Friday 30 May 2014

GUEST BLOG - 30th May 2014 - Adrian Hosford

Moodscope: born to help manage mood

I've been a Moodscope user for nearly four years and it's a brilliant tool for tracking mood, which in turn helps you identify triggers for depression. The website also sends you a supportive email every morning, especially helpful as those with depression are often at their worst at that time. Here the Chairman of moodscope, Adrian Hosford, shares the inspiration behind the service.

For 20 years I knew my friend Jon was an extraordinary creative person who I could rely on to solve tricky communication problems. I never knew he suffered from heavy bouts of depression. 5 years ago he hit a very dark place and in desperation turned his mind to tackle how he might manage his mood. He found the world’s most robust scientific mood test (Panas) and used it as the basis for accurate daily tracking of his mood. The combination of 20 positive and negative descriptive adjectives like ‘interested’ & ‘irritable’ gave him an informed understanding of his mood. He put it online and made the selection of how strongly he felt on each adjective (not at all, a little, quite a bit, extremely) an intuitive game. The results were uncannily accurate and Jon began to understand his moods better as each day was plotted on a graph where he could record his thoughts. He felt better and started automatically sharing his scores with a few friends who wanted to support him. He felt even better.

One of his closest friends Caroline, Jon and I got together. Imagine, we mussed, what it would be like if everyone who wanted to positively manage their mood could do so easily. Could that not help make a better world? Moodscope was born.

Thousands of people joined and we undertook independently verified research which showed it worked if most people who took the test regularly. It worked even better for those who shared their score with friends. In fact on a large sample of early users the average mood improved 60% over 90 days. With help from Unlimited we redid the online system to handle as many people as wanted to use it. Today over 60,000 people have signed up and 35,000 people ask for the daily message reminder from other Moodscope users who share their experience.

Jon has moved on and is now a creative digital entrepreneur in Silicon Valley so Caroline & I manage Moodscope as a private company with a social purpose. We keep the basic version free so that anyone in need can use it. We have premium versions with a small monthly charge, so we can afford to maintain and develop it (a phone app coming soon). Why not try it and see if it works for you by visiting moodscope.com. Like brushing your teeth, it only takes a few minutes but can improve your mood day by day.

Adrian Hosford

Moodscope Chairman

Thursday 29 May 2014

GUEST BLOG - 29th May 2014 - Stan Frith

Stan Frith is a poet and founder member of the appeal board for Friends in Need: Depression Alliance’s wonderful online initiative, about which you can read more here: https://friendsinneed.co.uk. Stan is just about to launch a second book of poetry, Behind the Smile, with proceeds going to help increase the reach of Friends in Need. His work has a fan in me, and Lidia Vianu of Bucharest University has called him a ‘naturally gifted author’ and has said that Behind the Smile ‘will appeal to a wide range of audiences. His beautifully crafted pieces reflect a prodigious range of thoughts, impressions and feelings… with one goal in mind: to chronicle his understanding of the nature of life.’ You can read more about his life and work at http://stanfrith.co.uk

I have written poetry for as long as I can remember. In 2008 when my son died tragically after a four-year battle with depression, I wrote a considerable a number of poems, all of which are included in my (soon to be published) second book of poetry, Behind the Smile. It helped me get through the grieving process.

When Rachel invited me to do a guest post on her blog, I figured why not? Where Rachel is donating her author’s royalties from Black Rainbow to SANE and United Response, I am donating all proceeds from Behind the Smile to Depression Alliance. http://www.depressionalliance.org

Poetry is a wonderful catharsis – it helps me cope. Firstly to understand my feelings and then to express them in a way that otherwise might be difficult for me to articulate.

However, poems are not only a way of coping – that’s an over simplification. They are a way of capturing feelings, moments in time, and of remembering. Also of helping others to tap into their emotional self in the hope they will also look beyond today and into the future positively and with optimism. Many people have an intuitive sense that voice in general and poetry in particular can be healing. This proved to be the case when I shared the poems I wrote after the loss of Jason with friends and those I love. They became a collective path to healing.

As a poet there is, in my opinion, no greater compliment than someone wanting to share in the emotions that you feel – whether they be highs or lows and especially if depression has touched your life – as you work towards healing and growth. If it makes them feel less alone then it is reward enough for any poet. Below, I’ve included two poems that I wrote on the worst day of my life.

CAN YOU NOT SEE?

Because my face

creases with laughter

and my mind is often

steeped in song,

can you not see

I suffer greatly after

tolerating pain

so long?

Because my eyes

hide tears of sorrow,

and you do not sense

my inner cry,

can you not see

tho’ my aching heart

still beats,

I might die?

If I can get through this sad day,

contain the pain inside of me,

no matter how heavy my heart,

or how dark the moment may be.

