Tag: Health

The gift of lighting up the dark

The “skill psychologically of lighting up the dark” can be described as resilience and learned optimism, which involves acknowledging difficult emotions (the “darkness”) while actively cultivating hope and developing practical skills to navigate challenges and promote well-being. This concept draws on various psychological principles, including Jungian psychology and positive psychology. 

Key Psychological Concepts

  • Balance of Opposites (Jungian Psychology): Psychologist Carl Jung noted that light and darkness coexist; one cannot exist without the other. The “skill” involves achieving a healthy balance rather than trying to eliminate darkness entirely. It suggests that there is value (or “gold”) to be found in understanding and integrating one’s “shadow” side (repressed or unacknowledged parts of the personality).
  • Resilience: This is the mental and emotional ability to adapt to adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or stress. It is a key skill for navigating the “dark times” in life, enabling individuals to bounce back from challenges and learn from them.
  • Learned Optimism: A concept developed by Martin Seligman, this skill involves intentionally changing one’s perspective and challenging automatic negative thoughts. It is about how we interpret events, not changing reality itself.
  • Hope as an Active Mindset: Hope is not a passive emotion but an active mindset that involves setting goals, identifying pathways to achieve them, and maintaining a positive outlook even amidst obstacles.
  • Emotional Regulation and Processing: The ability to sit with pain and uncertainty, process difficult emotions, and avoid “toxic positivity” (dismissing genuine suffering) is crucial for healing and growth. 

Skills and Strategies

Cultivating the skill of “lighting up the dark” involves several practical strategies:

  • Awareness and Acceptance: Acknowledging and accepting the reality of one’s inner and outer “dark spaces” (sadness, fear, uncertainty) is the first step toward finding a path forward.
  • Practicing Gratitude: Actively looking for things to be grateful for, even in difficult times, can build a more positive outlook.
  • Seeking Support: Reaching out to others and leveraging empathy from friends, family, or professionals can provide the “candle” needed to find one’s way through challenging times.
  • Self-Care and Self-Compassion: Prioritizing physical and mental well-being (sleep, nutrition, exercise) and treating oneself with kindness helps build the necessary energy and resilience to cope with challenges.
  • Mindfulness and Reflection: Engaging in self-reflection through methods like journaling helps identify negative patterns and work through emotions.
  • Purpose and Action: Focusing on solutions, contributing to the well-being of others (kindness), and engaging in goal-oriented behavior can provide meaning and purpose during difficult periods. 

Ultimately, this skill is about acknowledging the dualism of light and dark within human experience and developing the psychological tools to navigate this balance effectively for overall well-being. 

Scientists have confirmed that Schizophrenia “voices” are the brain mishearing its own thoughts

In late October 2025, researchers from UNSW Sydney published a study providing the strongest evidence yet for the long-held theory that auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia result from the brain misinterpreting its own inner speech. Using brainwave analysis, the study showed that the brains of people experiencing hallucinations reacted to their own internal monologue as if it were an external voice. 

How the brain typically processes inner speech

In a healthy brain, a mechanism called “corollary discharge” helps to distinguish internal thoughts from external sounds. 

  • When a person thinks to themselves, a corollary discharge signal is sent to the auditory cortex to quiet the “inner voice”.
  • This signal informs the brain that the thought is self-generated, so the auditory cortex does not react to it as an outside sound. 

What happens in a schizophrenic brain

The recent EEG study revealed how this process breaks down in people with schizophrenia who hear voices. 

  • In those experiencing hallucinations, the normal suppression of the auditory cortex does not occur during inner speech.
  • Instead, the brain reacts more strongly to the person’s own internal voice, similar to how it would react to someone else speaking.
  • This confusion leads the brain to perceive internal thoughts as external voices, which can feel incredibly real and intrusive. 

Implications of the discovery

  • A new biomarker: The brainwave measurement used in the study has the potential to serve as a biomarker for the development of psychosis, enabling earlier detection and intervention.
  • Improved treatment: Understanding the biological basis of these hallucinations is a critical step toward developing more effective and targeted treatments beyond traditional talk therapy.
  • Reduced stigma: The findings emphasize that auditory hallucinations are not imagined or an indication of “losing touch with reality.” Instead, they are a result of complex changes in how the brain processes and attributes thoughts. 

