#Modern Technology: Anxiety @epidemic or gradual #reduction? LMAO!

There has been a reasonable amount of debate around the pressure that social networking (SN) has on mental health, and how it can be both good and bad for it.  From an anxiety point of view, social networking and modern technology as a whole is certainly having an impact.  It's transforming everyone's lives in some way or another.

It's full-time and Liverpool lose again.

I use SN sites; I use Facebook, primarily because most other people I know do and it's often the best (and cheapest) way of keeping in touch with people.  I use Twitter for no other reason other than to promote this blog and I use Linkedin for work contacts.  My standpoint of SN is that it's a great concept, but to me it seems to be replacing real-life contact.  It can also be extremely misleading, and people find it much easier to 'vent' via the textual rather than the spoken word - they say things on Facebook that they may not have said to someone face to face, or even phone to phone.  So overall, I think the rise in SN has been too meteoric and worryingly it will only get more so.

SN can also put immense pressure on people with anxiety, especially social anxiety.  The life of your friends, or indeed, 'people you vaguely knew at school and spoke to once,' is plastered all over your computer or phone on a daily, or even hourly basis.  If Caroline gets married, John gets 'falsely' arrested and Dean finally gets his dream job as a chicken farmer, you know about it immediately.  Sonograms, wedding rings, party snaps and bits of half eaten food appear as photos on the site, as a way of documenting people's lives. 

But to someone with anxiety, all of these updates can be difficult to take.  The seemingly normal act of someone's status being 'out at the pub with good mates' can put someone who struggles to go to such events, or someone who doesn't go to enough of such events because they used to struggle at such events, in a very low mood.  But without SN, that person is cut off completely from their friends... so what do you do?  Simply watching stories flick up on your screen of people getting engaged and being in relationships and having such an awesome time can generate your own feelings of failure.  To someone with anxiety, these emotions are difficult to stop.  I imagine it's even worse for people suffering from depression.  But if you sever all ties with SN, then you risk becoming isolated and lonely, as sadly some people seem to replace SN with physically meeting up these days.

Then, of course, there's the issue of popularity, something else that can mount pressure on someone with anxiety.  I have 104 friends on my Facebook page, which apparently is quite low for someone of my age.  Most of my other friends have over 150, with some having over 1,000.  I don't think I've ever seen 1,000 different people, let alone can class them as friends. 

The question to ask is, how many of these 104 people are actually friends?  The way I class friends are (1) people who you talk (actually talk) to regularly, (2) share things with, (3) trust and (4) enjoy the company of on a social basis.  I would say about ten come into at least three of these four categories.  About five come into all four.  Granted, many people my age would have more than this (indeed, this is a legacy of my anxious past), but I guarantee that those people with 1,000 friends will have no more than about 30 who are 'true' friends.  I would wager that it'd be less.  But still, someone with anxiety who has lived a life of social turmoil and difficulty will often look at statistics like this and feel failures or pressured.

Trust me, it happens.

I am in favour of SN becoming available on mobiles though, for one reason only; it means that at least people can take their SN sites with them, so that they aren't wedded to their homes on their laptops.  At least they can get some fresh air.  Fresh air and exercise are very important for people with anxiety to get, so at least now we can get the "best" of both worlds.

But then there's the issue of technology as a whole.  The Government, needless to say, are pressing ahead with the construction of more mobile phone masts to cope with increased demand and the rollout out of 4G (whatever that is).  The World Health Organisation state that "no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."  But, (a) I am less than convinced by the research that has been done, (b) this is from mobile phone use and not the radiation from masts themselves and (c) this is in reference to physical, and not mental health.  I'm no health expert, but you're telling me that the huge increase in microwaves and wireless beams that penetrate all of our walls is having no impact?  I doubt that.  We'll never find out of course, because such statistics, if they were ever to come to light, would disappear into a fine mist, all in the name of technology. 

Perish the thought that we aren't wedded to our SN sites or mobile phones for more than a minute.

But I feel I should end on a positive note.  SN, and the Internet as a whole, can bring huge benefits to anxiety sufferers.  As I've explained on previous blogs, I found Anxiety UK purely by searching online.  I received therapy via a webcam from a counsellor who was at her home in Glasgow.  Mind and Anxiety UK's Facebook and Twitter feeds, their blogs and their websites are not only fantastic resources for anxiety sufferers (and those with other mental health problems), but they are also able to reach out to a much wider audience.  They can now find the people that need help, rather than the people needing help having to find them.  There's also Mind's own version of Facebook called Elefriends, which brings together a whole community of people who have mental health problems.

