Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of trauma, suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, substance use and mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and borderline personality disorder.
This episode explores mental health in an unequal world. Former and current residents discuss this subject in relation to their own lived experience of homelessness with Centrepoint Health Team professionals, Stephen Geale and Evelyne Njuguna.
Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of trauma, suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, substance use and mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and borderline personality disorder.
This episode explores mental health in an unequal world. Former and current residents discuss this subject in relation to their own lived experience of homelessness with Centrepoint Health Team professionals, Stephen Geale and Evelyne Njuguna.
Please be aware that this episode contains discussion around trauma, suicide, self harm, eating disorders, substance use, as well as mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, and borderline personality disorder.
Unknown:Made the podcast from Centerpoint by young people for all people. Centerpoint is the UK is leading youth homelessness charity. at Centerpoint. We believe no young person's life should be defined by homelessness. We give young people the support they need to heal and grow no matter what. for over 50 years, we've been the centre point for change, personal and political. Everyone has their part to play with young people leading the way this podcast has been created by young people with lived experience of homelessness will be shining a spotlight on some of the issues that affect us. We hope to challenge and change some of the stereotypes and bring others with us as part of the movement to end youth homelessness for good. This podcast was recorded on Zoom due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Welcome to point made the new Centerpointe podcast by young people for all people. I'm your host Jamie, a former resident at Centerpoint and founder of moving upwards. A workshop that delivers authentic knowledge are an expression for the mind, body and soul. Hi, I'm Mitac, a former Centrepointe resident and today we'll be looking at mental health in an unequal world. We'll be looking at this through our own eyes as young people with lived experience of homelessness as well as lived experience of mental health issues. Today we will be looking at Youth Mental Health some of the potential causes of mental ill health amongst young people, as well as the inequality of mental health provision and access. We will end by examining and sharing some of our own coping strategies and opening up our toolboxes. But first I'd like to introduce our panel of young people. I'm now going to go around the virtual panel and get all of our talkers introduce themselves and tell them something about themselves. Hi, my name is Katherine and I suffer quite badly with emotionally unstable personality disorder, along with bulimia, anorexia, and depression. Hi, I'm Morgan. I'm currently still with centerpoint. But I'm also a volunteer with them. I was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome at the age of seven. And I also suffer with extreme depression at times and social anxiety. Hi, I'm Kevin, I'm one of the persons at Centrepointe. And I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and social anxiety. Attack. I did suffer from mental health in the past. I feel like I've recovered from it a bit. But at times I do suffer from anxiety in a lot of bad depression. And yeah, I was very suicidal in the past. But I think I've learned to deal with all of those things now. So I'm Jamie, I have been out of Centerpoint residency for over four years. I grew up there throughout most of my childhood from 16 to 23. And since leaving the service, I have created an organisation that helps young people to break out of their difficult patterns and chains and create a successful life for themselves. We also have our experts in the field here, Eve and Steven to help answer some of our initial questions around youth mental health. Welcome to the show Eve. Can you please introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Eve Chicana. I am the Mental Health Advisor at Centerpoint. And I cover Westminster and Harringay. I also do have you know I have lived experience of mental health where I do you experience anxiety still today, but it's something that I've learned to manage. I do have lived experience with depression as well and panic attacks. That is one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about mental health. I am passionate about helping young people and not just young people, just anyone who is going through something. It's great to have you on the show with Stephen, please introduce yourself. Hi. So I'm Steven. I'm a psychotherapist with Centerpoint I think maybe related to cognitive questions that are coming up, I haven't had a problem with my mental health or mental well being that will get a diagnosis. But I'm pretty sure you don't become a psychotherapist. If everything seems to be hunky dory, I had a lot to work on in myself in terms of my relationships, how I relate with other people, how emotionally open I was capable of being. And I used to a very simple thing I used to suffer from crippling shyness. So my sense is very much kind of like whatever it is that gets in the way, if we can try and talk about that we have a chance of, you can never make your past go away. Mine is still there. It's still painful when I think about it. But it's less of an obstacle to me in terms of achieving the things I would like to achieve in my life. I think that's great, Jamie. Okay, so some of our panellists have some questions for you to set the scene on our youth mental health in the UK. Catherine, would you like to ask question one? So what percentage of 16 to 25 year olds live with a mental illness? So I'll put that to Stephen. I'm going to just hold my hands up literally, if I wanted to answer that question, I would go and do some Googling. Eve may have a bit more of a metric on it. But my I would imagine that it's very high. I mean, if a figure of like 30 35%, wouldn't surprise me. And the reason I say that I would I will go on Google is that it's not something that's fixed, I imagine it's probably significantly worse now than it was in say, obviously, like February, March of 2020. And that's informed by my direct experience of the people within Centerpoint that I'm working with, or come