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!

£5.00

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!

£5.00

Blog Donations: What are they and How do I do it?

Blog Donations: What are they and How do I do it?

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s Blog is going to talk about the new payment/donation option found on my blog. I have added this feature in to try and earn some more money to reinvest into the business. I am first going to be talking about what the money that the donations collected will go towards and then I will be going into how to actually donate.

Any donations collected from the new feature will be reinvested into the business. This can be through things like marketing for the website, upgrading the content on the website or for creating events hosted by the business. All of the money collected will be used for business use and business use only.

In regard to how to donate. There is now a button on the sidebar of every page of my site. This button is the donation button. The donation amount is automatically set to £1. If you want to donate anything more than one pound then you can change the quantity. The quantity relates to how many pounds you will be donating. If you select a quantity of 5 then you will be donating £5 and so on.

The money goes through a PayPal account, you will need an existing PayPal account to donate or you can create an account in a few minutes. I have decided to use PayPal as it is one of the most secure ways to transfer money online.

Thanks for reading today’s blog! I know this blog was very different to what I usually do but I thought it would be important to talk about the new feature on the blog! Let me know what you all think!

James

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

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 1: The Introduction

Looking into Male Mental Health – Blog 1: The Introduction

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks,

James

Balloon Theory – What is it and how can we use it?

Balloon Theory – What is it and how can we use it?

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Today’s blog is going to talk about a theory I created called The Balloon Theory. The Balloon Theory is a theory I created which displays how stress can affect a person and how people need to learn how to balance their stress levels and try and find ways to help lower the amount of stress they face in day to day life.

The logic behind the theory is pretty basic, picture a person as a balloon. The variables that they stress about then relate to the air filling the balloon. Now if a person fills too much air into a balloon  ( a person taking on too much stress/work) then eventually the balloon will pop. There is only so much air that a balloon can hold, this is the same as people with stress.

This theory isn’t saying however that everyone can handle the same amounts of stress. There are lots of different kinds of people as there are with balloons. Certain balloons can hold more air than others, the same can be said for people. This does not make that balloon more superior than others however it is still something that needs to be taken into consideration.

The theory also helps us see that relieving ourselves of stress can often be a very valuable asset/achievement. Relieving a person’s stress is often similar to how you would release air from a balloon, slowly and gradually, not all at once. People also need to find a balance in their lives, you cannot just keep filling your balloon or else it will pop as mentioned previously.

The Balloon Theory is a theory that is still in development, it was an idea that I had a while ago and I am only now really developing it. What do you all think of the theory? Does it have merit? Do you know your limits when it comes to stress? How do you release air from your balloons/ relieve stress? If you want to add any development to this theory just let me know!

Thanks for reading today’s blog about the Balloon Theory I created. All feedback is greatly appreciated. If anyone has any questions then feel free to comment on this post, email me via the contact form or get in touch on our Facebook page: Sweeney’s Blogs!

James

Treat your body like a balloon, don’t overload yourself

Being Different: Blog 5 – Summary of the Series

Being Different: Blog 5 – Summary of the Series

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

This week’s blog is going to be the final blog in the Being Different series. This blog is going to be a recap of the series and is going to highlight why being different is a good thing and how a diverse set of friends and colleagues can be a great asset for you in life. I did originally plan to make this series longer, however, after careful consideration and planning, I have decided to finish it for now.

The Being Different series has focused on the positives of being different. I first started off by talking about what the word different means. I used the Oxford dictionary definition and then provided my own for comparison. My definition focuses on how being different is simply being yourself. How each person is different and that in itself is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I have talked about how having a diverse group of friends can lead to a person becoming: more multicultural, more open and more accepting of other people. The ability to understand different cultures is a great way to broaden your horizons and change the way in which you see the world. Learning about different holidays and traditions is an excellent way to see how people in different parts of the world with different religions and beliefs to you live.

The fourth blog in the series, The Changing Mirror, focuses on how a person’s mindset and view of things can change over time and how as we learn more things, the way we think of things changes. As we progress through life and encounter more of life’s obstacles, we grow as people and the way in which we think of certain things matures.

The size of the obstacles that we encounter can vary dramatically, the effect of the obstacles changes dependent on the person affected. The way in which a person deals with a problem or an obstacle is the leading factor in how a persons mindset and view of things can change.

