Bumpiness on the Road of Mental Health

It has been a long time, far too long, since I last posted here. My last post was on July 22nd, and it is now 4th November. At one point I updated this site with new content every two days, and then that gradually became once a week, and then nothing at all. A large […]

A Week of Slight Mentalness, Sorry

Well, it’s been a while. Longer than I intended, in fact, since I last posted. I usually try to post at least once a week, but this has been a strange week! I wrote earlier about coming off risperidone and last week was the one where I finally came off the last of it. And […]

Why, Lord?

I hate suffering. I hate it when someone – even me – comes down with depression, anxiety, psychosis; with an illness that is stigmatised and life-changing and will never fully go away. I hate all illness, sickness, death. I hate wars and famine and natural disasters. I hate the evil that man does to man, […]

Ambition

What did you want to be when you grew up? My earliest ambition was to be an acrobat – which made my mum laugh, as I was an abnormally clumsy child! Later, I dreamt of writing a novel, of being a politician (!), of finding a fulfilling and intellectually stimulating career where I would be […]

The Bible and Medication

I have been suffering from withdrawal side-effects from medication this week. My doctor was supposed to reduce my risperidone from 3mg to 0 by 1mg a month, as per my consultant’s instruction, however he didn’t reduce it at all for three months, then when I reminded him he reduced it to 1mg last week, and […]

7 Ways Faith Communities Can Respond to Mental Illness

This is in response to Adrian Warnock’s conversation on mental illness (see here and here on my blog) and is specifically in response to this question from him: How do you think that faith communities and society as a whole can better respond to mental illness? Mental illness is a serious problem affecting millions worldwide. 1 […]

Is Self Injury a Sin?

I have self harmed, on and off, since I was fourteen. I have self harmed both before and after coming to faith, and I still struggle with, and often fail to resist, the urge to do it when I am depressed. As you may know, I have written my Guide to Self Injury, covering everything […]

Suicide and Religious Faith

This another question posed by Adrian Warnock in his post: Suicide and Religious Faith following on from his question about mental illness which I posted about in mental illness and my faith. This week, his question is: Research suggests that religious faith protects against suicide. Why do you think that is in light of how your […]

Christ’s is the World

Sorry to post this so soon after the last one but I felt I had to! Someone I know on Facebook posted the lyrics to this song, which spoke so powerfully to me that I felt I had to include them here! The words were written by the Iona Community and I couldn’t find a […]

Gentleness and Stigma

To acknowledge ourselves as having a mental illness can make us vulnerable. If you read the website of Time to Change, the anti-stigma campaign, you can read about others who have experienced discrimination because of their mental illness, who have been told that they are “faking it” and that they have a flaw in their […]