into contact with, because of what they've been deprived of food restrictions that the dealing with the pandemic has required to be in place. And I think also, as I said earlier, I'm kind of very wary of the diagnostic labels. So that's why I kind of like to look at it as broadly as possible, then can what you said is very interesting. And I've also got a question too. Do you think that the percentage over the last 2030 years has increased for for mental health and young people? If so, what why do you think that I think it will have done I think there's a kind of link, we understand more and more things as being rooted in basically how our minds are working, how our, from my perspective, my kind of theoretical perspective, how our early experiences, create obstacles and difficulties for us in the present. And so I think that as time goes by more and more things that maybe had a very different label in the past, you're kind of imagining people just being labelled as, you know, kind of behaving badly, or doing something deliberately, you know, deliberately not paying attention in class, you know, sort of relatively straightforward stuff like that is now I think, understood in quite a different way. So I think, in one sense, the kind of the range of behaviours and presentations and how we actually are with other people, that is now understood in a, in a way that we would be called under the general umbrella of mental health, I think has massively expanded. That's my personal response. Eve, what's your kind of take on it? Well, I have to agree with what Stephen said in regards to kind of the diagnostic approach in mental health. And in regards to the statistics, I wouldn't say there's a certain number. However, in literature, it does say that it's, you know, up to 50%. So, Steven, you are close, but not that close. So they do say that up to 50%, of mental health problems are established by the age of 14. And by 24, it goes up to 75%. It sounds shocking to hear but at the same time, it doesn't surprise me. And I do find somewhat strange comfort in the knowing that I'm not alone in my struggles, and that we are all here in this together in one way or another. I'm going to go ahead over to the second question now. And I'm going to let another one of our panellists ask this question. Morgan, would you like to ask Joe thing? So what are some of the most common mental illnesses amongst 16 to 25 year olds? I'm gonna direct that to Eve because I'm sure she'll have a good insight on that. So in regards to there are a few but I am going to mention the ones that I do hear quite a lot of. So we've got depression and anxiety, panic attacks. There's also suicidal thoughts. They Is eating disorders, they psychosis, this personality disorder. I'm not gonna go into them. But I really want to kind of address in regards to like with the young people, because within my role at Centerpoint, I work with young people who are experiencing suicidal thoughts. And this, especially in regards to things like homelessness, and you know, job loss, most of the young people are unemployed, they're in debt. They're socially excluded. So that's why we work to within our campaigns to try and include the young people in our activities. Some of them are probably going through bereavement is family breakdown, conflict. And so they don't really have anyone to talk to, and I do hear quite a lot, especially with the young people is, you know, they do experience suicidal thoughts. And, you know, that can be linked to, you know, depression, anxiety, some of them like, you know, they have social anxiety, and also PTSD, some of them, especially with the ones around the refugees, there's something around where they have come from the they've experienced some kind of trauma. So yeah, those are just to name a few. Well, III, thank you very much for that. So Steven, what's your take on that question? Well, well, I won't repeat the kind of more sort of medical and diagnostic stuff that Eve has mentioned, which is, you know, I think really helpful. And I encounter a lot, but I'm thinking, so when I, when I think about this in terms of my particular discipline, my training and what I what I encounter with people, and thinking, well, any, anyone that's living with centerpoint, in some way, we live in a society with a particular structure of family, that's the sort of ideology we have, well, something's gone really badly wrong with that for them to wind up living with us. So there's really simple but powerful things like the lack of sufficient parental care, a lack of nurture, that kind of can lead to a lot of self esteem, difficulties, or problems with really kind of realising one's capabilities. PTSD, I mean, that can be something a one off trauma could be rape, sexual assault violence, or it could be something kind of ongoing, where an ongoing emotional or physical neglect some kind of failure ill or kind of a lack of what we might think of as a good enough kind of upbringing. And it doesn't necessarily have to be as spectacular as the ones I've just mentioned, you know, because when I introduced myself, I mentioned some of my, the kind of psychological legacies I had to deal with, nobody would notice anything necessarily, about me, which I think is also informs the way I think about that it's not necessarily that somebody has something very discernible. So that that's kind of how I would try and answer that question. And trying to maybe supplement Eve who's gonna, you know, kind of We Are we work closely with mental health and the psychological therapist team. But we are different. We have different backgrounds and knowledge and expertise. And I would always be looking, no, I would always be deferring to Eve when when it comes to kind of more diagnostic and kind of medical based things. So I hope that's in some way illuminating about how I go about working and my kind of perspective on it. Well, thank you very much for that, Steven, that was really insightful. So I'm gonna throw it back over to Kevin, who's going to ask our next question, Kevin. Thank you for that. Morgan. Yeah, so I have a question. How quickly can a young person access mental health services within the NHS within the UK? If I'll ask, Stephen for that. Hi, Kevin. Um, I think I'm probably gonna hedge my bets and have sort of two or three kind of answers to that. I think if somebody is in really acute distress, and they're present at a&e, they will get or they should get an immediate response. I think the question is how effective and helpful to them that response is, I think my kind of general experience both directly from from