The various SN/Internet-based pages are also being markedly successful in attempting to eradicate mental health stigma, something that is much easier now more people are able to share their thoughts about mental health more openly.

There could be a scenario where more people get anxious because of SN and technology, but more people also get treated as a result.  I'll let you decide which is better. 

The message for anxiety sufferers I guess is, try and ignore social networking updates and, instead, utilise it to your advantage.  Why not create a blog about your experiences?

Oh hang on, only someone with very few Facebook friends would have the time to do that...

Best wishes
Al

Challenges

Another positive of anxiety (if you scroll back through these blogs then you might find some others!!) is that it allows you to not take certain things for granted.  When I say 'things,' I mean people, possessions, but also situations.  Many people, for example, would organise a lunch out in the pub with work colleagues, eat the lunch, have a chat and a laugh and not think about it any more.  Because eating out has been such a challenge to me in the past, when a lunch goes well, then I can celebrate it and reflect on it, both during and afterwards.  It allows me to focus on the conversations and laughs that were had, rather than let them get absorbed in the morass of pain and difficulty that eating out would often generate.



Only another 34 years to go

By and large, this positive step happened yesterday.  I organised a lunch at a pub in Stafford for my 26th birthday.  I invited 17 people and 16 actually came, which was to my surprise (I expected a turn out of about 6 or 7, given work pressures these days).  But of course, this put the pressure onto me.  One strand of CBT I learnt was that, at meals, bear in mind that the focus isn't on me.  It's often on someone else, i.e., whoever organised the meal.  But I couldn't use this excuse, or technique, this time.
The first question you may ask is why did I organise it if I knew that it could go horribly wrong?  After all, for my 23rd three years ago, a meal at Nando's in Birmingham resulted in me struggling to eat so badly that I nearly choked myself into oblivion; so bad was the situation that one of my friends had to bring fluids to the toilet where I had to go to attempt to unchoke myself.  Unfortunately he brought me a half-drunk pint of beer rather than water, which didn't really help the problem...

So why did I organise this lunch? 

• Well, mainly, because I'm fed up hiding.  I'm fed up of using an excuse for not doing something, for example 'I'm at work.'  I wanted to be a 26 year old who could do something normal, and not have to worry about the consequences. 
• I wanted to test myself and how far, or not, I've come. 
• I thought that maybe being with work colleagues meant that the expectation on me was lower.  If it's with close friends or parents, say, then the expectation is greater on me to be the focal point.  This adds to the pressure and results in a greater likelihood of difficulties.
• It was only a lunch, not a big 3 course meal, meaning again the pressure was less intense.

To set the context.  The day before, I attended a work meeting in London and got the train there and back (I didn't do a live blog after the """""success""""" of the last one; see 2,3 and 4 blogs ago...).  All was going fine; I was using my tablet to check work emails (Virgin trains' wireless Internet = bloody extortionate by the way), and I was ok until about halfway through the journey.  At this point, physically, I started to feel really poor; whether it was the 'looking down' at the tablet for too long (or maybe the conference's chocolate cake I ate not long before the end?) I don't know.  But unfortunately the health anxiety kicked in, and the rest of the journey was me trying to keep it together.  Putting music on to distract myself, breathing, trying to focus on anything but my feeling like crap.  Luckily it subsided after the journey ended, but even still, this heightened my vulnerability and made me more anxious yesterday morning, with these feelings still in mind.

I said to one of my colleagues, "I feel a bit rubbish today, not sure I'll eat much!"  That's always my 'get the excuses in early lest I screw up' line that I recycle before almost any meal out. 

But overall, the lunch was a success.  I ate 90% of it, and didn't encounter any major problems.  It wasn't easy I wouldn't say, because it was playing on the mind all morning (ruminating), and I kept over-analysing how I was feeling, which is the opposite of what one should do in such circumstances, I've learnt.  But the bullet points above and, hopefully, a more 'common sense' thought process compared to the chaotic and irrational one I used to have helped me through it.  It meant that my birthday was more challenging that I would have liked it to be - I can't relax before such an event -  but I was able to appreciate it more because of the relative success of it.  And go all warm and fuzzy at the fact that 16 people turned up!

