I am no film critic but I think one of the things I would like to do on some blog posts, when I have time, is to give little reviews of films I see as I really enjoy going to the cinema and getting caught up in a great film.

Most recently, I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody. It wasn’t something I was particularly interested in going out of my way to see, but as is probably the case with a lot of people, there are many Queen songs I like. Freddie Mercury was – undeniably,
– a born performer, so regardless of whether I was a big Queen fan, I made the assumption that his story was going to be interesting enough to make it a film worth seeing.

My husband suggested we go and see it. I heard many people had been giving praise to the film, and though I was not getting my hopes up, I was quite looking forward to going to see it.

From the minute Rami Malek appeared on screen, I was sucked into the story and really enjoyed his captivating portrayal of the extravagant Freddie Mercury.

Not particularly being a big fan, I didn’t really know much of the story, other than how it was going to end.

The film was an emotional rollercoaster, bouncing from feel good tune to complex family relationships… from fun flamboyancy to classic hits, to emotional personal realisations. It was full of everything you would want from a film.

I found it entertaining from start to finish, educating me as the film went along and even got me moving my feet in a couple of places.
That being said, it also had me realising I hadn’t brought any tissues with me when it came to some of the more serious moments of his life.

I would go as far as to say it is certainly one of the best films I have seen this year, and unusually, I actually find myself looking forward to hopefully watching it again at some point in the future.

The actors were all brilliantly cast and performed every aspect with real emotion and passion, though Rami Malek and Lucy Boynton (Freddie and Mary) certainly were the shining stars.

I am not sure whether being at the cinema added to it or not, perhaps for some of the concert scenes I would say it probably did, but the story is strong enough that it would be equally as enjoyable from the comfort of your own couch if that is your preference. Either way it is certainly a film I recommend.

Not so much of a blog post, more of a Happy Birthday wish for my amazing mum.

I am not so talented when it comes to poems, but I have put together a little poem to wish her a very Happy Birthday, as it is the least she deserves!!

For this poem for mum on her Birthday,
There’s so many things I want to say…
From girl to woman, she’s stood by my side,
When I’ve laughed, when I’ve shouted, and when I’ve cried.
Although we didn’t always see eye to eye,
She’s always been there and helped me get by.
She’s seen me at best and she’s seen me at worst,
But no matter what, she always puts me first.
Although I’m grown up, she still does so much,
Like advice, support, and guidance and such.
To her loyalty there is no end,
Not just my mum – she’s my best friend.
Thank you doesn’t really cut it,
So I’m not sure really how to put it.
She deserves the best, that’s all I can say,
So I wish her an amazing, brilliant birthday! 💜

Shortly after joining Twitter, I was part of a group DM with a few other girls I had started speaking to via Twitter. I mentioned the idea of having the ‘MH Crisis Angels’ team so that we could support people wanting to reach out via Twitter DM.

I had made friends with Khadra quite easily as we had an immediate understanding of each other and clearly had a lot of similarities.

As soon as I pitched my idea to her, she immediately understood my aims and was on board.

About a week later I finally took the time to put a new Twitter account together @MHCrisisAngels. We put out tweets to tell people what our aims were, and asked for anyone who would like support or to volunteer to help with us, to DM the ‘Angels’ account.

The following couple of weeks were a bit of a whirlwind to be honest and I truly cannot even really remember how it all happened.

We immediately had people on board, we had a structure, we had people reaching out. The response was positively overwhelming.

With my vision, and Khadra’s Counselling background, the team quickly became strong – word was getting out to the Twitter Mental Health Community, and the Service Users were clearly getting a lot of support.

The aim of the group wasn’t to provide a professional Counselling service, or suicide prevention. It was to provide the listening ear of someone who truly understood MH battles. Sometimes having someone to talk to is all it takes, and this is exactly the feedback we were getting from our Service Users.

All chats were supervised to ensure both Angels and Service Users were safe at all times, and Khadra was amazing at guiding the new Angels through their chats! She coached them and gave advice, as well as supporting me in making decisions about what direction to take things, and who to bring on board etc. We wanted to make sure we had the right people with us!

