of Mental Health

My depression is at an all-time high,

I’m not sure how to fix it, I don’t know why,

Is it worth solving, is it worth a try?

Do I just stop or go to bed and lie?

How do I escape this cycle of self-hatred?

This self-torture mechanism I have created,

When feelings are difficult to be translated,

When all you want to feel like again, is elated.

My anxiety is at quite a high peak,

My mind-sets darkening, turning bleak,

My positivity’s slowly draining, like a boat with a leak,

Is it worth saving, or is my mind too weak?

How do I escape this cycle of self-hatred?

This self-torture mechanism I have created,

When feelings are difficult to be translated,

When all you want to feel like again, is elated.

I’m worried that my PTSD will come back,

Then my social and work life will slack,

One person left alone like a wolf without a pack,

When life gets tough is it worth the hack?

How do I escape this cycle of self-hatred?

This self-torture mechanism I have created,

When feelings are difficult to be translated,

When all you want to feel like again, is elated.

What if the bullying happens again?

Will I cope? Or break like I did when I was ten,

This fear I’ve got, my childhood is the stem,

I’m lost for words, can’t put words to the pen.

How do I escape this cycle of self-hatred?

This self-torture mechanism I have created,

When feelings are difficult to be translated,

When all you want to feel like again, is elated.

Hope you all enjoyed the poem! Let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!

James Sweeney

Rhythmical Thinking: A Stuttering Solution?

Rhythmical Thinking: A Stuttering Solution?

James Sweeney

Stuttering is one of life’s obstacles that can prove difficult to overcome. Certain types of people learn methods and techniques to help overcome stuttering, however, others can struggle. I’m going to be doing a series of blogs with methods I use to help reduce the amount I stutter. This method I like to refer to as the Rhythmical Thinking method.

During times when I stutter a lot, I always try a wide range of techniques to help reduce it. When I was younger there was a time when no matter what method I tried, I could not stop stuttering. I struggled to think of what to do and then a thought came to my head. I started thinking of a musical beat in my head. I slowly started to increase the beat when I stopped stuttering and I went back to speaking normally. I’ll go into detail about how this works after I give a bit of a background to how it worked for me.

Image result for conductor

I’ve been part of a brass band since I was very young. I learned to play the trombone when I was in year 3 in school and am still learning today. As I grew up playing in a brass band I experienced lots of different musical beats, rhythms and tempos/speeds. After playing these pieces hundreds of times you learn how to compose these beats in your own head.

Now how the Rhythmical Thinking technique works is as follows. When you start to stutter a lot you stop and think of a beat. This beat can be as fast or slow as you want it to be however I recommend starting with a slow beat. Once you have this beat in your head you can either just keep it in your head or you can tap your fingers or toes to it.

Image result for cory band

After the beat has remained constant in your head for a while start speaking in time with the beat. As you start to reduce the amount you stutter slowly increase the beat until you get back to normal. As you increase the speed ensure that you are still stuttering less. If you start to stutter more again then slow down again and try again. This should help you stop stuttering.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great day!

James Sweeney

A Grandmother, Mother and to all a Friend

A Grandmother, Mother and to all a Friend

James Sweeney

This is a poem I made for my Grandmother, when I found out that she had Alzheimer’s Disease. The poem is a very personal one for me and can also be located on my Alzheimer’s website, Don’t Forget Me. The poem acts a nostalgia train for me going through my life and the memories that I share with my Nana.

Note: Cap is a nickname that my brother made for my grandfather 🙂

A Grandmother, a Mother and to all a friend,
A person who would inspire you to the very end.

For a person who did so much for so many,
If she needed help she would try not to ask for any,
A nurse for years and a sister to her ward,
If you ever wanted to go for a walk she would be first on board,
A strong lady who could walk for miles,
Would take you up and down the aisles,
A Grandmother, a Mother and to all a friend,
A person who would help you to the very end.

For a Nana who devoted her life to Cap,
She could make a killer bacon bap,
A devoted wife, partner and the very best friend,
The two together were the ultimate blend,
A woman who would help no matter who you were,
Who would help you see clearly if your mind was a blur,
A Grandmother, a Mother and to all a friend,
A person who you would admire to the very end.

For a Grandmother who would go for walks down the beach,
She would always share advice, never to preach,
For all the walking we did on the rocks,
She never thought to comment on my very weird crocs,
For the rock pools we would look for all day,
A task that would need us to go all around the bay,
A Grandmother, a Mother and to all a friend,
A person who would guide you to the very end.

For a woman who could make the very best scone,
Any memories of her will never be gone,
A kind patient and incredible baker,
She would not even tell me off when I was a troublemaker,
A lady who could make the tastiest teisin lap,
She always would let me steal Caps cap,
A Grandmother, a Mother and to all a friend,
A person who would inspire you to the very end.


Thanks for reading my poem dedicated to my grandmother, my best friend, my hero. If you would like to let me know what you thought of the poem, please drop me a message in the comments or through our Facebook page. Although my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s has stole the memories from her, they’ll never take them away from me!

Thanks for reading & I hope you have a lovely day!

James Sweeney