If I can but keep on believing,

what I know in my heart to be true,

then darkness will fade into morning,

and with this dawn a new day, too.

Monday 26 May 2014

Ideas to Help - May 22, 2014 FROM THE COUCH BY RACHEL KELLY

George Eliot called them ‘unhistoric acts’ – small hidden gestures of kindness that can help us stay sane. Rather less lyrically, the economics think-tank the New Economics Foundation agrees with the great novelist about the importance of giving. Back in 2008, it published its ‘Five Ways to Well-Being’ after extensive research into the actions that can help our mental health, only selecting those strategies for which there was evidence that they worked. The answers were to connect, to be active, to take notice and be aware of yourself and world, to keep learning and to give. I think it’s attractive that the list is framed in terms of ongoing ways of behaving and being. It’s not results that make us happy, but a continual attempt to live well. Yes, it’s that old cliché – it’s not the arrival but the journey. Happy journeying this week and let me know if you manage to fulfill any of the five steps to mental health. I’m off to see a friend (connecting), walking rather than driving (staying active), smelling the roses (being aware) listening to a podcast, (learning) and arriving with a present (giving). Only kidding….. Rachel Kelly is the author of the best selling ‘Black Rainbow’ a memoir of how poetry helped her overcome severe depression, published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Don’t forget she will be at the Idler Academy talking about her book on 5th June. Tickets are £20 idler.co.uk and rachelkelly.co.uk

http://nottinghillpost.com/news/kellys-keys-calm/

Thursday 22 May 2014

GUEST BLOG - 22nd May 2014 - Alison

Alison suffers from severe depression. She sent me this reader’s review, and the parallels between our stories are overwhelming. It is a true honour to be able to include it on my blog.

Rachel. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart for this most honest and frank account of your illness. I am a 39 year-old mother of one who is currently suffering from severe anxiety and depression. I have a good career and like you was trying to be the best I could at everything, but I was struggling and didn't want to admit it so kept trying to push through.

I felt I was falling but tried to keep picking myself up until I realised I was running on empty and my reserve tank was well and truly used up, too. I gave in to the illness and it got me head on. Most of what you describe is so similar to my experience and current experiences: days in bed sobbing, wailing like an injured animal, begging people to help me. When I am in its full grip I text people and ask them to make it go away. The pain is unbearable.

I have a supportive partner and a wonderful family and great support network. At the very beginning I thought an antidepressant and a trip to counselling would make it all better. How wrong was I.

My family and close friends have never seen or experienced anything like this and I know at first their views were what has she got to be depressed about, but day by day they have begun to realise that mindset and question is irrelevant. I have been off work now for three months and the good days are outweighing the bad, but when the bad come they come with full force and spare no mercy! I am working on my relaxation and breathing and cbt and taking the tablets like a good girl! I get asked every morning by my partner!

My book arrived Thursday. I am nearly finished, I have cried most of the way through as I feel your pain and most of what you describe I to can picture myself in that moment. I haven't stopped talking about your book and say to many that I could have written it!

Once my fuel tank is full again I will shout from the rooftops about my journey and if I can help just one person open up then it was worth every stomach churn, panic attack, tear and feeling of total despair. Finding your book was my pot of gold at the end of your black rainbow. Xx

How Therapy Helped : Does Counselling Work? Therapy Today May 2014

In the client’s chair: The end of the rainbow
by Rachel Kelly

Looking back, I’m astonished that it took me two major breakdowns, one in 1997 and the second in 2004, before I began having therapy. Even though, during the second episode, I was bed-ridden for nearly a year, I was prejudiced against seeing a therapist. I thought therapy was for losers. My family motto was ‘Keep calm and carry on’; don’t make a fuss and don’t talk about your problems. Deep down, I was also frightened of what therapy might reveal. It was easier to trust my psychiatrist and his antidepressants and sleeping pills.

But something changed after my second major depressive episode. I knew I needed to keep working at recovery. A history of depression makes you more likely to relapse. Subsequent episodes tend to be worse and more difficult to recover from. I needed to try to pre-empt depression and minimise the risk of its recurrence.

In the end it was my psychiatrist who persuaded me. A person, unlike a pill, can listen to your story when you are well enough to tell it, and give you a fresh perspective, he said. There was a limit to what he and his prescriptions could do.

But, even after accepting the need for therapy, I still thought I could bypass a therapeutic relationship. I first tried to teach myself cognitive behavioural therapy from a book. Though I made tentative steps in being able to rethink difficult situations, I remained highly anxious and dipped in and out of depression.

I thought perhaps learning more about psychotherapy would help so I signed up to the Foundation Course at Regent’s College. Studying therapy was safer than having it myself. Then I realised that undergoing therapy was one of the requirements of the course. I had no choice.