There were roles for everyone, no matter how involved people wanted to be… we had Crisis Angel roles for those wanting to run support chats, and we had Angel Advocate roles for those who wanted to help spread the message about what we do.

The team gelled really quickly and soon became close friends. The timing coincided with a new job for Khadra. After much deliberation, she made the tough decision to give herself and her life the focus she deserved, as she was no longer able to commit the time that the MH Crisis Angels demanded.

I really don’t think any of us expected how much demand it would place on us, so while we were all so disappointed to lose her, we understood the reasons for her decision.

After Khadra left, we had to continue to push forward, and that is what we did. The role that Khadra had filled as Co-Founder could not be replaced, but I created a new role of Engagement Support Angel, so that I had someone supporting me in new recruitments, and initial reach out contact. The role was filled by someone I had connected with prior to setting up MH Crisis Angels, Dave.

Kate agreed to supporting with resourcing materials such as links for suicide prevention lines and sites for countries around the world, as well as support materials which may be required during chats. She took the role on as ‘Research Angel’.

We began receiving high praise for the support service we were providing. The ‘Angels’ were gaining more confidence with each chat they lead.

Only a couple of months since launch, we are doing fairly well. People regularly reach out and we have received such high praise for the support we have offered, as well as having a closely bonded and well structured team.

All we want is for people to know we are here, that we care, that we will listen to whatever they need to talk about.

As for this being part of my Social Media Journey…

Having the ‘My Simple Mind’ account and the ‘MH Crisis Angels’ account gives me a purpose, makes me feel useful.

I feel like I have found my place in Social Media. I feel like this is me.

 

In July 2018, after having spent a few months trying to handle my recent mental health issues, I became more active on Twitter under ‘My Simple Mind’. I was tweeting things I thought about, my opinions, and sharing things relating to mental health issues as it was something that was very much on my mind.

Never having been much of a Twitter fan, it came as a surprise to me when I suddenly, very quickly, began to build a following. This caused a bit of a buzz inside me. It made me feel validated having people like, retweet, and follow me.

Not only that, but I suddenly understood just how powerful Social Media can be for spreading messages. I learnt that Tweeting wasn’t just about sending some message into the abyss – there were entire communities on Twitter, depending on your personality, interests etc.

Discussing Mental Health issues, I had tapped into an entire Community that I never knew existed. Lots of people out there with all sorts of Mental Health issues – some were advocates, some were looking for other people with the same diagnosis to try and compare experiences. Many were Bloggers, which was another Community that was massive on Twitter! The amount of Bloggers out there… I had no idea! Always enjoying writing, blogging had been something I had always thought about, but with the advice and inspiration from the blogging community on Twitter, it pushed me to take the steps to set my blog up!

Week by week, my Twitter followers grew and grew – sometimes I would ask for help to continue to grow, and my followers would share and ask people to follow me. And if someone else needed/wanted more followers, I would share and ask people to follow them. I had never seen such a positive side to Social Media since the beginnings of it.

As my followers grew, my confidence grew, and with it, my Mental Health began to improve.

I formed new friendships. This was a new idea to me. The idea of online friends had never felt safe. It never felt like online friendships could be real. Having spent time Direct Messaging (or DM’ing), I learnt that you could get to know and learn from people. People, not only from my own country, but from all around the world. I spoke to people in Spain, Canada, USA, Australia, Ireland…

What I also found was how much people in the Mental Health Community were doing to support each other. Quite often I had people DM me for support because they felt they had nowhere else to turn, nowhere that was free from judgement, nowhere that had someone who might have the slightest idea how they felt or what they were going through.

What I started to notice was that I wasn’t the only person offering support to people. Others did too. Then I noticed that some of those people who had helped others needed support themselves in the end, because of course, they still had their own issues they were dealing with.

A thought inside my mind began to grow. What happens when a person seeks support from another person, but that person is in crisis themselves? Does the person seeking support get turned down, or does the supporter take that on while they are dealing with their own crisis? What if that person had additional support? What if there was a team set up? What if there was a team called the ‘MH Crisis Angels’ so that no one ever had to carry the burden alone, and no one ever had to be turned down?