😍Weird is Wonderful 😍

I’ve never really wished to be normal, I often get confused by and fearful of those that express how normal they are and then start to say how different from their norm others that they hate are. The UK is really starting to have to consider the possibility that we could have a right wing Farage Reform government in place after the next general election cycle.

Those that vote for him like those that vote for Trump feel ignored by what is described as the establishment and will be offered electoral treats to endorse him and his policies so that they turn around and go, what the hell, why shouldn’t I vote for Farage and his right wing party. He has already boasted that no taxes will go to health care services or in other words will be making tax cuts at the expense of not having a National Health Service.

That will seriously impact on my health with life long medical condition such as diabetes and also a mental health condition that requires daily lifelong medication, I know I will be uninsurable or a waste of money to any health insurance scheme. A good health service is there to treat the ill not profit from them. We are learning the hard way in this country that the privatisation of utilities such as water and transport links on the rail result in poor services with ever increasing profits for share holders as things get worse. I would love to invest in shares of a ethical company that sees’ providing clean transport links and clean water to customers as a force for profitable good but sadly that’s just not the way it works in the UK.

My present political perspective is to try and vote for someone that will not make things shitter than what they already are which for a blue-sky thinker, dreamer kind of person is very disappointing.

Sit Down By The Fire – The Veils

Mind over Mutter!

To mutter to speak quietly and in a voice that is not easy to hear, often when you are anxious or complaining about something: He muttered to himself as he walked or I heard him mutter something.

A week from tonight our polling stations where people vote will be closing about now and the councils will begin the count to determine which MPs are local neighbourhoods, towns and cities decide to elect and send to parliament. When I was 18 I studied Public Policy at Southampton Institute, I had learning difficulties and it was the first place I got offered that offered a course I really wanted to study.

It involved the study of UK contemporary Politics, Economics, Sociology and Constitutional Law. The course gave me a good understanding of and an ability to interpret political views and issues, while  developing my own views and perspectives on politics too.

Sadly though due to a serious mental health issue and drug addiction I only lasted on the course for about 18 months then crashed and burned. But in that time and to this day it gave me a good understanding of learning – not just about the power of education the importance of politics and breaking down concepts and rebuilding them back up again in my mind. But also the addictive and damage nature of illegal drugs the limits and fragility of my mental health and mind.   

After some real life altering choices which I mainly had to force upon myself due to the sad truth of the fact that for me illegal hallucinogenic drugs and any forms of cannabis are just seriously damaging to my mental health and an absolute no go zone for me and my head. From the age of about 16 up to about the age of 25 I still did not realise or believe the damage that certain illegal drugs could do to me ,I just did not want to accept it. I don’t advocate abstention for everyone and think many forms of drugs should be licensed or legally controlled not simply banned. But just as an alcoholic should not touch a whisky, I should not touch hallucinogens or cannabis due to the impacts on my mental health and life.

I have a form of mental health condition which means I have been on a form of medication that prevents or dampens down hallucinations’ for over probably 20 years or more now. The form I am on at the moment works really well for me and keeps me balanced and well enough to hold down a job and function having only had a few blips in my mental health road over the years and managed to stay on track with my life, job and home.

When I occasionally have, for want of a better word had a mental hiccup I have had enough incite to know what was going on and to ask for help and hold on for dear life and look after myself and all I am and have as best as I could until things calmed down and imporved. But saying all that if I knew what triggered these mental health incidents then I can’t promise I would try to do those things that increase the risk of them not happening again.

You still must live your life because you are still alive you can’t completely block yourself of from the things that you fear or hurt you in the outside world. To experience life is to experience a range and spectrum of emotions and experiences some positive and sadly some at times negative. The only constant that seems to appear in life is change and those that best adapt and act on that change are the ones that tend to survive and thrive.

Amy Macdonald – This is the life

New Tory Govt crash and burn the price of the £

The beautiful political landscape of a democratic nation in a state of flux right now!

The new UK Conservative Government announced a load of tax cutting and borrowing policies this week that resulted in a crash of the pound against the dollar to an all time low as even the stock markets reacted to the UK government as if to say ‘what the hell are you playing at, doing that with your economy’.

