I am in the middle of a bit of a wave of emotion right now and have to find the right way to express it in a coherent way I guess. Its not a BPD phase or anything serious but just the feeling of wanting to do more for my friends and fellow sufferers in some small way.
I decided late on in my year of therapy that I needed to do something with my time that was worthwhile and productive, I would love to go out and earn money, in my day I was a high earner and have no doubt I could bullshit my way into another decent career but I know I’m not ready to even try and my sons early years are now my responsibility so I cant do that. Volunteering is easy enough, there are some great websites where you put in what you’d like to do and where and they try to find something for you. I wanted to do something in mental health and to be honest the only thing in my arae that was relevant was Samaritans, which isnt really a mental health charity but I do get why it came up in this bracket of volunteering. This would only fill a certainamount of my time so I then looked at youth work and found a great charity called Walk Tall that needed mentors to go and speak to troubled kids, I was a troubled kid, albeit undiagnosed and this seemed a good fit,it was and I love the time I spend with the kids and enjoy helping and engaging them in meaningful discussion.
All this is great but it leaves me a bit askew as the one thing I really wanted to do something about was BPD, I have it and know what the services are like for sufferers so there is a gap to fill ther in my mind. I decided to offer a support service to my fellow therapy users once a month, just basic stuff like help find what benefits they should be getting, finding phone numbers or volunteer oppurtunities and its going well thus far but it doesnt feel like enough, hence my current emotions of feeling ungrateful and useless, I want to do more but dont know how, I am lucky in so much as I function quite well most of the time and feel that I could use this to good effect if I could find a focus that was worthy and thus far I havent.
One thing I am keen to do is start an Alumni association for my group as there are loads of people who have been through it who have now gone on to great things and knowing this could inspire others or open connections that might be useful to the newer members, whether it be professional networking or just an artistic input unless you look you’ll never know will you. I am considering asking the director of the unit if he would support me in this and I really dont know what he will say, unlike previously when I would have been 100% sure of the answer and it would always have been a resounding no with a tirade of abuse to back it up, now I truly dont know and will have to wait and see, progress in one way at least. I know what is going to be put to me, are you biting off more than you can chew?? and its a fair question I guess and I really dont want to be put under extra stress so I do need to think hard about it but if I dont stretch those muscles then how can they get stronger. It may seem like a small thing to be emotional about but the fact I have any emotion at all is a huge leap for me so dont knock it.
An eloquent imbecile 