I suppose a piece of advice that I could give to anyone reading this who has anxiety, is that don't be ashamed if you find certain events difficult that other people find easy.  For a start, there's help out there to make such events easier for you, and moreover you will begin to appreciate them more than your fellow attendees over time when one of them goes well. 

The final thing I've got to do now is stop saying to myself "I'm 26 now, and I still haven't...." or "I still do..." In other words, over analyse the success or otherwise of my life and then blaming anxiety for it. 

I'm the only one who can change that.

Best wishes
Al

Time to Move On?

I have been deliberating in the past couple of weeks as to whether to move back out of my parents house to somewhere else.  I moved back in with them late January and although this was the right move for me at the time, I know that, for my own personal development, I should be looking to move on.


The quality of my pictures are improving

After all, I have now experienced the 'living away from home' thing and from an anxiety perspective it generally went ok.  The experience at times was quite a testing one, but I managed to handle it quite well.  This may seem strange, but the fact that the four housemates that I didn't know before I moved there were either not my cup of tea or made no effort to get to know me, meant that the pressure that may have fallen on me to be sociable never really came about.  I was naively expecting communal dinners and pub visits before moving in, but such activities may have fuelled my social anxiety; I'm not good around socially confident people. 

So this time, I'd like to meet a housemate(s) who does enjoy socialising, with the aim to meet new people but also to test me.  I still get uncomfortable when I'm thrust into a social event with people who I don't know, who I class as over-confident ('normal' to most people) or who ask me lots of questions about me early on.  If this is accompanied by a more formal occasion, e.g. a sit-down meal, then I really struggle.

So it's a bit of a balancing act.  I want to meet a sociable person, but by sociable I mean sitting and watching the football together as well as going out.  Someone who enjoys company of any kind, and not someone who isn't satisfied with a night's socialising unless they have at least 14 pints. 

This time it's more daunting.  I was in the company of a long-term friend last time, which made the transition somewhat easier than it may have otherwise been.  This time I'm going it alone. 

But I've said for ages that I need to meet new people.  I don't socialise anywhere near enough now, and over the next few months or so, more people are going to be moving on, and by that I mean out of Stafford.  The one person who I really get along well with (and who's my age) at work will also be leaving later this year.  My social savannah is going to become a social desert by the end of 2013 if I don't act quickly and decisively.  So I need to be pro-active and push myself to meet new people.

How?  Well, Uni is the best option, but as regular followers of this blog will know, that didn't exactly go well when I looked into that over two years ago.  Plus, I cannot afford to give up this job; if I gain a postgraduate degree, great, but if there are physically no jobs out there, then the potential pleasure of Uni could be taken over by dark days of no work afterwards.  And to put it bluntly, the only reason I want to go back to Uni is for the socialising.

I could do some other courses, e.g. a music course.  I tried this in late 2010, and for my music hobby it went well, but I didn't really meet anyone.  Unfortunately, most of the courses are online or in London, which again is either not going to fulfil my purpose or isn't practical.

So moving in with new people is the only option left. I recognise it isn't the best one for meeting new people; for a start, there probably won't be many people who are looking for someone to rent with who are also looking for a social partner.  Most people my age have relationships/big circle of friends, or if they don't, they are happy to be hermits.

Don't get me wrong, if moving doesn't achieve my aim and my social fulfilment does decline, then at some point in a year or so, I may have to do the Uni thing anyway, lest I end up a lonely late 20 year old with so much socialising to give but no-one to give it to. I'd rather have no job than that.

But how did it come to this?  Not socialising enough when I was meant to, i.e. in sixth form and particularly at University.  It'd be easy to blame anxiety for this, but as I've said before, whilst anxiety may have caused me great pain in certain social events, I also spent too much time running away from people.  Even from things that would have almost certainly not generated much anxiety, like a drink in the Uni bar after a lecture.  But the reality remains that if I had not had social (or other) anxiety, I imagine I would be in a position of social enrichment now. 

Not least because I'd probably be in a relationship.

The concern now, of course, is twofold.  (1) If I move and the situation is not good, then I'm on my own.  I may get more lonely, because although living with my parents is lonely enough sometimes, at least they are here.  They watch football.  They talk.  Crap, maybe, but it's interaction all the same. 

And (2), if (1) happens or if I fail to act before people move on, and my social life decreases even more, that my anxiety rises again due to even more time for rumination, procrastination, worry, distress, panic. 