 

Social Media has somehow encroached into our everyday lives. Not really sure how exactly it happened, my first major Social Media addiction was Facebook, after joining in 2007.

My first posts tended to be random, nonsensical, usually cryptic statuses, and aimed to make my life look mysterious. It was an incredulous ‘technique’ I had picked up from other Facebook users.

Most of what I used it for initially though, was catching up with ‘old friends’. Being 21 at the time, it felt like the friends I had been out of touch with had been out of my life for so long… realistically though, with some, it had only been a couple of years.

Gradually the way we used Facebook began to change, though it remained the same in one sense – a platform for people to parade their ‘amazing lives’ for all to see.

Nevertheless, Facebook had its uses, as news travelled fastest via Social Media – for personal, local and worldwide news. Though Facebook was fast, it seemed Twitter was fastest.

With the need to get that information faster, at some point I joined Twitter. I heard a lot about Twitter but never really understood the appeal. Limited to how much you can say in a Tweet, and not really having the same friend request process as Facebook, I didn’t understand much about how to interact. I guess the purposes I used Social Media for didn’t fit that particular platform.

I joined Snap Chat, though mainly for the filters if I am honest. I checked my Social Media Accounts every day like something was going to change, but let’s face it, apart from the odd cute pet or baby pic, Social Media was becoming the same across most platforms – decaying our minds and taking over with the negative news, or ‘fake news’ as the term had now been coined. On Facebook I saw less and less on my newsfeed about my real-life friends and more and more stories about the bad that were going on in the world. As I constantly refreshed my news feed like the Social Media addict I was becoming, I was hounded by adverts or articles about Trophy Hunters, Trump, or Brexit.

My escape from life was becoming my life.

People were aggressive towards each other, attacking each other for having opinions. Nobody seemed capable of intelligent debate any more. People were hounding strangers – ‘Trolling’ became an everyday word because it had become so common it had been almost accepted as having its own place in Society.

Wanting my own little world on Social Media away from the existing accounts I had (where I was known under my real name), I set up an alias ‘My Simple Mind’ in August 2017. The point of the account was so that I could say what I wanted without feeling I was in that same Social Media bubble I had been in on my other accounts – the ones where I was the ‘real me’. I tweeted random nonsense from the account at the time, and most of my tweets got little engagement and I had only a few followers. I never used the account regularly and often forgot I even had it.

**Of course the above relates to what we see as modern Social Media. Being (what some socialists would class as) a Millennial, I was brought up in a world where using the Internet meant spending time in chat rooms, talking to friends on MSN Messenger after spending an entire day with them, and not forgetting classic platforms like the cringe worthy Face Party and also MySpace.**

I guess the best place to start with things is to introduce a little about myself really. Not something that is terribly original to start with I know, but in honesty, it is often nice to understand a little about the person whose thoughts you are reading. I mean, isn’t a blog basically the closest you might come to having a window into the thoughts into someone’s mind? Probably best to understand a bit about whose mind it is then surely?

So this is a just a quick overview of a few facts about me (in no particular order, because randomly is how my brain often works):

• I am female
• According to my year of birth, I would be classed as a Millennial (I guess tipping toward being one of the older Millennial)
• I love cats (yes send me as many cat pics as you like)
• I love Disney
• I have Mental Health Issues
• I spend a ridiculous amount of time on Twitter (Find me here)
• My friends and family are my life (and Twitter right now too!! Haha)
• I have always been interested in writing, and have been considering doing a blog for years now
• I doubt my posts will be in any kind of order or structure due to other commitments
• I work full time
• I run the MH Crisis Angels on Twitter (more on this in future posts to come) (Follow us here)
• I laugh at very small things
• I love going to the cinema
• I enjoy binge watching TV shows
• I love cheesy songs (particularly 90s and 00s music)
• I love things like ‘Top 10’ lists (E.g. ‘Top 10 greatest Horror Movie Moments’)

I am basically a typical Millennial I guess, according to all of the above!!

So that is my first post… all about me… not too much to know really. But believe you me, there is some crazy stuff that goes on inside my head so look out for my future posts because there is certainly going to be a random crazy mix of things!!!

 

So there it is…. after all these years of thinking of doing a blog… my first blog post!!!