Good evening @maddison @outlander @StuF @Shaz51 @TAB @MDT @Appleblossom @Faith-and-Hope @Snowie @Oaktree @Former-Member @hanami @Paperdaisy @amber22 @EternalFlower @Zoe7 and all forumites joining me here in the jungle for the last day of 2022. I hope your day has gone well and you are enjoying the last day of the year.
I’ve been doing some thinking and reflecting over the past few days about how my year has gone and I’ve come to the following realisations which are:
- I’ve learnt that hospital and PARCS stays aren’t necessarily good for me anymore in that I’ve found them to be very restrictive and not much help for my mental illnesses.
- I’m a stronger person now as I’ve learnt to handle my suicidal thoughts and feelings through lessons I’ve come across on my own and with the help of a psychologist (for a short while) and I know I can defeat my thoughts.
- I’ve learnt that with every drama and episode in my life, whether that be physical, mental, emotional, social or just plain life in general, that things will reach a peak of feelings and emotions like I can’t control or handle the event and I don’t like the associated things that go along with them, but they will calm down eventually and life will go on. It may be different to how I imagined it would be but I can and will survive the event/episode with lessons learnt along the way.
- I don’t need a psychologist to rescue me every time something goes wrong on my life or a mental health specialist either. I’m strong, tough and perfectly capable of handling most things in my life and have learnt to be resilient and bounce back from many difficult events, especially this year.
- Having a case manager to deal with my mental illnesses isn’t necessarily a good thing as I’ve had to accept that my case manager isn’t very helpful to my needs and that I’ve achieved more things on my own such as arranging for other medical professionals to help me.
- I’ve been able to return to studying my mental health course with a different education provider at the end of the year after my previous one wasn’t suited to my needs anymore and that’s been a good thing.
- I’ve found a new community craft group and a new charity to knit and crochet blankets for which is great for me as my previous charity was too picky and demanding of what items they wanted so now my items will have new recipients to go to and to be respected.
- I’ve learnt that cars are expensive to fix at times but are great when they’re working well after being serviced.
- Being part of the SANE forum community is a great and wonderful community to be a part of and I’ve learnt a lot over the past 12 months from different forum members, both as a forum member and as a Community Guide for 2.5 years.
- Developing a Self Care Box has been a great experience for me and has made me question and think of different items that I may need when I’m not travelling well mentally. It’s also something I plan to tell people about when I get to work as mental health worker once I complete my course at the end of the year (hopefully a job comes up for me!).
- Being honest and upfront with my landlord has been hard and scary at times but it has worked out well with another 12 months secured in my rental property, despite having trouble with some neighbours over petty little things, which he doesn’t care about.
- Having 2 holidays away this year to Bairnsdale and Echuca with my housemate has been great as I’ve got to see 2 different parts of Victoria and relive some of my childhood memories in Echuca with someone new who hadn’t been there before. I also caught up with an old high school friend which was great as well in Echuca. On the Bairnsdale holiday, I learnt to cope with anxiety without the help of my anti anxiety medication which was difficult at times but I survived and learnt new coping strategies as well so that was a good thing to learn and experience even if it wasn’t much fun at the time.
- I learnt that I couldn’t control who ran Victoria but I was able to get through the election period despite not thinking so earlier in the year and I became a survivor of my own mental health episodes.
- I read the Lee Kernaghan book via audiobook and I really enjoyed it.
- I felt very grateful and inspired after watching Ash Barty win the Australian Open in tennis on TV as she deserved to win after all her hard work.
- I’ve learnt the power of delaying things when emotions are running strong and distracting myself until I calm down and am in a better headspace to deal with them.
- Knitting and crochet are great skills to have and have helped me through many emotional periods this year by allowing me to be creative and express myself and being in the moment without me focusing on my problems that have caused me issues.
- The ambulance service in Victoria is a great resource and another service I can call on to help me with my mental health.
- I’ve loved having my cat around to keep me focused and to give attention to when things have been difficult.
That’s all of the things I can think of right now but I’m sure there’s been plenty more things in my life this year that I’ve experienced and learnt from which I can’t recall right now. I’m just really grateful for being alive and being able to share my experiences of mental health with everyone here in forumland.
Thanks for reading this entry. I look forward to writing more in the following year to come.
Take care and stay safe!
Judi9877☺️💗💐
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