Thank you for reading the Being Different series! As mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I was originally planning to take the series a little bit further. As I was planning on how to extend the series and write more blogs, I found that the ideas I had can be series in their own merit or ideas that touched on more sensitive issues that I want to discuss in later blogs. The good thing about this series is that it can be brought back at a later date however, for now, it is coming to an end.

Than you for reading this week’s blog! What do you all think? Has everyone enjoyed the series? Are there any comments you want to make, positive or negative? Do you think being different is a good thing? Let me know what you all think either by contacting me through the contact page on this website or via our Facebook page Sweeney’s Blogs.

James

Being Different: Blog 4 – The Changing Mirror

Being Different: Blog 4 – The Changing Mirror

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

This is the 4th blog in the Being Different series. This blog is called “The Changing Mirror” and talks about how your reflection can change over time. This blog is going to focus on hoe your personality as well as your world view can change over time and how you can adapt this approach into day to day life. 

I got the idea for this blog from a mirror in my house’s bathroom. The mirror has been in my house all of my life and is used daily. I have distinct memories of looking at the mirror throughout all stages of my life. Looking back through my memories I can distinguish the way that I felt when I looked in the mirror, what I was thinking about and how I saw the world and indeed myself.

Even though a mirror isn’t a living, breathing entity it can still act as an instrument to look through time. I can remember back to when I was five years old and going onto my tiptoes simply to try and look at the mirror. I didn’t really have an idea of how the world worked, I was just trying to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could.

When looking at the mirror over time though, you do notice that things do change. These changes can be very minor, or they can be major. Of course, as I was growing up my appearance changed. I started as a small happy child who thought that the world was positive, and no harm could come onto anyone, then I slowly started to understand more things about life and the world we live in. 

I started learning about the balance that exists inside the world, how two neighboring countries can live in a completely different way. Learning how there is a clear difference between third world countries and first world countries and how this difference is slowly changing as we progress as a community and as people. 

Furthermore, the way I think about things has changed a lot since I first started looking at it. When I first started looking into the mirror, I didn’t make many decisions, I was often told what to do and I had the majority of things done for me. As time has gone by the way that I think has changed. As I have experienced lots of different obstacles life has to offer, I have had to think things through differently.

I have learned to take more responsibility in my life. I now know how to look after myself, how to cook, how to clean and even day to day things like how to get a job and how to work. These jobs have required me to adapt however they have not made who I am change. That is the important part. Despite changing how I view certain things in life, the person that I am has not changed.

The unique things that I do are still unique to me. The things that make us different from other people are just as important as the things that we have in common with others. Life is all about finding an equilibrium between the differences and the similarities that everyone has. Being Different is nothing to shy away from, it is something to embrace. Just as I have seen changes when I have looked in the mirror, I have also seen similarities. This experience can be adapted to many other aspects of life. 

It is often useful to evaluate the changes that you see when you look back at your life. What were the changes? What affect did it have on you? Was the effect positive or negative? Did changing the way you see certain things change you as a person? Let me know your answers to these questions through our contact page,

Thanks for reading this week’s blog, I hope you enjoyed! Evaluating your life at different stages can be a very useful thing to do, it allows you to see where you have gone wring and what you have done right in order to make the right decision going forward. If anyone has any feedback on the blog, please let me know. All types of feedback are appreciated, if I am doing something that you do not agree with then the only way, I can change it is if I know!

Thanks again and please get in touch if you have any questions, 

James 

The Breakfast Table Poem

The Breakfast Table Poem

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

This week’s blog is going to be a poem I have written about a family sitting around the breakfast table. The poem shows how you can take a simple idea such as making breakfast and transform it into a poem which tells a story.

The Breakfast Table

A family sit at the breakfast table,

With the radio on powered through cable,

Each of them with their own timetable,

With plans made to be very enjoyable.

A husband sits at the table smiling at his wife,

As he butters his toast with a knife,

Watching a documentary about wildlife,

He smiles loving his everyday life.

His wife’s waiting for eggs to cook on the pan,

She’s listening to Barry Manilow, of who she’s a fan,

Whilst ticking things off her day’s plan,

She smiles when she looks over at her husband, her man.

A family sit at the breakfast table,

With the radio on powered through cable,

Each of them carrying their own timetable,

With plans made to be very enjoyable.