young people that I've met and worked with, also from listening to colleagues within the team, particularly each team mental health advisors, it can be quite short term. And oftentimes, what they're really looking for what they really want is something much longer term. So something more like perhaps a talking therapy, which is what I and my colleagues in the psychological therapist team are able to offer. I know that when you're when somebody you know, when you're in an acute crisis, if you're kind of feeling actively suicidal, you're actually you know, either doing something or really planning to the psychotherapy isn't what you need, you need an immediate kind of help to get out of that particular state so that you're able to take up a perhaps, psychotherapy offer That's kind of one level of walk, how fast can you access something? I think when you start thinking about something that's more like therapy, it seems to, you know, my general anecdotal experiences, it's a long time. And it's very hard to access talking therapy, there's a kind of, you'll all I'm sure you all know that, you know, kind of services are under immense pressure. So there's this sort of threshold to access talking therapy kind of constantly creeps up. So that somebody might be in quite, you know, really struggling, but not quite struggling enough to get an access to a talking therapy, they might be offered something much more short term, perhaps more CBT based, which in Britain has a very particular flavour, but Eve might be able to or have sort of a bit of expansion or amplification of the points I'm making here. So I think there's kind of my answer that is kind of it's twofold. And I think for what a lot of the time, what my experience the young people have sent, what they really want is very hard to access, which is an opportunity to sit down with somebody who doesn't come with an agenda, who is just open to exploring with them, whatever it is they want to bring, I hope that at the same time doesn't sound kinda too idealistic about what it is I do at Centerpoint. Thank you for for that. Steven, I'm gonna ask the same question to Eve. One of the things that I thought about when I had the question and kind of what Stephen said was, you know, the question we should really be asking is, how quickly can a young person understand they're experiencing a mental health problem, because if they don't know that they're experiencing it, then the time that it takes for them to actually get that help is longer. When it comes to like mental health services, it's first of all, very hard to say. Because, as Steven mentioned, there is a threshold, that sometimes can be quite difficult. And, you know, we've had this experience where, especially if I give you an example, let's say I've got a young person experiencing some eating disorder, but then has associated mental health problems with it, then becomes difficult because the young person wants to access eating disorders team, but then they also want to access the mental health team. But then there's this thing where, you know, eating disorders want to ensure that they go through the Mental Health First, whereas mental health believed that they should be able to access both services. So it's always a back and forth fight from what I have experienced. And that is also in regards to dual diagnosis. When a young person needs the mental health support needs the substance use support. However, according to the substances, they cannot be seen until they go through mental health. So it is a struggle, depending on what what the young person needs. However, as Steven mentioned, you know, if it's something that, you know, they do need that immediate, they're at crisis point, they will be seen. However, it is also unfortunate that sometimes that it has to get to that critical point, for young people to actually access that support, I have had experience of just working in the Westminster services, where I've had built those relationships with the mental health services, where I have seen that the young people are seen a lot quicker. And that is why here at Centerpoint, we bridge the gap, you know, the health team, were able to bridge that gap between the mental health services and the young people. So where I come in is, I will refer that young person, I will chase up that referral, because what tends to happen is a young person can be referred or they refer themselves. And you know, they never hear from the Mental Health Services or there's a longer wait. So we we are there to facilitate to ensure that they are seen in good time. And I've heard that there has been quite response with like the young people that have been seen, they've been able to access their therapy, whatever it is that they needed in that point in time. So I think it's really just a case of with young people is to have to seek advocacy in any situation, you know, we've got mental health advisors, we've got the health team within centerpoint, or even just being able to seeking mental health advocacy in your community so that you're aware of your rights to you know, mental health services, your rights to medical review. So it's really, I do encourage young people to find out what's in their community and to also seek help in regard in regards to knowing more about what they can access what the timeline is, because it does, it does differentiate, so I can't really give an accurate answer in that but I hope that has kind of helped in with your answer in just just finding out a bit more about it. Yeah. So I completely agree. I've been struggling since I was eight years old. And part of the reason I became homeless was because of poor mental health. And basically, because I have dual diagnosis and substance problems, you just passed around, I've literally been having this for like five or six years, where they say to me, Well, you've got an eating disorder, but we can't touch you unless you stop drinking, and then you self harming. So I got put on the intensive home treatment team, after being very, very, very poorly. And it's really difficult because I've been in five psychiatric units, from the age of 15, to the age of 28. Basically, no one, no one knows where to put you. So you know, I've got personality problems, I've got addiction problems, and I've also got an eating disorder. But if you don't fit into a little box, they won't treat you so you just boomerang they call it being Boomerang, from assessment to assessment, without getting any support. And then when you live in, in precarious housing, you know, and it's damaging, you are just left, you're just seen as a problem