Life Update X My Story

Out here doing absolute BITS, AM SMILING!!!  After a heavy period of stagnation we're finally back n better than before my psychotic episode even, which could've been the end man but am saying the destruction caused cleared a path to greatness..."setting out on a voyage, destination unknown" we got somewhat of a plan now we're living it out.

After attending a conference in July for peer support related information, I became a member of the West Yorkshire Peer Support Network, which is mega exciting my foot is through the door; to be part of this network as a service user (inputting and being part of decision making processes about the network and industry) and not as an accredited professional is a madness. 

Absolutely buzzin to announce I'm now a volunteer for a school of art (holy shietttt) and a charity that helped me so they're close to my heart, I donated 100 fairy pieces last year to this charity as my way of giving back; They were so excited about the donation and wanted me to become a volunteer helping at their arts & crafts group among other exciting things to come in the very near future. Jus had my first day today it went really well, I didn't take any pictures of my first day unfortunately but it consisted of helping with the art group and cleaning. We were decorating toilet roll tubes turning them into Halloween monsters with things like tissue paper, wool and pipe cleaners. Everyone there is so lovely, the attendees of the group were mainly of an older age and it was nice to help them out in creating and socialising with them. 

My first day at the art school happened last week and it was helping with sketchbook club which went amazing! My art journals have been used as example work/inspiration for the group which feels really surreal; I had a table and a selection of different types of sketchbooks I've made, all laid out ready for people to come over for a chat and look through - it was so lovely to hear everyone's feedback and I had zero anxiety speaking to complete strangers...it was a truly blessed experience that i'm really grateful for!!! 

Among many other things on the horizon, progress IS being made behind the scenes lol. I'm here to tell you little progress each day does actually add up to huge results. Mental health can lead you on a path you never expected with twists and turns to the path but ultimately greatness can be achieved if you work hard to manage your symptoms and dare to have a dream (achievable daily goals or somewhat of a plan).You'll figure stuff out along the way you don't have to have it all figured out to start. Setbacks can be a blessing in disguise and its not always clear at first how that could be so but give it time, stuff tends to make more  sense with time. 

As some of you may know the psychotic episode made me feel that I was a goner; That life was about to be over at any given hour to come, that meant no prospects in life even if I did by some miracle survive the worst to ever present itself to me and it left me full of paranoia unable to see real genuine hope for a really long time.  In hindsight life as I knew it really was about to be over but not without a BANG *the bang was the psychotic episode* and if only i'd of been able to see that what was happening was a blessing in disguise it'd have saved SO much torment, torture and overall traumatisation. 

What i'm trying to say (that i'm not articulating very well) is things can and do change, that if I can make a comeback from my psychotic episode then you can overcome your struggles. I cannot put into words how difficult, soul destroying and terrifying the psychotic episode was so to overcome those struggles means life really is like a heartbeat, it does go up and down, it might stay in the down for years with increasing levels of hardships which happened in my case so i'm not saying it's easy at all but you just gotta ride it out, do what you can to get through the fuckery/manage your mental health correctly and have hope that things will improve at some point.

I've worked really hard to get to where I am today (obviously I still struggle with my mental health but not like before, now I know how to manage it correctly); I never expected to get past being crazy, to be strong enough to even get close to let alone back to normality or to get to a place beyond that of Hope, Excitement and Progression. We're not just surviving we're finally thriving a sentence I never imagined possible for me without some kinda miracle!!! 

Dreams can come true, miracles can happen, you will be okay eventually even if you're not right now.

Till next time,

Stevie x