As you may or may not know, I was with next to no support for seven months at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. I put in a complaint, which my CMHT responded to with barefaced lies (the full story is here but it's long and possibly triggering), but at least I have support back. I now have a CPN and a support worker, both of whom I see fortnightly, but on alternate weeks so I see one of them every week. It's a bit slow to get going to be honest, as my support worker was on leave just after I met her, then my CPN went on leave (back next week) and then my support worker is going on leave for about a month in a few weeks. But at least I have support regularly now.
With regards to the S word, I still seem to be in remission from the worst of it! Still not heard any voices when awake for over two years; I do occasionally hear voices when I'm half-asleep, but I've heard this is quite common. Apparently around a third of the general population experiences this regularly, (I think it's called a 'hypnagogic hallucination') and more regularly than I hear them, so I know it's not a reason to worry. All I hear is general chatter and it lasts about a minute at most. It once made me more awake, and as soon as that happened, the noise stopped. As I say, this is normal in even the general population, so I'm not worried by it.
In other non-mental health matters, life seems to be going pretty smoothly, but busily! I'm going to be moving out shortly (sorry, 'living independently' shortly), so there's a lot of things related to that which need sorting. My sister is also quite busy at the moment, and we're trying to help her out as much as we can too. These are exciting, nervy and busy times for me right now, but on the whole I'm doing all right!
With the magazine, (Still Here, which can be found here!) I did end up having to delay Issue 4 for a month due to things being too busy and not being able to complete it. I then decided to make a special edition for Issue 4, and as a result, the original contents of Issue 4 will now be Issue 5. This is good news for me as I now have an almost complete fifth issue, which should mean I can get it out on time despite all the busy-ness ahead! Although I do really value contributors, so please, if you want to write about any mental health matters, (not just schizophrenia) or have artwork, photography, poetry or fictional writing, please contact me!
I allow all to write, regardless of whether or not you have a diagnosis, are a carer, work in mental health or are just someone who has a mental health story but aren't really affected by it. The only writing guidelines I have is that it needs to be a minimum of 400 words or thereabouts, (no maximum, but anything beyond 50,000 words should really be made into a book!) has no bad language (or will use asterisks in place of bad language) and is a good read. With photography and artwork, all I ask is no nudity and a short piece (even just a paragraph or so) to explain what the picture means to you.
So, I've managed to turn a piece about me into another plea for magazine contributors! Well, as I'm already on the topic, I might as well ask that people try and spread the word about Still Here! Please?! This is all the information you need:
Still Here Magazine
Find Still Here online: www.stillheremagazine.com
Find Still Here on Twitter: @StillHereMag
As thanks, here's a picture of a puppy in training to be a police dog. His vest doesn't quite fit yet.
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