Blog
Where I write and ramble. I can't not.
Too Many Hearts are Hurting, Breaking and Losing Hope
It has been a big media week for mental health issues and suicide. Thoughts and feelings covering the full spectrum from disbelief and not understanding, right through to getting it and wondering who else have been displayed. What it says to me is that there is...
Maintaining What is Sacred, Together
I have written before about how important sacred space for ourselves is. Those moments amongst life where we find ourselves. Where we have space to breathe, the inhale AND the exhale. Even when they last mere minutes. Just as important is maintaining a...
8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery by Babette Rothschild (Book List for Recovery & Healing)
Babette Rothschild is a person with extensive professional expertise in the area of understanding and treating trauma. In her book 8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery Babette also discloses that she has lived through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) herself and that...
Struggling Now Doesn’t Mean Struggling Always
I CALL BULLSHIT on the idea that people who are really struggling now means they always will, particularly when it is psychological or because of the actions of others. It is completely and utterly not true!! Even if it has been years. Even if others don't hold the...
Book List for Recovery & Healing
Books and resonant narratives of other peoples' lives have been a key element along my recovery and healing path. They expand the scope of our lives and they connect us, to ourselves and others, in ways that can otherwise be hard to crack. Books are also a...
A Different Kind of What-if
Have you ever had a 'what if ...' go through your mind? I know you have. Have you had a 'what if ...' go through your mind where you amplify and doubt your capacity to manage or have and be enough of what you need or live how you really want? You probably have,...
Why I Am so Open about Childhood Sexual Abuse and Anorexia
Some people wonder why as a professional Counsellor and Consultant I am so open about my lived experiences of childhood sexual abuse, anorexia and other things. I know and have known why for some time and I think it is important to share. This is why I do it. It is a...
Recovery is One Moment at a Time
When we are struggling with food, weight and/or body issue’s it can feel like there is a tumultuous fight going on within. A part of us wants to be healthy and nourished. We do want to live well. At the same time, another part of us is drawn toward unhealthy and...
A Note to Those that Care
A small note to the loved ones of people who are having a tough time with recovery and healing. The people that walk beside and with us. The people that love us anyway, because of - and despite - it all. The ones that by being there and staying are more important than...
A Lived Experience Manifesto
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![music as therapy, how it helped me find my words [Part One]](https://i1.wp.com/elliehodges.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/music-in-therapy_rs.jpg?resize=400%2C250)
music as therapy, how it helped me find my words [Part One]
This is a blog post mostly made up of the words of others. They are the music and lyrics that said what I could not say but desperately wanted to during some of the most challenging years of my life. Compiling these songs onto a double CD nearly ten years ago was...
6 Keys to My Living Well Despite PTSD
We often hear about PTSD in the media in relation to veterans and horrific events. Less spoken about is the PTSD that people live with as a result of childhood sexual abuse and living situations. It’s this latter group that I fall into and that I speak from; as...
Report Spotlight: Keeping it Real for Young Men’s Mental Health Care
This week Orygen, the National Centre of Excellence for Youth Mental Health, have released a report focused on the issue of young men's mental health. The report highlights that current understandings and service responses to young men are lacking and need to be...
Mental Health Truths We All Need to Know
You may have noticed that there is increased talk about mental health lately. We are even seeing people, in and beyond the celebrity sphere, being more visible and 'out' about their experiences with mental illness. Whilst I think this is definately necessary and...
My Call for Change on World Eating Disorders Action Day
Today, June 2nd 2017, is the second annual World Eating Disorders Action Day. This is a grassroots movement designed for and by people affected by an eating disorder, their families, and the medical and health professionals who support them. On their website and...
The Realities and Risks of Lived Experience Advocacy
I have been deciding on how to write about this for a couple of days. Since I first heard that Amy Bleuel, the founder of project semi-colon, had died. Only one day after I shared about project semi-colon and my own semi-colon tattoo on my facebook page. ...
Making a start with mindfulness
There is so much information out there at the moment about how wonderful mindfulness is and how everyone should be doing it. Which I agree with, to an extent, but how do you work out what is good information and decipher what you should do first and how? This is a...
The change I seek
With the increase in my lived experience roles (that I spoke about in my last an update, of sorts post) has come an increase in opportunity to influence how people understand the experience of mental health issues and how we could, how we should and how we need to...