until you get to the absolute crisis point. And then they will intervene. So I was meant to only be seen by the home treatment team, I think he's up to a month. And they ended up seeing me for four months. And now I need them back. But I'll have to go through a&e again to get back, get them back. Which it's just a nightmare, an absolute nightmare. And yeah, if you've got your diagnosis, it's just hell on earth. There is not nothing there. Oh, yeah. And unless you can, you know, afford to do it privately. Which we can't afford, then, you know, I feel very, very stuck. And I feel very, very lost within it all. Because I come back on what Catherine just said, you're talking to her about something that's really real for us, because somebody's you know, drinking, or smoking weed. So I would think about that. And that's somebody self medicating, you self medicate, because you haven't got a better mechanism of coping with whatever it is, that's just intolerable. So the idea that one can kind of access therapy after one's finished kind of smoking a bit of weed or whatever it is, it's, you know, kind of, for me, it's a kind of, it's kind of absurd, because you kind of the two things progress hand in hand, hopefully, the opportunity to speak and talk we'll get we'll shift things enough, that one becomes able to manage without needing to numb the pain with weed or drink. So the idea that one can kind of already can't come to us until you've stopped drinking is just ridiculous. And also to pick up on some of the stuff that Eve was talking about. For me in my work at Centerpoint. It's not even I turned to her to one of her colleagues is the Mental Health Advisor for replacement Barnet where I work, but like the being able to turn and say, Okay, so I've got this young person worked at this. They're in therapy, though, it's kind of going okay, but they've got this more acute kind of presentation. And having somebody that can help the young person basically get statutory services to do what it is they're supposed to do. That's just, that's just invaluable. And again, I think kind of illuminates what you were talking about Katherine, which is this kind of, it's not just one thing, it's not just one sort of relatively straightforward, although very serious thing, it's tends to be with any of us, there's a whole, a whole range of things that we're trying to deal with, and they they coexist, they don't exist in isolation. That's just, I don't know, it's just you, you spoke very powerfully about it. And I wanted to give I know, it's how I was speaking sounds kind of quite reasonable. But I wanted to give a kind of a feedback from my professional perspective of being in the room with people and what they're dealing with. And I also want to just add, I think what I'm seeing is happening is that the police service and the ambulance service are coming first. And, you know, social workers, because their mental health system is so dire, that now that they're coming up to more mental health crisis, and that's not their job. It's not their job to be social workers. You know, I have the ambulance service turning up nearly every week, and the terrible because it could because I'm not getting the right support. So we need to really be looking at that as well. I think I will just get out to two points, sort of, from what Katherine just said about the police service in particular, working around, you know, like people mental health or anything like that, the faster you know, the police are now being brought out even more is not only concerning, but it shouldn't be the case because end of the day, there should be more support for people who may be having those suicidal tendencies. I mean, even I've had suicidal tendencies in the past like I am willing to admit that I have tried to kill myself multiple times because of you know, like different reasons. I did go towards cancer drugs. For a time when I was back at university. I'm completely clean now. I've been clean since before I gave up Senator points around about 1819. And I'm 23. Now, so I've been clean since then, there is just a big need for more support, not only from, you know, like mental health experts, but yeah, everyone should be helping everyone to get through what they need to get through 100% agree with that, Morgan, there definitely needs to be more support structure in place to help people. Just on the practical side of things, I know that I, myself, and even friends of mine that I know, have tried multiple times over the last four or five years to get some counselling and help and support with mental health struggles and difficulties such as anxiety and depression, which does seem to be one of the most common problems that I've come across. And the waiting time can be months, even up to years. And I'm, as far as I'm aware, depending on what your circumstances, the only amount of sessions that the NHS can offer you is around 12. And that's at the absolute maximum, and that's pressing nurses and doctors, you know, and professionals, that that's really pressing them, because they are just overwhelmed with the amount of people that they're seeing quite clearly if the wait time is that long. And you are going through really, really difficult, you know, emotional, and you know, it's just really not a nice place to be in and you you deserve to have that support there. So yeah, 110%, we need more support structures put in place to help people. Yeah, I wanted to say something in response to what Morgan was saying, because I, I very much don't like some, I think some mental health professionals, they kind of like to present themselves as though they are fine, and don't have any problems. And I have a particular ideological hostility to that position. So like in terms of looking after my well being, so I have a thing called supervision. We talk about it when we're contracting with young people to enter into therapy, that's where I will talk about my case is in a confidential setting, same confidentiality principles apply as applied to the actual work itself. Part of that is to make sure that I am well enough to be working in it, how I'm thinking, the kind of psychological thinking I'm doing about my cases is appropriate. But equally, if, you know, if I, if I was aware of myself, in some way struggling with something feeling overwhelmed or sort of really struggling to keep going, I would resort to personal therapy again. And what the other thing I wanted to say to pick up on that is I'm aware I can afford that. And that relates to something else, which is to say that I'm in I'm aware I'm I'm relatively old, I'm white, I'm