Hey everyone, hope you’re all well and good. I hope you’re enjoying the mixed weather conditions at the minute…

Another Monday rolls around and we are starting module 2, this module is based on change. I already knew this was going to be a hard module for me personally…

So when I arrive I say hello to everyone and I grabbed a drink. To start of we all do our gratitude work and the homework we have been set then came the main part of the session which I was dreading… the group was in agreement that it was time to start the new module. A few minutes into it I wanted to give up and just go home at lunch, I had this horrible feeling inside that I knew could lead to a panic attack. I was fidgeting, sweating and struggling to concentrate on what was going on around me. Once it was lunch time I sat and had my lunch with some of the others from the group, obviously this meant that we had to put the world to rights.

In the afternoon we always do some kind of activity. On this particular day I wasn’t up for it after having a rough morning. The activity was, we got given some paper and had to fold it into four bits. Now I got this wrong and with the mindset I was already in I just thought fuck it. We had to write something then the next person had to draw it, then once it was drawn we had to cover the words up and then pass it to the next person who then had to write what they saw. I found this to be a positive distraction and I started to feel more at ease as we finished. I thought we were about to leave however they asked us to write our names in the middle of a page and then pass it to the person next to you. That person then had to write something about you, now once I got mine back I was smiling from ear to ear. Getting up that week was hard after such a hard session, it took me about an hour each day to get myself out of bed but I did it. Don’t get me wrong I did struggle and when things got too much for me during the week I kept looking back at that piece of paper that made me smile and it would bring me back to a positive place.

Now the Monday after that one I get there and just like the week before I said hello to everyone, did our gratitudes and our homework to start. This session was based on change and identity.. you can probably imagine how well I thought this would go after the previous session, however I picked it up quite well and didn’t struggle as much as I thought I would which put me more at ease. I could participate in what the volunteers and staff were saying and myself and the others could really relate to it all.  Our activity this week was a presentation from an employment service run from Mind, this was really helpful and I’m looking into using their service once I feel ready for that step.

Now the Monday after that one I get there and just like the week before I said hello to everyone, did our gratitudes and our homework to start. This session was based on change and identity.. you can probably imagine how well I thought this would go after the previous session, however I picked it up quite well and didn’t struggle as much as I thought I would which put me more at ease. I could participate in what the volunteers and staff were saying and myself and the others could really relate to it all.  Our activity this week was a presentation from an employment service run from Mind, this was really helpful and I’m looking into using their service once I feel ready for that step.

This brings me to this week, I get on my bus as normal and just as we are about to pull out of Great Yarmouth the bus driver announces that the Acle Straight is shut so we will be taking an alternative route. This only added about 10 minutes onto the journey so I didn’t mind at all, in fact I expected it to take longer. Once I arrived we all got into groups and we had to create scenarios and work out how that specific scenario would impact us both emotionally and physically. After this we went outside in the garden for lunch, this did not last long as the heavens decided to open on us. We did go back outside to stretch our legs again once the rain had decided it had had enough. After stretching our legs we went back inside to find that all of the tables had been moved around and were surrounding this one table in the middle. The table in the middle had a range of random things on it and we were all given a time limit to draw or write what came into our heads whilst staring at them in front of us. Then once the time was up we all had to move around and then add on to what the other person had done whether that was by drawing something or writing. It was really cool to see how everyone perceived what was in front of us differently even though we were all looking at the same thing. I did start the activity thinking I was going to hate it however by the end I really felt like I got a lot out of it.

So that is my last three weeks in a nut shell, it’s been a difficult time but I have gained so much from going to these sessions. So please, if you are fighting right now.. keep fighting! It is worth it!

Thank you for reading, I hope you all have a great week!