Another introduction...

Hi, I’m Robert and this is my opportunity to do a little introduction to me. So, I’m also a survivor/consumer of mental health services on the road to recovery (I’ve been discharged from secondary services and am back under the care of my lovely GP) which I guess is a positive. I wonder if this means that I’m now responsible for my own mental health - guess that’s the way it should be though it doesn’t stop me from worrying. I’ve struggled with my mental health on and off since the age of 18 experiencing depression initially just for occasional 24 hour periods but then building up to over a decade of chronic ill health. It’s taken a whole heap of meds, a number of stays in hospital and finally a years participation in a local therapeutic community to finally help me to understand (I think) where my depression comes from and how I can start of manage it and it was this last experience that kick-started my recovery. At the moment I split my time working as a Learning Access Worker/free lance trainer/Director for Brighter Futures which keeps me busy but still unfortunately not satisfied - but hopefully I’m working on that! The idea of this conversation came to me by way of a film. I find that films often offer up to me metaphors for life and the film that came to me when talking with Lisa was My Dinner With Andre. A bit of an odd film but worth watching if you ever come across it. It tells the story of two friends that meet after many years of not seeing each other who then have a conversation over dinner about what they’ve been up to in the intervening years. The film is a recording of their conversation. They touch on all sorts of things but keep coming back to some of the big questions like ‘The meaning of life’. Anyway, I felt that it would be great if Lisa and I could have a sort of conversation about this and that as well as maybe looking at and answering some of the bigger questions that trip us up. It’s not therapy though it may be therapeutic and you never know it might be interesting at least to us, maybe to others. So, life is a journey or a series of multiple journeys... here’s the start of another one!