Whatever my next move is, it'll be a risky one.  The likelihood of walking into a place which gives me everything I want is exceptionally low.  There is a higher likelihood of utmost failure than total success; chances are it'll be somewhere in between.  But either way, this decision could be the biggest of my life in terms of determining whether my future will be lonely and anxious or sociable and confident.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Best wishes
Al

LIVE BROADCAST: On the Move 2

So I am now on the return leg of the journey. I felt nervous again at the start of it, especially when getting on at Chippenham... the 'hell' back in 2011 set in within minutes of setting off so that first bit was always going to be most difficult. I tried to compose myself, again by reading the newspaper and listenihg to music, even tough I did'nt particularly feel like it!

I even tried utilising mindfulness... i.e when my mind began to wander into dangerous territory, I focused on the words on the newspaper page... even if it was about fairly depressing topics. It's all about making the most of what's around you, and not takingbthem for granted, no matter how mundane they may seem.

Having this tablet really helps to... I've been able to email my friends and that really helps to take my mind off things. You could argue that blogging about anxiety in a situation like this is silly, but being open about it, even to the few people who may read this post, seems to help a bit.

There's still a longbway to go. The train is due in at 8, and it's currently half 6 so it's too early to be complacent. But it would be nice to get home and say that the techniques I have learnt have actually had a positive effect. Don't get me wrong, thisvhas stilvbeen a biger challenge than I would have liked, and the aura of anxiety has not helped in my quest to actually enjoy my visit. But overall I have, and hopefully I can try and enjoy more train challenges in future.

And yes, dreadful spelling. But I fear a repear of what happened last time if I try and rectify it!

Best wishes
Al

LIVE BROADCAST: On the Move 1.2

Ok, so the previous post may look incomplete... Basically my tablet would'nt let me put the cursor at the bottom of the entry andvfor some unknown reason I have an absence of arrow keys. Needless to say I couldn't do the spellcheck either. One of my common errors seems to be to put a 'v' instead of a space, which may explain some dodgy words.

Anyway a quick continuation lest I make another balls up. This irrtating episode has actually helped a little by takihg my mind off the situation. The most important thing is to get immersed in other things even if you don't feel like it, like writing a blog or reading or listening to music etc. I have bought with me items that I may need, so for example plenty of sugary foods, water and the aforementioned stuff like books etc.

Another noticeable change, along with my stomach, is the breathing. Part of the same package I assume. I'ts proving quite difficult actually but I'm trying to focus on it when I can. This is, again, something I should do whether I feel like it or not.

I actually hate not lookihg out the windows, but I'm scared of letting my mind drift or wander into potentially damaging territory. Hence me doing this.

 I know this is just the start. If this journey goes without incident, I have the stay itself - food issues in particular - and of course the return journey tomorrow. It was, of course, the return journey that resulted in the attack back in 2011.

If I can get the tech to work, I will write again tomorrow. In the meantime... excuse the spelling.

LIVE BROADCAST: On the Move

Well this is different... Not least because this is the first time I've usesd my tablet on the train! As a follow up to the previous blog, I thought I woulds write a live blog from Aathe train itself to let you know - live - how I'm feeling. If you didn't get it, that's LIVE!

First of all I apologise if there are some errors... I'm not very quick on the tablet touchpad yet and re-editing bits is a bit of a faff. I don't want to generate any unnecessary anxiety now do I?

So I am in transit to Chippenham, the longest lone train journey since that fateful day over 2 years ago. I haven't got far yet, I'm between Wolverhampton and Birmingham, although by the time I've finished I'll probably be nearly at Bristol, my first stop. I have been feeking 'nervous' all day. It's difficult for someone like me to diferentiate between nervousness and anxiety, although it's often about being rational... in thid case, being 'nervous' about a train journey isn't rational, so from that I guess you can draw your own conclusions.

So by nervous, what exactly do I mean? The stomach has been churning a fair bit whichvisn't good of course because, due to health anxiety, I am ovrrly sensitive to any physical changes etc so that's ben keeoing me occupied most of the day. I'ts slso very difficult to not think about the past event, what happened. In a way it's helpful, but generally it's just a horrible reminder of how horrendous that whole experience was.

I just have to keep tellihg myself that I am stronger now. I have learnt so much about myself and about the anxiety which has plagued me for 15 long years. I have experience and knowledge on my side.