male, I'm middle class, by education, and now income, it's not my background, but that's where I am now. And that gets me a level and that gives me access to resources through my own means. And also a level of response from let's just use the word be authorities that I'm painfully aware isn't the same for all of you, including some of my colleagues because of race because of class because of identity etc. And I just thought I just wanted to say that because that that kind of I tried to have that awareness and try to make that awareness part of how I work. And I think my experience as somebody who's been through a therapy training, so encountered lots of people who are training with me, and people at the institute, but also, as somebody who has been in therapy, it's, it's quite common, I think, to encounter a presentation by a therapist, that kind of gives you a sense well, that everything is just absolutely fine with them. They are never troubled by anything. And so one of the things I try and do in the work is when it's tough, when it's tough, when what the what my client is bringing is is difficult, it's painful, and it's hard to make sense of I share that with them. I'm I'm transparent about the fact that this is difficult to to think about in the moment. Not quite, I'm not quite sure how super articulate that or was that something I often say about my own contributions to conversations, but I hope I'm managing to convey something that's really important for me in terms of kind of ethos and values, an ethical position that I tried to take as a practitioner. I mean, just respond to that. I do find it rather ironic. You say that because I will admit that I did too used to I guess as I'm sure you've probably refer to masking my emotions, or, you know, like my issues, I know a lot of people do it is quite a common thing that people do. Because people find it naturally hard to to actually come forward and admit they have an issue. But end of the day, like, if you're gonna keep on hiding behind a mask, nothing's gonna get better for you. You do. I mean, as hard as it is, you do need to push yourself forward. Like I said, earlier, therapists, not the thing that just find your own, you know, like, method of, quote, unquote, coping, I guess. I don't usually like saying coping, because yeah, you shouldn't have to go through what you have to go through. Maybe a better word. Yeah. Yeah, thank you for that. And what you said about push yourself, but that's exactly what I had to do. I spent, you know, I spent years living much reduced life than I needed to because it didn't push myself to make the internal changes that I needed to make. So really, that phrase you used I really recognise? Yeah, well, that's the thing. Like when I first presented this homeless, I never would have expected myself to get into that situation anywhere I like, I will admit that I did come from a good background, I had a beautiful family home, an amazing family. And I will admit, I did throw that away because of you know, like, the stuff that was going on in my head. And the way that I handled it back then, I did kind of push people away to the point where, you know, we did have a family breakdown, and I've moved on with my life, to the point where now I am trying to not only fix my life, but help other people, I guess, fix theirs. But you know, like as a bigger picture, you know, like doing stuff with mental health, with Universal Credit, and so on. But the other reason why I do that, it's not just because I have a passion now for helping people. But it's also helping myself because it's making me more confident as a person. And making me you know, like kind of evolve into not only just a better human being, but a lot more stable as a person. And that's what I always wanted for myself, I wanted to make sure that I was you know, like, fine in a future of myself that I'm happy with, that there's so many different things that go on, not only in our minds, but you know, like around us. The podcast from centre by young people, for all people. I have actually gotten a few things that I've written down here that I wanted to tell you about today, that might help you when you're going through a very difficult time where you're struggling, because they've helped me and I know that they have also helped some other people that I have taught my moving up was programme. So I have three different things here. The first one is do check in with your body and make sure that you are listening to it's physical needs. Obviously, this is going to be difficult for you know, someone that might be struggling with an eating disorder, or insomnia, or self harm or those kinds of things. But I have written here, do try and eat some nourishing food. Drink as much water as you can to keep your mind hydrated, and so that you're not coming even more irritable. And make sure that you are getting enough sleep, stay away from your phone, if you know that it gives you anxiety, and trying to practice being compassionate towards yourself. Just give yourself a bit of a break. I know it's easier said than done. But a 15 minute daily yoga practice or meditation, or just even reading a book to like get your mind out of its current overactive engagement can actually really do the world of wonders. Sometimes you really just want your mind to get lost in something else and not wrapped up in your own thought so much. So yeah, just picking up that book as hard as it might be, can really help to shift your perspective. It's not good to keep all of your emotions bottled up, which is why we're spending so much time you know, talking about talking to people. It's because when you keep your emotions bottled up inside, it just makes you feel even worse. So really, if you have a friend that you can call that, you know, won't judge you who can help, you know, create a safe space for you to just talk a little bit about how do you feel can really, really do well and good. And finally, I just also want to say see that you're not alone in this and as hard as it can be, to see a light at the end of the tunnel, sometimes just the comfort of knowing that you're not alone. And there will always be people that have been through similar and even worse situations and what you have. And that can be quite inspiring shift in perspective to help us continue, I just want to make a point as well, right? This isn't against anyone, but I think it's really, really hard to practice meditation or, you know, doing things like that, when you've got your neighbour screaming at you, and you've got, you know, like, you don't have a safe environment like I owe, you