My tutors were persuasive about the importance of working with a therapist. We gain our sense of self from our interaction with others. Therapy is about a relationship between two people, in a room and, importantly for me, in the moment. This has become a key to my recovery: learning to stop regretting the past and worrying about the future; enjoy the present moment.

It took me three tries to find the right therapist. My first therapist was sympathetic and helpful, but she lived more than an hour away and, with five small children, I couldn’t find the time to commit to seeing her. With my second, more local therapist, I was doing all the talking. This can be a good approach for some but I needed more interaction and for my therapist to actively try to help me with strategies and approaches to reverse my negative thinking.

Therapist number three was recommended by a friend with similar symptoms and behaviour to mine. Sarah worked by helping me identify my feelings, root them out, classify them and investigate how they had solidified into beliefs. By acknowledging my feelings, especially those of anger, I came to accept them, and became less judgmental of myself and others in the process. Under Sarah’s supervision I would write letters to my different selves and plot maps of how I moved between them and the rules of behaviour I had created around them, many from long ago when I was an anxious child. I no longer needed to behave like that.

Sarah worked with my own love of words. One of my chief consolations during my depressive episodes, along with the love of my family, was poetry. When I was well enough to concentrate, short, accessible poems pinned me in time. They also worked outside of time, connecting me to another person, sometimes centuries old, who felt the same as me. Sarah encouraged me to use poems, and added breathing as another way to stay in the moment and reduce my anxiety.

She was both guide and instructor. Her aim was to encourage me to rely on myself, to trust my own feelings and ultimately become my own guide.

Sarah and I ended our therapy last year, after two years. Since then, I feel I have my Black Dog on tight leash. Therapy taught me to be easier on myself, and to find a more compassionate voice. I only wish I hadn’t had to endure two breakdowns and too many wasted years before realising what an immensely powerful tool it can be in the battle against depression.

http://www.mysurreycounselling.co.uk/counselling-articles/counselling-work/

Rachel Kelly’s memoir, Black Rainbow: how words healed me – my journey through depression, is published by Hodder & Stoughton. Its app, Black Rainbow, is available to download from the Apple app store. Visit www.black-rainbow.co.uk

Sunday 18 May 2014

How Poetry Helped - MAGPIES AND LADDERS Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line. ~ Lucille Ball - 17 May 2014

Let’s talk…Poetry and Depression with

Rachel Kelly

posted in Interviews, Mental Health, Wellbeing by magpiesandladders

Rachel Kelly suffers from depression. She is a journalist and mother with a long standing interest in mental health. Rachel worked at The Times for ten years as a reporter, feature writer and columnist on alternative health. Her long-standing interest in poetry led her to co-found the bestselling app of children’s poetry iF Poems, and edit its companion anthology, IF: A Treasury of Poems for Almost Every Possibility.

This entertaining and delightful anthology should be on the shelf of every child in Britain. ~ Carol Ann Duffy, Poet laureate

Rachel’s new book ‘Black Rainbow’ describes how poetry helped her overcome depression and has been published by Hodder & Stoughton in April 2014 in aid of the charities SANE and United Response. Rachel seizes the power of poetry and takes her reader through her own journey, illustrating throughout how words can heal.

Rachel vividly and movingly describes the profound impact mental illness can have, not only on the person suffering but all those around them… But what makes Black Rainbow special is that it isn’t just a beautifully written exploration of the ravages of depression. It is also a hymn to the power of poetry to provide solace and a rich, inspiring resource for anyone who is coping with the challenges that life brings… not just maintaining mental health. ~ Su Sayer CBE, Chief Executive of United Response

What has been your own experience of depression?

I had such severe physical symptoms that I was howling and wanted to commit suicide. I went from being mildly anxious to be doubled up with pain. At first I thought I was having a heart attack, my palpitations were so wild. My stomach was knotted, my head felt as if vicious wasps were stinging my brain. Every bit of me hurt in an acute, dynamic, physical agony. It felt like I was hurtling at high speed, trapped in a crashing plane: I had to hold onto my mother or husband at all times to stop myself from falling.

How were your relationships affected?

My husband and my mother proved very supportive. My mother stayed with us much of the time when I was acutely unwell, and my husband tried to look after me while continuing to work. At the time, I was entirely selfish. I wanted them to be there at all times as I was so frightened. I went from being an equal to my husband to be totally dependent, and the same with my mother. Now I’m better I realise how hard it would have been for them. I was devoted to both of them before, but my devotion is even stronger now as I owe my life to them. The other main relationships were with my children. When I was first ill, we had two little boys and they were sufficiently young that I don’t think they knew what was going on. (They were both under three at the time.) During my second breakdown, the children were older – Edward was nearly nine. I think he found it very hard not to have his Mum around. It was frightening for them to see their mother so unwell. Even now, if I’m unwell with a cold, and I reassure them that I’m better, our younger daughter sometimes says ‘Oh, Mummy, you’re going to die.’

