Author: SarahN

The past two days, I’ve been on the NSW Central Coast learning how to do first aid – for mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, pychosis and substance abuse, including touching on suicide. The trainer said we’re a pretty cutting edge to be training in this, so that always feels nice.

I learnt SO much, and it was an ‘opt in’ course, which meant everyone WANTED to be there, and often had much to share.  I was delighted to find three staff who came with less than 24 hours notice of the course.  I didn’t think to suggest it, as I didn’t think anyone would be interested – there’s no financial reward!  And as a manager, I’m not the ideal candidate (but due to my gender, and the generally few women in depots, it also makes sense – it’ll not be staff who report to me who’d likely come and see me, but I also like being educated about things that may still affect my staff).

If nothing else, this cartoon helps understand what sympathy is and how it differs from empathy.

There was lots of myth busting

1. Talking about suicide – literally asking ‘have you had suicidal thoughts?’ and ‘do you have a plan?’ does not risk the chances of suicide.  Usually, the respondent feels a weight lifting that someone noticed and cared enough to ask.
2. Substance abuse disorder is an actual mental health condition, but often in addition to, or masking/self medicating another mental health condition.
3. Psychosis – don’t refute or agree with any hallucinations.  Like with many other symptoms, empathise how that might feel (scary!) but don’t try to ‘prove’ it’s all in the mind.
4. Anxiety is more prevalent in women.
5. Cannabis can ‘switch on’ paranoia and psychosis with one use if someone is genetically predisposed.
6. Handing crying people tissues isn’t advised – it can be interpreted as showing your discomfort with tears.  Just have them easily accessible, but don’t offer them.
7.  Almost all mental health conditions are recoverable, and certainly manageable to return to a suitable quality of life
8. Many smokers use it as a way to treat a mental health conditions.
9. People who have panic attacks often avoid exercise as it can mimic the symptoms.  And panic disorder can result in agoraphobia, because on the fear that there’ll be no one to help and care for them in a traumatic experience that they think will kill them.
10. The main difference between heart attacks and panic attacks is… panic attacks have a fear of death.  Heart attacks find people focusing on the pain.

I hope I may have taught you something (and I hope I got things right from memory!)

One of the topics to write about that’s been swirling around my head this week is friendship.

Just this past Friday, I called some of you my ‘blog friends’.  Which is true.  Friends that I do feel a level of guilt I have let my commitment to communicating with lapse.  But it’s not just you that I’ve left out in the cold.  I feel I’ve become more and more of a passive friend of late.

A passive friend keeps reading your blog posts, Facebook posts and photos.  They comment or like. But they give less and less of themselves.  Often, I’ve found it perplexing to be in a conversation where someone says ‘I know’ to much of my news, as they are such a great social media stalkers, and I’ve felt unbalanced in the conversation knowing they share precious little of their life.  I have to take the time to think of their interests, their family, the latest things they’d told me about their work, or their health or life.

I know my job has taken more and more of me in the past two years – now it’s my new normal to work from about 7am to at least 5pm and think of that as OK.  The effects of this are more widespread than friends though.  It means I crowd out time where I could exercise.  It means the bedtime is firmer than ever, knowing the long work days take enough out of me to not want to start behind the eight ball, yawning.

I rely on others to plan events, to have milestones like birthdays, house warmings and engagement parties, so that I can formally etch out some time in my calendar for them.  It seems very reactive.  At some stage, the laws of nature mean I should and must reciprocate.

This week, I’ve worked on being a better friend.  I volunteered to help a friend from church paint on our shared day off.  I took my day off to plan two gifts (one for a party that had passed) that suited the recipients and me.  I made advance plans to have coffee with a friend who lives mere streets away (!!) and loved the time we spent catching up.  I squeezed in parties that clashed on the one afternoon, by some act of genius time robbery.

I do wish at this point in the post I had a plan on how I was going to be a better friend.  But I just don’t!  I could list all the should’s: I should plan to see friends one on one, the way that works best for me. I shouldn’t let the state of my home take priority over people! I should make time for things I enjoy and include those I enjoy spending my time with.

Food for thought.

How do you keep your friendships healthy and happy?

Today, my training course meant I got home earlier than usual.

Lucky – the BF needed a shirt for a fancy work dinner (he’d worn a T shirt to work, like all cutting edge tech workers). After a little bit of a internal debate between walking, busing, driving or scooter-ing, I went for scootering.

I packed up library books to return, and three button down shirt options and off I went.

Scooting is great – with good skills, you can watch the traffic and change lanes as taxis inevitably stop every 50m! You can see a truck reversing into a driveway 100m ahead and change lanes to skip past the line of traffic and get back into the lane past him. You can SMELL life, the city, stores even! Someone was making a mean BBQ. You can see people.

I easily got to the BF’s office, and nabbed a park and nipped in. Then I jumped back on to get closer to my two errands: buying another iPhone charging cable and a pair of leggings from Lululemon. Getting another legal park took a few laps, with one way streets and lots of clearways (for vans, station wagons and utes only). Eventually, I found a tiny unsigned spot for bikes – it’s where the monorail pylons used to be. It’s a legacy parking space for motorcycles that the City of Sydney has let continue 😀

The Apple store was (predictably) packed. I enjoyed the sleek all glass stairs to the second floor, where I found the cable I needed hanging just out of reach. I got a novel out of my handbag and made it an extension of my hand, and flicked the one boxed cable I needed off it’s spindle. Success! (I was disappointed the black clad security guard has missed what was likely the most amusing thing he’d see that hour). I then found a grey clad employee, paid on their nifty phone, got an emailed reciept and popped the cable in my handbag (and wondering… if I’d skipped the first three steps and given jumping/book-arm-go-go-gadgeting hadn’t attracted the security staff, if putting it in my bag would have attracted their glance)

From there, I headed to Lululemon. Recently, I decided I shouldn’t persist with two pairs of cropped leggings I owned. One pair is getting worn thing, and I’m not sure destitute that the world needs to see my knickers nor my bare flesh. The navy pair seldom stayed hitched to hip height. Both were a cotton-y blend, and when running, don’t cut it. Why keep these two things that spark no joy, and often limited utility? To the bin/op shop. Lululemon sells the promise of perky butts and streamlined legs. And they do cool detailing in mesh. Alas, despite a cavalcade of perky ladies and pairs, I decided none offered the trifecta: cute butt, nice legs & mesh. I rejoiced that I hadn’t broken my ‘no new clothes’ pact for a second time this year with Lululemon.

With the evening ahead of me, and late night shopping, I wandered back to my sneaky scoot space via shops. I grabbed a sushi roll, and some warm caramalised cashews. Then I joined the bottleneck getting home.

There is NOTHING better than getting open road in front of you – and either side of you. Despite it being peak hour, and buses and taxis as far as the eye could see, I travelled blocks with open road. In no time, I was home.  Having planned the trip, I used the magic button to open the garage and put my scooter away, before returning our one remote to the car. Then I hung out the washing I’d put on two hours ago when I set out, and I thought, life is pretty darn awesome.