Last week I went to the House of Lords, something I found quite intimidating. Thankfully I was supported by a member of Rethink campaigns team in giving oral evidence to a Parliamentary Review. Chaired by Lord Low of Dalston, the Review was set up to assess the likely impact of a proposed benefit cut. The cut would affect the…
I’ve been to a few events in past months as a patient/service user representative. Some events have had a specific mental health remit, others have looked at the wider NHS, but either way the focus has been on improving individuals’ treatment journeys. So why is it that some of these events have left me, the…
In July 2011 I wrote a post entitled, “Ten things not to say to a depressed person.” It was the first piece on this blog to attract a large audience and I own much of my blogging success to that post and its companion piece, “Ten supportive things I’m glad somebody said to me.” I’ve…
This is a quick post just to say a huge thank you to anyone who nominated this blog for the Mark Hanson digital media award at the 2013 Mind Media Awards. When the email came to say I’d been shortlisted I was astonished because I hadn’t known I had even been nominated in the first…
I certainly received a lot of comments on my last post – many, many more than I was hoping for or expecting! A couple of people suggested that it might be useful and/or interesting to see a similar list of ten things which would be helpful to say to someone experiencing depression. I have also…
Depression is a very common illness. The World Health Organization estimates that between 5 and 10% of us are, at any given time, suffering from depression which meets the clinical criteria for a mental illness. Over a person’s life-time, their risk of experiencing clinical depression is 10-20% in women and girls, and slightly less in…