What lead you to poetry and Black Rainbow?

I have been a poetry lover since I was a girl, tending more towards a personal and intuitive appreciation of it rather than an academic assessment of its value. Great poetry for me has always been a case of the poet speaking directly to the reader in his or her present circumstances. When I had my first depressive episode, my mother read to me: I would repeat healing lines such as ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness’ with her. It helped me believe there was a point to the suffering. As I improved, I found I could read myself: it gave me great consolation, and distracted me from the circular negative thinking which is characteristic of depression. Black Rainbow began as a series of letters and emails to friends who had asked me for recommendations of how to recover. I often added in a poem. They were going through troubled times and knew poetry had helped me. The idea of extending this to a wider audience and helping as many people as possible grew from that.

My strength is made perfect in weakness ~ Corinthians 12:9

Soul bearing isn’t easy, what motivated you to put yourself “out there” with your own experience?

I felt I might be able to help others who suffer, and I wanted to write about some aspects of depression that I felt were misunderstood. I myself misunderstood depression before I was unwell. I thought it was a melancholy mood which affected those who were unhappy and have been through extreme hardship. And of course depression can be just that. But I hadn’t read much about my experience of depression – the physical pain, the sense of worthlessness and guilt – and the fact that it stemmed from anxiety rather than low mood. I don’t consider myself an unhappy person, but I’m certainly a worrier. Since I’ve written the book, other sufferers say they’ve had the same experience. I also wanted to share all the strategies that had helped me get better in the hope that those reading the book would find something that helps them, be it diet, therapy, drugs, exercise, or healing words. There are the 40 poems in the book which were my lifelines and I hope will help others.

Tell us about the #healingwords campaign, and also your workshops?

The #healingwords campaign is something I’m working on with SANE, the mental health charity. It encourages people to share with others the poems or prose extracts which have been of particular help to them in hard times. They do this by sending their #healingwords to the SANE site or my ownwebsite , and one of us would then upload them to our sites for others to see. My #healingwords workshops are for those who are suffering depression and want to perhaps try a different approach. After all poetry is free and has no side effects. I work with small groups in hospitals and schools, it’s very informal and relaxed. A group of us meet and I bring a selection of poems which have helped me. I invite those in the group to read them and to discuss their reactions. Often people tell me the poem perfectly describes how they feel, or provides a different more positive story for them to leave with. We discuss how healing images can help, the use of healing mantras and positive affirmations, and how writing your own poetry can be very therapeutic too. There’s scientific evidence for all this.

As well as the book there is a Black Rainbow App, how do you hope that will help others?

The app features everything that has helped me through depression, and is there for others at the push of a button. You might not feel well enough to read a book, but benefit from someone reading to you, just like my mother read to me: there is a wide selection of consolatory poems and prose extracts read aloud by renowned actors and broadcasters, suited to various stages of depression. Then there is advice for maintaining a healthy body: diet advice from nutrition experts to suit a variety of maladies; exercise advice, and guided relaxations and sleep audios. I intend for it to be a comprehensive guide to helping yourself, to go with the other treatments you may have received.

Westward, look, the land is bright ~ Winston Churchill

What’s next on the cards?

I’m happily continuing my #healingwords workshops, supporting my charities SANE and United Response, and writing about depression and strategies to beat it. And I’m working on another book – but it’s a secret! But it will be aimed again at trying to help people.

What advice do you have for those out there who have depression, in one form or another, in their lives?

I’m nervous of giving anyone direct advice as everyone is different and I would always recommend seeing your own GP. But my book is full of the strategies I used, with sections on diet, exercise, the help charities provide, how therapy can work, the drugs and of course 40 consoling and healing poems that might help you through.

Finally, what are your top five tips for self-love?

Imagine you are talking to yourself as if you were talking to a frightened anxious child. We all have a child within us who needs to be nurtured and loved.
Don’t think it’s silly to give yourself a good old-fashioned hug. Sometimes I grab a pillow and hug that close to myself too.
Remember some healing mantras and phrases in your head which you can turn to in times of need. My favourites include ‘My strength is made perfect in weakness’ and ‘Westward, look, the land is bright’.
We are all united by our common humanity and nobody is immune from our common suffering. Never imagine that anyone always finds life easy. You are not alone, nor were you meant to be.
Simple pleasures are the last resort of the complicated man, or so thought Oscar Wilde. Reward yourself with simple pleasures – pause to smell the roses, luxuriate in washing your hands slowly with some gorgeous soap – and realise that the more you look after yourself, the more you will be able to look after others.