Their son sits there doing his homework,

Smashing through equations, as easy as clockwork,

He starts drawing a picture of a barbarian going berserk,

Then stops to admire his artwork.

Their dog licks water from his bowl,

Barking happily, he starts to do a roll,

His tail wagging out of control,

He stares at his owners, ready for a stroll.

A family sit at the breakfast table,

With the radio on powered through cable,

Each of them possessing their own timetable,

With plans made to be very enjoyable.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you all enjoyed reading the poem. It was written in a different style to how I usually write but I quite like the design of it. If anyone has any feedback they would like to share, please do let me know, either on this blog, through the “Contact” page, or by messaging our Facebook page!

What do you all think? Does everyone enjoy the poems or do people prefer the more story tailored and series based blogs? If you like poems, what do you want to see me write about next? Let me know any queries or questions!

James Sweeney

Being Different: Blog 3 – The Positive Approach

Being Different: Blog 3 – The Positive Approach

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

This week’s blog is going to be taken a more positive view to the Being Different series. I am hoping to lighten the mood of my blogs in the next few weeks as they have been quite emotional as of late. This blog is going to talk about how being different is good and how it be a fun thing.

Being a part of a group full of different people can be a very good asset to have. Mixing with people who come from different countries, backgrounds and social groups can be a great way to broaden your horizons of life. Having the chance to experience a new way of life is a luxury that is often overlooked. We get the chance to learn about so many different cultures and beliefs, make the most of it!

The difference between one person and another is what makes friendships fun and interesting, if everyone were the same then things would get boring very quickly. Having other different people in your social group can help you think of ways to do things you otherwise wouldn’t have thought of. This can be adapted into a decision about what to do on a specific day to how to solve a complicated problem.

When I meet new people, I am always very interested in where they have come from. That does not specifically mean what country they have come from; it means where they have been brought up, the experiences with life they have, the qualifications they have, etc. I always try and learn as much about a person as I can without being intrusive. The way that I have been brought up is that to fully understand someone you have to understand the way they think, the way they do things.

I have been brought up in a community where everyone is valued based on their own assets. People are judged but in a positive way. The way that I have been raised is to say hello to people when I walk past them on the streets, to help people when they need help, to listen to people when they need someone. These skills are what can sometimes make me different. Different but in a good way.

It’s the differences that we all have that make us who we are. They are the stories that we tell, the experiences that we experience. The life that we live should be dictated by no one else but yourself. If we communicate and interact with people who we like, then day to day life can never get boring or dull. If you are with the right group, then any problems you have can be resolved somehow.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog! I’m currently looking for other people’s views on some questions. Do you think having friends from different backgrounds is a good thing? Do you think being multicultural is a good thing? What skills do you have that make you, you?

As always, all feedback is appreciated, if anyone has any questions or queries please message me. If you want to answer any of the questions above, then please send me an email using the contact me form on the next page.

James Sweeney

Alzheimer’s Acceptance: Blog 5 – Final Conclusion

Alzheimer’s Acceptance: Blog 5 – Final Conclusion

James Sweeney

Hello and Welcome to the final blog in The Alzheimer’s Acceptance series!

This blog is going to be a conclusion to the series and is going to wrap up some of the key points that we have talked about. I originally planned to make this series longer than what it is going to be by talking about different techniques that I have used to manage the stress and obstacles faced however I think it will be better to do in a different series.

As I have discussed in the previous blogs in this series acceptance is a word that can have a million definitions. Its difficulty can fluctuate based on the situation, the people involved and the environment in which it takes place. It is advised that to fully accept an entity/obstacle one must break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

I have really enjoyed writing the blogs in this series. Although the series can be seen as quite sad and emotionally based it is also a series that I felt like I needed to do. Writing in this harsh reality style is a good way to portray some stories which people are usually too scared or not comfortable in talking about.

Accepting Alzheimer’s is one of the hardest things that I have had to do in life and in all honesty, it is not something that you fully understand until you are in the position where you have to do it. I had read so many stories about it before going through it myself and had never once expected that it was going to be as hard as it was to do.

If you do ever find yourself in this position and need support, please do reach out. No matter how hard or how much you are suffering, there will always be someone there to help and support you. Please do not go through this alone, people can help you more than you may know at first.

Thank you for reading! If any of you have any questions about this series or any of my other blogs, please contact me. All feedback is listened too and appreciated!

James Sweeney

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