don't have open spaces to go for a walk, or you're terrified to go out. You know, I find that really, really challenging. And, you know, like what you said about, you know, having an eating disorder, it's really hard to eat nourishing food and have art show what if you've got no money to go on? And you can't afford to? So I agree, I think that there is a hierarchy in mental well being that if people have got, you know, if they've got that space to go to the gym, or they've got that space to buy nourishing food, but what about the people that don't, if that makes sense that it's really, really hard, you know, to have, like this kind of toolbox or well being when you live in you just trying to survive? Yeah, I really appreciate that. Catherine, I just I do want to, I do want to mention, I actually had a suffered from an eating disorder for around five years, from the age of like, 15, to about 20, and actually self medicated with weed to help me overcome that eating disorder. And, you know, when I was throughout my time that I was living in centerpoint, I absolutely had no one. I literally had no one I had to work from the ground up to kind of get myself where I am today. And, you know, I even at one point was subjected to just some really ridiculous things to make money so that I could eat, I do actually have the genuine sense of appreciation of how hard it is. I want to offer my number in the chat to you. If you do ever want to chat at some point. That'd be amazing. vancare Because I'm really interested in you know, what you're doing. And I think it can be really helpful for me at the moment, because I'm going through quite a lot here. Thank you. You're very welcome. The podcast from centre by young people, for all people. I'm just going to share a coping Amin? Well, you call it managing strategies that I do for to help me to manage my mental health crisis. Yeah, so what I do some times most of the day, and then of the day, I do journaling or writing what I've done to the day. And I'll try to think what are the things that may kind of make me made my day, for example, someone opened the door for me or someone made a coffee. So like, for at the end of the day, we always need to think about before we sleep, do things, just two things that kind of like made our day. So it could help us to like, this kind of like helped me to appreciate the day that I've had. Because everyday is kind of struggle for me. So I'm trying to survive for every day. And those are the things that kind of helped me to push through my day again, tomorrow. Yeah. Also, by journaling, you will know what are your struggles. So from that thing, you can know where to maybe one day know how to manage it. And because you written for this, like sometimes when we feel something we don't write or record, what we feel, we kind of like, kind of sense of like forgetting what we feel. And it's very important for us to acknowledge our feelings. Also the time because, yeah, as Morgan said, a while ago, it's very hard to like bottled up things and it's kind of like our journaling is one of the things that helped me and the other thing is also when sometimes when we don't feel like doing something, there's a rule for me like a 10 minutes. Rule. When I do something, for example, household chores, folding clothes, if you don't feel like doing it, because you're feeling down or something like want to do your assignment or something from where I'll do 10 minutes rule. I'll do that with you. In the 10 minutes, if we then within that 10 minutes, it kind of helped me to do to do the things that I wanted to do at the end of the day. So like, you know, you don't feel like worthless while having this crisis. Yeah, those are the things that kind of helped me. On my mental health struggles, I realised quite early that it was all down to me, if I wanted to really make a change, it was all up to me to even make that change happen. Whether was me what like Kevin said, you know, getting up in the morning, I have a similar role to Kevin, but mine is not 10 minutes fine is, if I'm not feeling to do something today, I make sure I do do that. No matter what, because the next time that comes up again, I'm not going to have the issue anymore. And it's always been like that, and I forced myself to do that. But end of the day, we have to realise that it's all down to our decisions, like, there's only so much someone can do to help you. They can give you all the good advice, they can show you methods and show you ways. But if you don't act on it, or if you don't take steps towards those, those goals, you're not going to achieve it, you're not going to make any change of yourself. And we live in a world where we want to get things done quick, we want to get it instantly. And it's okay to sometimes just slow down and take a break. It's okay to just take small steps, we can't take big steps and expect a big result, what I'm doing today, I wanted to do this five years ago, but I realised that life doesn't work in my time, I have to work on how life works in its own time. So what I wanted to do today, I wanted to be doing that five years ago. But that never happened. Because I wasn't ready. I was in a completely different state, my mental health was an okay. But it took me five years to get to where I am today. And it's for a reason to be able to now have this knowledge to share to others. So whatever happens in your life, you got to kind of look at it in a way that it's moulding you into someone that you don't even know yet. It's going to make you become someone that it's better than what you had envisioned for yourself. And life works that way. It's funny, you meet certain people in your life for a reason. They teach you some bad stuffs, they teach you some good stuff. But all in it, it's a lesson. And sometimes when you try to change your mindset, where it's your mental health, any coping strategies, it's all down to how you think it's all down to the actions that you take. Start by taking small steps writing, reading helped me a lot. You know, I wrote my first book, it was a journal like given it then it became a book because I wrote so much poetry helped me express myself, sometimes couldn't put my thoughts into words. But poetry helped me do that, which I included in my book. And it's just things like, finding ways to really just express yourself and speak your mind sometimes can really help. And just knowing what you want to do every single day and take it one day at a time. There's no rush. So that's my point. I hope that wasn't too long. But yeah, moving on, I want to just go around and just ask the panellists