Trained for Trauma

Towards the inception of this blog, I wrote about one of the most horrendous yet defining moments of my life from an anxiety point of view. It was in March 2011 and to summarise, it basically involved a 15 hour panic attack worse than any other I had experienced before or have since.  It occurred whilst I was on a long train journey from Falmouth to Stafford, which due to changes and delays took around nine hours in the end.


This train is delayed



Probably not surprisingly, it took over a year to recover from it and today, well over two years on, there is still a stigma attached to that one dreadful event.  And so it is with trepidation that I am soon to embark on my longest lone train journey since that fateful day.

In total, this forthcoming train journey should only take three hours.  I have done a train journey that's about the same distance as this forthcoming one since the Cornwall trip (Stafford to Borth in Wales), but this was with a good 'safe' friend.  Moreover, the journeys were four days apart, whereas the return leg in this instance is the day after - just like Cornwall.

Of course, it's not the train journey that caused the panic attack in Cornwall, it was a combination of things.  The nine hour loneliness and restricted scenario didn't help, but at the time when it started I had just thrown myself in at the deep end in attempting to move forward with my life (ironically it took me ten steps back instead) so my mind was buzzing with pressure thoughts.  I was hot which didn't help and probably dehydrated, and generally the whole trip was (in hindsight) a melting pot of loneliness and pressure. The train journey and departure from Falmouth just happened to cause the onset of the panic.  And so it took me a long time to even feel remotely comfortable catching a train again.

I'm glad to say that things have now dramatically improved.  I have to take the train alone quite often to the likes of London, Birmingham, Coventry, Worcester and even Warrington, and all have gone well, even though there is always a seed of doubt before and during the journey.  I think of it as a personal achievement when I've done them unscathed. 

In fact, because the event in March 2011 was so defining, naturally it has also generated positives which are now being felt.  First of all, because successfully completing a long-ish train journey is, to me, an achievement, it makes the meeting or conference (if for work) a hell of a lot less daunting, which is probably why I go into them with little fear and plenty of confidence usually.  Secondly, it was the incident in Cornwall that made me seek help, resulting in the most successful therapy that I have ever had.  This, in turn, increased my confidence around the issue of anxiety and has allowed me to do this such as create this blog.  The event was horrific, but not all of the lasting effects have been negative.

One of the techniques the aforementioned therapist taught me was around disassociation, i.e., just because that attack happened on a train it does not mean that a similar event will happen on a train again; the original event and subsequent train journeys are totally unconnected.  But it's very difficult, and this forthcoming trip to Chippenham is the biggest train challenge I have faced since that day. 

Of course, remaining on the subject of my successful therapy, I have gained knowledge of several small techniques that I hope to apply.  Things like ensuring I have 'distraction' materials with me, i.e. my tablet, books, newspapers, music etc are important.  Then you have good old 'people watching.'  I've purposely booked a seat on the main leg of the journey (Stafford to Bristol) at a table so I'm opposite some poor unsuspecting sod who will be my distraction bitch for two and a half hours.  Another is making sure I have plenty of food and drink with me, which I didn't do last time.  It's all about keeping occupied and trying to enjoy it.

I will no doubt post how I get on.  It would be incredible to be able to travel somewhere much further and actually enjoy the trip, without having thoughts dominated by utter useless rubbish.

Best wishes
Al

>> My Uncle on my dad's side of the family had a heart attack on Friday (see previous blogs as to why this significant, e.g. this one).  He has recovering and came out of hospital today apparently.  Whilst we aren't particularly close, the whole concept of a heart attack occurring to somebody in the family has just reignited some of those thoughts again.  Yes, those thoughts.  I appreciate that this thought process - the automatic 'how will it affect me' rather than 'I hope my Uncle is okay' - is of the highest selfishness, but unfortunately it's a sad fact that that is now my automatic reaction to an incident like this.

People are the best medicine II

Building on my previous blog around the importance of being with people and talking to people if you're an anxious kind of fellow (like me), I thought I would do some name dropping, or rather, 'group-dropping.'  I wrote a blog a few years ago that I entitled 'Legends,' which focused on those people who I probably wouldn't class as 'friends' but had played a significant part in my life.  This blog will draw upon something similar, but this time attributing it more to a 'someone with anxiety' perspective.


One of the bus drivers in question...

