This blog is allergic to July

What is this?  The June blog?  I wrote something almost every day of June, including 10 posts on the 6th, then didn't write anything for the entire month of July.

Next week is my Intensive Introduction to Narrative Practice so no doubt I will have heaps to write afterwards (if my brain doesn't explode).

I'm really excited about it but I'm also really scared that I'll be so tired I'll fall asleep and miss a whole day.

My bed at Grandma's.

I plan to stay at Grandma's so I don't have as far to travel and Grandma can kick me out of bed if need be. 

I also love coming home to tell Grandma all about my day and looking through old photo albums and hearing all her funny stories.

 I think I'll also use my old mobile phone as an alarm in addition to setting alarms on my new phone.

So much anticipation and excitement about the Narrative Therapy Course!

Couldn't sleep. Drew a picture.

I had this image in my head so I tried drawing it with shapes.

Evolution

• I am me. I am blissfully unaware of any problems. 
• I am me and I don't like myself. YAY! I am given labels to explain why I don't like myself.
• I AM depression and anxiety. I hate myself.
• I have depression and anxiety in me.  I hate them and I am fighting within myself.
• I have depression and anxiety attached to me.  I hate them and I am fighting them and accidentally punching myself in the face, as shown in the picture on the left.
• I suffer from depression and anxiety.  I am a victim and I am fighting the depression and anxiety.
• I have depression and anxiety.  I am fighting the depression and anxiety.
• I accept that I have depression and anxiety.  I am acknowledging the depression and anxiety.
• I am me.  I am reducing the influence of problems in my life and discovering preferred stories of identity. They are shown as boxes waiting to be described and unpacked in the picture on the right.

Blarpio is not responsible

Grief

Wellness in the Workplace
June 14
Grief

left hand side - Grief as it is now.
right hand side - Grief as I want it to be.

The picture on the left is me holding onto the strings of some big messy intermingled balloon clouds.  Each cloud is grief but I don't know what it is.  The grey patch below the clouds is covering up some of the things I figured out I might be grieving over.  I came up with the list during the workshop as people mentioned things that might cause grief such as not having a job.  I had only considered death to be a cause of grief so I was able to figure out other things that might have affected me.

I think a lot of events, thoughts and beliefs have been attributed to having a mental illness.  I have only recently realised that calling everything "Plorabi" or "Liporba" or "Roibalp" or "Blarpio" or "Bipolar" doesn't help me process it any better.  In the picture where I'm holding onto the strings, I used to think it was like I had a deformed hand that grips tightly to strings whereas now I think it's like there's nothing wrong with my hand and I'd like to look at what's going on in the clouds so I can stop carrying them round with me.

The picture on the right is me having let go of the grief but knowing it is still there.  I am grounded and the grief is well defined and separated and the tangled mess of each one is concentrated into a smaller space.  When we discussed my picture as a group we realised that I want my grief arranged in the same configuration as the southern cross.  I don't ask for much.

Recovery Rant

When I first saw this poster, I thought I had found the answer.  I wasn't entirely sure what the question was but I figured this had to be the answer.

Of course!  Recovery isn't about creating something out of the scraps that remain.  Recovery is about developing meaning and purpose despite being scrappy.  If I just build on those lists of factors, I will become a new and improved person.

I thought it was great at the time (October 2011) but I think it's absolute rubbish now.

It's much more complicated to give a concise account of what I think now.

I guess it's somewhat defined by what I don't think:

• I don't think I have been destroyed by an illness or that an illness has had catasrophic effects on me.  

• I don't think that focussing on limits is a good way to progress.  

• I don't think professional assistance is any better than the help of friends and family.  

• I don't think medication is really that important considering I'm not actually a broken, defective person suffering from an illness.

• I don't think I need to recover from or to anything.  

I need to interpret events differently and they'll have a different effect on my life.  The way I see myself is not conducive to me living the life I want and deserve. That doesn't mean I am ill.  It means I need to work on how I see myself and how I can live to fulfil what I believe is important.  I know that the methods used in Narrative Therapy can help me to do that.  I've already seen them in action.

How would I build an internal factor of hope in order to be a better person because the person I am now is merely a shell after the insides were hollowed out by the catastrophic effects of a mental illness?  "Right, today I shall work on my hope." *crosses fingers, squints eyes and thinks really hard about hope*

I might leave it at that for the first time I've actually put my thoughts into words on this topic.

Email - April 5, 2012

I wrote this to the facilitator of the Tree of Life on April 5, 2012:

I think it was as a result of the Tree of Life and subsequent discussions as well as watching some amazing talks by Michael White.

Trauma and Narrative Therapy - Michael White Part 1
Trauma and Narrative Therapy - Michael White Part 2
Trauma and Narrative Therapy - Michael White Part 3

It claims to be a five part series but I'm yet to find 4 or 5.

I have since had more discussions about Narrative Therapy and I am considering doing an Introduction to Narrative Practices course in August at Narrative Practices Adelaide.

The Tree of Life - Session 3

Cairns, QLD

The Tree of Life - Session 3

We had seen how our Trees of Life live side by side in a Forest of Life so in our final session we discussed the Storms of Life and our Responses to the Storms of Life.

click image to enlarge

I have a couple of comments written next to my tree which I think I added after the third session:

"My tree is not alone.  It lives in the Forest of Life."