and everyone, if they had any other coping mechanism that has helped them with their mental health, that someone could be listening to this podcast, and he could help them are really, really good. So yeah, let's start with Morgan. You've got any coping mechanism. So I don't necessarily do this anymore. But I used to do a lot of freelance art. I used to take commissions, like for illustrations, animated characters, or just general, you know, like, original characters that people may have created and wanted to, like, bring to life. So I used to deal with that as, like a bit of a coping mechanism to help me you know, like, take my mind off stuff. I'm not as passionate as I used to be now because I've just kind of like, lost my touch or you know, like just lost interest mainly because I used to procrastinate a little bit too much. But I do know that from past experience, it is a really good way to help take your mind off stuff. If not that I will recommend just listening to whatever music you're most interested in. You know, like from heavy metal to maybe a bit of smooth jazz. I will personally recommend there's a singer that I know and love called Giorgio, he's a half Australian half Japanese actually YouTuber funny enough. He used to do a lot of YouTube but he went into music and funnily enough, he mainly went into music because he was dealing with a lot of anxiety and depression because of the sort of YouTube content he used to do it basically hospitalised himself because of you know, like the amount of stress that he was going through Are you actually looking for good music recommendations? I'd recommend him because his music is a very relaxing, especially if you're trying to you know, fall asleep at night. So, yeah, music or art, definitely try it out. Ya know, I'm an anime fan as well. So anime definitely helped me as well. Yeah, let's go to Kevin. Any coping strategies you've got Kevin? Yes. So as Morgan said, music helped me a lot. Since when I was young. So it's music has been there for me, my whole life. Like, if I've got no one to talk to listen to different kinds of music that kind of like, rustling it's about my feeling. You know, it's kind of like you want to feel something good. You're going to good. Listen to something that kind of make you feel good. Like put something in your mind that kind of like when you put something in your body like a good food, it's going to make you feel good as the same thing. Yeah, so music. Yeah, kind of be my passion. Helps me even writing songs. Yeah, I also want to share one fact. I also happen to join X factor in the year 2017. In the UK? Yeah. Probably. I didn't do well in there. But yeah, so yeah, music helped me a lot with my coping mechanism mechanism. As I'm saying it's accessible nowadays. It's online. Or maybe you can download stuff. Yeah, so Music is my life. A while? I didn't know you actually went to us. Great. Yeah, let's go to Catherine. Catherine got any coping mechanism that you would like to share? I don't really know. Because all my coping mechanism seems to be quite destructive. But no, to be fair, I have a massive thing about punk music, and metal music. And so yeah, I'm a bit alternative and getting tattoos. Every night, I'll listen to an audiobook, and you can get them free. So that seems to weigh me down. And also just, you know, doing the work that I do, you know, we're JRF and Senate appoint. And, you know, that is what I'm passionate about that. Yeah. Okay. I've got real difficulties. And life is really, really hard at the moment. But I'm still turning up to meetings. And I'm still trying. And I do think that, you know, in the future, there were, there is a, there is a future. I've actually got a Banksy tattoo, which is the girl in the balloon, and it means there's always hope. And so even through, you know, the darkest times I've ever been through homelessness in psychiatric wards, that there is always something and that's what keeps me bringing me back. I've lost a lot of friends in the past five years to suicide, and to, you know, really complex mental health problem. And, you know, I kind of think of them and I go on it, I'm doing it for you guys as well, not just myself. So yeah, I think it through, you know, all the bad things you can find. You can find really, really lovely people. And I think it can be quite hard when you're so up against everything. But there are people that really do care. I could never work in an office, let's just put it like that. So I'm hoping one day I'll be able to set me on Cherry Oh, do do something like that. But yeah, you've got to do it keep going forward for people who don't have a voice who do have this platform that needs to errors. Because we're important, and we are expert by experience. So yeah. Well, I love that point. Thank you, Catherine, for sharing. Finally, from Steven and Eve. Let's start with Eve. Um, so for me, I think, like I mentioned, you know, anxiety is something that I still experience. It's something that it's gotten better over the years because mine used to be so bad, where I used to have panic attacks until I faint. So one of the things that I would say that has really worked well for me, is personal development. And, you know, we work with young people, and I think this would kind of help, especially the the age gap 16 to 25. You know, that's the time where you're, you've got low self esteem, you know, your confidence is low. One of the things that worked for me, is, you know, learning about myself learning about my identity, because they say there's power in knowing who you are. And through learning about what I want to do and things that I'm passionate about. I became confident in those things. They do say that, you know, Confidence comes with competence. So, the more competent I became in certain things, the more confident I felt about myself, the more happiness I started to feel or the more fulfilled I began to fill. So that is why I go back in saying, take each day as it comes, take one step at a time, find out who you are, find out what, what you want to do. And the most important thing is to remember that one thing that from all these stories, I want to say something and what you're going through is not about you, I am in this position where I'm helping young people, because I helped, because I've been through that. Katherine, you mentioned that you, you know, you want to do something around that you want to be able to help people that have gone through what you're going through. So you know, and also, I think, Maytag mentioned that he mentioned in regards to we what we have been through, we are now you