 Needless to say that my friends and my parents are the most important people in my life.  My upbringing with my parents, the perfection and the order, has in part contributed to my anxiety.  But their support through life with this and general issues, along with their love of course, can be compared to nothing else.  I'm sure that I've mentioned before that I have a very small family with no siblings; the remainder of my family I don't feel particularly close to and some I haven't seen for many years, or in a few cases, ever. 

So perhaps I have drawn more from my friends than others may have.  Perhaps I have even depended on them too much at times, to be there and at my beck and call whenever required (even though when it came to anxiety, particularly until recently, I didn't talk to them enough).  I have a few such friends, most from school but a couple from University, without whom goodness knows where I would be today.  They have provided support and understanding, right when I have amassed myself in a cocktail of hell that seemed otherwise impossible to get out from.  My advice: friends are so-called because you can trust them with stuff.  'Stuff' being the way you're feeling and your mental health problems.

But then there are the others.  Those people who have probably had as much influence towards my pursuit of happiness as those people who I class as 'true friends.'  They may not know about my mental health background, but just them being them and perhaps supporting me with other parts of my life has helped me to get through school, get through University and maintain a job with relative success.

In many cases, blokes aged 25 may be reluctant to admit that these people have been a big influence in their lives.  You have your mates, homies, bloods (whatever they are called these days) and your circle, your family who get in the way and that's it.  But one positive thing I have gained from anxiety is appreciating anyone who gives you joy, help and happiness. 

Some examples:

University lecturers: I was lucky enough to study within a department that contained lecturers who knew everyone's names and whose primary aim was to help and teach students rather than undertake independent research and who were compassionate and approachable.  Former polytechnics often get slated as not being 'proper' Universities... I vehemently disagree with people who believe this.  If I'd have attended a University without this support I couldn't have enjoyed it one bit. 

Bus passengers: I have caught the bus for 25 years... yes, my mum took me on the bus in my pram... and by and large it's always been the same bus routes in the same town.  Another positive to come from anxiety is this: I suffered serious panic episodes when I took driving lessons over eight years ago now, and consequently I never got round to passing a test.  But what that has meant is that I'm still forced to catch the bus, but in doing so I have met some hilariously funny, interesting and compassionate people.  Granted, most of them are over 70 but so what?  I keep in touch via email on a regular basis with one passenger who finds it difficult to get out and about these days. 

Bus drivers: This may be even more bizarre to many, but Stafford is quite unique in that it only has a small bus depot, which consequently means you see the same drivers all the time.  Some are stereotypically miserable, but we're quite lucky in that we have more who are pleasant than who are not.  And in some cases, I have actually struck up decent friendships with them, to the point that when I catch the bus to work or to town, we end up having a chat the whole way round.  On a couple of occasions, the drivers have been distracted by this and missed stops, to the annoyance of other passengers...

Work colleagues: This is perhaps less surprising as these are people you see five days a week.  But again, I have been grateful to have worked with many interesting and friendly people who were very welcoming when I first started nearly five years ago.  I have put my trust in a few of them in the past with good results.  The workplace is notorious for bitching (let's be honest), but gladly the people I can definitely class as 'workmates' are more open-minded... although we're all still a bit bitchy at times...

My therapist: See previous blogs on my history of therapy, but in short my latest therapy was the only one I could count as being successful.  This wasn't just down to the professionalism and understanding of my therapist, her knowledge and her experience - although these of course were of paramount importance - it was actually more down to her personality.  I saw her in total for just over a year, and by the end of that we knew each other very well.  She was open, compassionate and thoughtful, something that I appreciate all the best counsellors should be, but this was just her, as a person.  She didn't switch it off at the end of a session.  I will never forget how her attitude towards life helped me, just as much as the CBT I was getting.

There are probably many more examples I could give of different 'groups' of people who I must thank over the years.  Whilst it's close family and friends who I always would turn to in a time of crisis, rightly so, the above groups of people have kept my life ticking along, in the good times and bad.  Often they have been there to offer a shard of light in times of shrouding darkness, others have been there to support me in certain parts of my life whilst other parts are crashing down around me.  But they have all have a crucial part to play and no doubt will continue to do so.

The conclusions are the same as my last blog.  Utilise people.  Don't be embarrassed or question who they are.  If they offer you happiness and support, appreciate it and seek out more.  It can only help in the quest of managing a mental health problem.

Best wishes
Al