"If your roots are strong you can weather any storm."

The roots represent where you belong - your home, workplace, youth groups etc.  I feel I need to strengthen these because living alone and not having a job means I lack the strength that others have.  I am really grateful that I have Diamond House.  The motto for Diamond House is "A safe place to belong, work and return."  That sense of belonging helps a huge hurricane feel like a gentle breeze.
 

The Tree of Life - Session 2

Wonga Beach, QLD

The Tree of Life - Session 2 

We put our individual Trees of Life together to make a Forest of Life.  
I like analogies and visualising stuff so I found it pretty exciting.  

I imagined my birds (my gifts to others) flying around the forest teaching people, showing empathy and spreading laughter.  I could look at someone else's tree and find fruit (others' gifts to them) of laughter and think "wow, that could have come from one of my birds".  I made all these great connections and was quite exhilarated by it all.  The trees made it so easy to understand. 

The funny thing is that when I was studying Anatomy and Physiology at Flinders Uni I wrote some really dreadful assignments.  Isn't that hilarious?  No, the funny thing is that my lecturer wrote "Can't see the forest for the trees." because I would write paragraph after paragraph of detailed analysis about how some process works in particular cells but I would have no idea how it affected the person in the case study.

Similarly, when I was in primary school we were told to draw a picture of trees and I started by drawing individual leaves of a tree.  When everyone else had finished several trees I was still drawing the little leaves of one tree.  I love that I literally couldn't draw a forest because I was stuck drawing the leaves of one tree.

I think there's another major example of me being blind to the big picture because I was too bogged down in detail but I can't think of it right now.  With the Forest of Life I was able to focus on individual people and also see all people as a community and appreciate the wonderful interactions we have with each other.

 Also in this session we chose someone important to us and drew a picture or wrote them a letter.  I illustrated my Grandma's generosity by drawing stick figures of all the things she does to care for me.  We discussed our letters and drawings in pairs or small groups.

The Tree of Life - Session 1

A Significant Tree

The photo above is of a tree which is not technically considered "significant".  In order to be significant it must have a trunk circumference of 3 metres or more (measured at a point 1 metre above natural ground level).  If it was significant it would be protected from removal or destruction.  Being insignificant though, it is perfectly fine for it to be cut down to make way for buildings.  Well, I think it's significant.  Look at it.  It's beautiful.  All trees are significant.

I didn't actually mean to write about trees.  I want to discuss The Tree of Life, a Narrative Therapy Approach.  In February I attended three Tree of Life sessions and they were amazing.

The Tree of Life - Session 1

A group of about eight of us discussed how wonderful trees are then each drew a Tree of Life.  Different parts of the tree represent different aspects of importance.

Birds

my gifts to others

Fruits

others' gifts to me

Leaves

people important to me

Branches

my goals in life

Trunk

my strengths and values

Roots

where I belong

Ground

where I came from

It was difficult!  I had tears streaming down my face as I was drawing a big crumpled up leaf that had fallen from the tree.  It was a leaf to represent my Mum.  She died in November 2010, a little over a year previously.  The facilitator asked me what was wrong and I explained that my Mum is one of the most important people to me but she's not alive so I drew her as a dead leaf.  He said that if she is important to me she belongs on my Tree of Life.

When I had drawn a new Mum leaf on my tree, the facilitator asked what she would think of that.  At first I didn't really feel that I had a right to imagine what Mum might think of my actions.  Then I decided that she would be much happier to be included in my tree rather than being crumpled on the ground.

I would never have thought that drawing a tree would help me see so clearly that I was trying to push my Mum out of my mind.  I thought I wasn't allowed to value her as much anymore.

At some point later I wrote next to the old crumpled leaf: 

"eventually leaves decompose and give nutrients to the soil which helps new trees to grow...the circle of life." 

Drawing the tree and coming up with various strengths and deciding on what I value most in life was all done in the first session over a couple of hours.  It was challenging but probably quite useful to get it all done in such a short space of time because I think it meant I recorded what I feel most passionate about instead of what I think I should feel passionate about.  We were also instructed that there are people who we might be expected to value, like relatives, but if they are not important in our lives, we don't have to include them.  It made the trees more real for me.

I drew a tree with four branches and initially only came up with three goals:

to be able to support myself

to have a reason to get up each day

to have friends

It was only after hearing about the goals of other people that I realised I have another goal:

to have a partner

The other three are far more important to me.

Writing about drawing the tree makes it sound very simplistic but the discussion that occurs while trying to decide on the most imortant things in life is what helps change people's view of themself and what matters most.

I explained to the facilitator that I found the method of conducting the Tree of Life to be very beneficial and he asked me to write it down.  Something about a book he was writing.  You saw it here first.

"When the facilitator of a group asks a question, they are usually looking for someone to provide them with one or more correct answers.  In the Tree of Life sessions, the facilitator asked questions which did not require the retrieval of correct answers or even known answers.  The questions persuaded me to think about why I believe things to be true and what makes me think that way.  Answering the questions drew on concepts which were being constructed as I spoke rather than accessing ideas I knew I had.  The questions made me draw on experiences and feelings I didn't know I had or that I had forgotten existed.  The questions were thought provoking and helped to reshape and redesign how I felt by challenging taken for granted assumptions and building new thoughts."