know, it's something bigger than us. So we have to remember that, you know, there's always a positive thing that comes out of all the struggles that we go through. And one day that someone, somewhere is going to want to hear your story, so that they can go get through whatever it is that they're going through. Just wanted to say just thank you to the panellists that have been just brave enough to just come out with their stories, there is one thing that I want to highlight. And I think, because we hear things like, psychiatrist we hear mental health advisors, we hear therapists, you have to remember that you are the expert of your life, I am not the expert, the doctors are not the expert. You know, what it is that you know, is for you, every individual is different. You know, it's about learning who you are learning what works for you. Because what works for you might not work for Sally might not work for Tom. And that is why even in our room, we don't tell the young person, you know, this is what you know, you have to do, will make suggestions will make recommendations will help the young person through whatever they're going through. But really it's looking at, that's why we do the assessment, we cater to the needs of the young person, what it is that they're going through as an individual. So I just wanted to encourage you and to just remind you that it's about what works for you and your mental health, whether you've got poor mental health, it does not define you, it does not define where you're going in life, you can recover from it. And it's all about taking that first step to just acknowledging first of all, that, yes, I am going through something, and I need to deal with it. Because the longer that you do live and you know you do suffer in silence, the harder it will be for you to come out of it. So it's just taking that one step at a time and really just admitting, first of all embracing the journey that you're on. And there is no shame in whatever it is that you're going through. We all go through that there is no shame in that. Thank you, you've Steven, we'll pick up right where you've left off. Thanks very much for inviting me to be a part of this. I want to kind of I picked some people who normally when I do this, I'm gonna say something in square brackets. I like to cheat like that. I wanted to say a couple of pick up a couple of things that were said earlier that Eve said, You're the expert. And it's it's almost like a cliche, but it's true. There's nothing what I do, what I bring to my work in the room is just a way of thinking, a way of thinking about what people are saying to me. It's not I don't have it, there's nothing magic about it. And I don't have the answers. It's about helping somebody figure out what's going on, in their own mind. And when I use the word mind, it's not a kind of abstract intellectual thing. It's it's all of us, we are our minds. And that's a we're an embodied mind, our feelings, our bodily sensations, our thoughts, everything. So I kinda just wanted to pick up that because it was really important. And that was my experience in therapy. That was all the stuff that I was working very, very hard, not knowing about myself making life difficult. And the thing I think I do, helps me feel better. And I notice the difference when I don't do it. And that's like Teddy are not super diligent about it. I meditate, I'm not very good at it. I can't do it for very long, my mind wanders all over the place. But generally speaking, I feel better when I'm meditating each day, even if it's only like 10 minutes or so. So that's the kind of thing that I do that would call you know, kind of a coping or managing strategy or something that's just helped me feel a bit better. But and also if I can just say one more thing I really that thing about competence. And think what a way of thinking about the problems I had to overcome or at least some of them I was just wasn't very competent with other people. We're social beings, it's we are social animals, we often have fantasies about being very individualistic. And I think that's a kind of a defence mechanism. We're social animals. We're in a world with other people, and our difficulties, whatever they are, they're a function somehow of how we interact with those other people. I my training, this is used, this is relevant. I'm trained as a couple and an individual psychotherapist. So part of my training is specifically thinking about what's going on between any two people, it's always 5050. There's something where we can't just go, oh, it's all that other person's fault. If they just stopped doing X, Y, and Zed, everything will be fine. Always have to think about what I'm bringing to the party. So I don't know. That's where I'll end. I know, there's a kind of ongoing dialogue about is there going to be part two? You know, I think it's been very rich. It's been very helpful for me. I've really enjoyed it. And I've got a lot of quite a that will be very valuable. But thanks very much. I enjoyed myself. That's not something I say trivially. Thank you, Steven. Yeah, well, this has been like a really great episode. It's been very helpful. And I just want to thank the panellists for joining us and given their input on everything and asking these amazing questions, and also to our guests, even Steven to for sharing their expert advice. And their experience and their thoughts, which was very helpful helped me a lot. Get a clearer picture. And I also hope it has helped everyone that's listening right now to this episode. And yeah, please, please share the episode. It's on Spotify. It's on Apple podcast, to anyone that you know, and we'll be doing, hopefully more episodes like this on point made, and hopefully we can have special guests that put their input. And if you have any questions do reach out to support team, which we will be glad to answer any questions on the podcast. I want to also thank Harry Speight for soundtracks and music. If you want more information, then visit our blog at www.centerpointe.org/blog. Don't forget Centerpointe offers free advice via the centerpoint helpline to anyone aged 16 to 25. who is homeless or at risk of homelessness, call us free on Oh 808-800-0661 Were open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. You can also leave us a message on our website at www.centerpointe.org.uk/youth homelessness slash get help now.
Tamsin:If you've been affected by any of the subjects on this podcast and you need someone to talk to, you can call Samaritans on 116123 or text the young minds text line by texting y m to 85258. Both services provide 24/7 support