All Blog Entries

I wasn’t sure what had brought these on. On one side I was feeling unwell with food poisoning the day before, and on the other I had taken quite a lot on due to my friend’s problems for the past 3 years. Not sure of the trigger but that day I went on the tube and had one. The minute it happened I knew it was one, due to symptoms I had heard of before – heart beating, sweating, shaking, awful dreading feeling that the world is ending…yep that’s what I felt like.
...

Getting support for bereavement was hard. My friends were great but I didn’t want to talk to them about it and I felt bad about bogging my boyfriend down with it all. I didn’t feel like any of them would really understand what I was going through and I didn’t know how to communicate it to them. Every time I tried to talk about it I couldn’t find the words. I didn’t know about any support services and I felt quite alone at that point.

I decided to ask my GP about bereavement counselling. ...

When I was 21 my sister died in a car accident. She was 18. I had just moved away to university and was about to come home to start my summer job for a couple of weeks.
Everything happened really fast. As I took the call I remember feeling a massive sense of responsibility towards my little sister - I didn't want to cry or react because she had no idea what was happening at the time and I didn't want to upset her. I wanted to protect her from the truth for as long as possible. I calmly put ...

Working in a service helping people affected by drug use means that I have heard a lot of stories about how difficult it can be to make those first steps to get help.

Firstly a lot of people worry about the confidentiality of it all - will they tell me parents - employer - doctor etc? Will someone see me going in the door? What if I know someone in there? Well, the best thing about services like that is that they are confidential and nothing shows up on the medical records. The building ...

A lot of people are worried about getting help for their drug use because they think that they will be forced to give it up straight away and they're not always sure if that is what they want to do ? but getting help doesn't necessarily mean quitting completely ? depending on a person's circumstances it can mean cutting it down to a level that doesn't cause them problems, for other people it could mean quitting ? but over a period of time, little by little, cutting it down.
For other people, ...