During the winter and following spring of 2009 a group of writers, poets and artists, all of whom have at some time been users of mental health services, work-shopped together to create a single volume to celebrate World Mental Health Day. It is hoped that this volume will alleviate the prejudice with which mental health issues are still viewed. A challenging and rewarding read, Footsteps without Prints is both autobiographical and fiction. It depicts footsteps in life through a variety of forms; including articles, poems, artwork and photographs.
There will be books available, individuals reading from the book and mental health information Stalls
CARMARTHENSHIRE MENTAL HEALTH FORUM
World Mental Health Day 2009
Book launch
“Footsteps without prints”
Thursday 8th October 2009
11am-1pm
Thomas Arms Hotel, Llanelli
Lunch and refreshments will be provided
For more information or if you would like a stall in the Thomas Arms please contact Angie on 01267 238367
“With Mental Health problems, you can get lost. With Art you can find out who you are” Quote from a service user
Pembrokeshire Mental Health Forum will be holding another Open Forum Event on
17th September at Letterston Memorial Hall, 11am – 4pm.
The theme of the event will be “Talking Therapies”, what they are, what is available, are you eligible, are there enough options?
A Buffet Lunch will be available and the ever popular Pamper Session in the afternoon.
We set these Open Forum Events up about 3 years ago as a way to increase the numbers of people who would recieve information and we could get feedback from on local issues. We are dependent on LHB funding for the Forum to put on these events which are very popular in that we are getting between 40 -60 people at each time. We have a speaker on a particular subject, followed by workshops, lunch and then the pamper session. So far this has been a popular format and, funding available, will continue into the future.
These thoughts are an edited version of an article by Dorothy Rowe, the respected author of Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison.
Happiness is not a goal to be achieved, but an emotion that is a by product of what you do. Thinking in terms of whether you deserve or don’t deserve to be happy will stop you being happy.
There is nothing wrong with feeling sad, which is the appropriate emotion to feel after you have suffered a loss or disappointment. Depression is not just being very unhappy. We become depressed when we blame ourselves for the disaster that has befallen us.
Being depressed means feeling that you are utterly alone, locked into some kind of horrible prison, where no comfort can reach you and you will not comfort yourself. To create the conditions whereby happiness can blossom you have to do some or all of the following:
- Understand that what you do is a result of how you have interpreted what happens, and that you are free to change your interpretations.
- See yourself as valuable and acceptable. To do this, you may have to review your childhood and recognise that as a child you came to the conclusion that you must have been bad and unacceptable, otherwise the adults around you would not have treated you as they did. Look at this now from an adult’s perspective.
- Listen to how you talk to yourself and if you are constantly criticising yourself and making impossible demands on yourself, stop doing it. Be your own best friend.
- Cultivate the ability to live in the present, paying attention only to what is going on around you. By fretting about what has happened in the past and anxiously planning the future, we inevitably shut ourselves off from a great source of happiness – that of fully experiencing what is before us.
- Use the ability to be in the present, every day giving yourself some little treats or reward. Do not do this because you deserve it, do it because it’s a nice thing to do.