When a governments or political parties boast about tax cuts to benefit your wallets, what there really saying in this day and age is their actually trying to reduce the amount of goods, services and support that they are trying to provide to you and others.

You might feel good to have a few pence or pound in your wallet each month but what there really trying to tell you is all those ongoing government problems that they have not solved concerning how to hire more doctors and nurses and reduce waiting times for health services for the one in five over-50s who have dropped out of UK workforce who are on National Health Service waiting list for treatment are not going to have an improved system of care anytime soon to help get them back into work and be healthy contributing members of society anytime soon.  

Over the first 46 years of my life I have had the support of my government at times its shelter and protection and healing as well as an opportunity to again be given the chance to stand on my own two feet and live, work and be free to make my own way in life once again.

I don’t expect something for nothing or to live off handouts. I work full time, pay for my own food, shelter and life expenses. But there have been times in my life where I have needed the help from the UK government to enable me to again be in a position where I can look after myself once again and be independent.

I don’t know where or how well or even if I would still be alive today, had my life not occasionally  been injected with some government support in order to help my become well again, once sick or fed and sheltered again when at risk of being homeless or unemployed and impoverished.

Benefits, health services and provisions of homes for the homeless are in no way god given rights in any country to any citizen and due to an inherent mental health condition that I was most likely born with, I will always be at risk of losing everything due to an illness that can trigger potentially at any time and under the right circumstance.  

I do my best to look out for myself, do all I can to keep my mental health stable and well but ultimately I am potentially blind to when or how I might become unwell again and whether or not my life will be structured with enough safeguards in order to come out of my illness on the other side at an as yet undetermined time in the future. Having a national health service really has kept me alive and mentally well. Had I been born in a different country or at a different time I just don’t know what support and assistance I would be able to have in order to maintain a good quality of life for myself.

I have personal lived experience of when a society decides to invest in its people rather than just its banking system, the huge gains and returns on that investment and I am very grateful for the assistance that I have received. At the very least I wish to vote, fight and advocate for others as well as myself to have a reasonable quality of life and social support in order to help them when they are down and not just help them to help themselves when they are rich and assume those that are not wealthy must just fend for themselves and hope for the best health, endure the worst poverty or die trying.

The Killers – Human

Mobilty Aids?

I really was not sure whether to try and come up with some sort of snazzy or funny title to my post, but not sure I can or want this time. My mum has been having trouble for many years now with her knees and although I know its causes her a great deal of pain we have not really had a lot of conversations about what can make things less painful for her or what solutions there are.

She has had professional support from our NHS saying about having a knee operation and such scary things like that but she is just not ready for that kind of thing and even something as simple as a walking stick has yet to be considered or used really by her.

So I started searching on the internet for possible solutions for her and oh boy the list is endless and I am not sure how or even if they will be able to help her either. It would be great to try and organise an occupational health appointment for her where they could measure up the right height for a walking stick or sticks for her, or show her how to use them or provide other alternative to sticks for her.

I looked all over the place and even had a quick look at mobility scooters for her and they were not cheap costing about the same as a new little motorbike or second hand car. One of them was described as sleek and sporty with top speed of 6–mph. (photo below)

Sleek and sporty number

Well zoom, zoom and all that!

In all seriousness though I do need to try and do a little more research for what is the right size for her height and what will be the best grip for her too.

I have found the following from the great mamouth of a shopping sight in the digital sky that is Amazon which looks like this.

I am worried though about getting the wrong thing though as I would not want her to have a fall while holding a stability aid that I had got for her. But the more I think about it I would not want her to have a fall because I had not gotten something to help her too.  

The search continues!

Dire Straits – Walk of Life

The weighting game

Train trip down to Cornwall

So I went on a train trip down to Cornwall, a couple of weeks ago, where I was able to celebrate Christmas, Easter and pubs reopening all in one week with my parents. I also even found time to get my hair cut for the first time in 6 months to ensure that I no longer look like I am in some kind of 70’s TV police show.

Haircutted April 2021!

I have also been trying to lose weight, since my diabetes diagnosis and its happening slowly but surely and I weighted in this morning and find that since I started reducing my intake of unhealthy foods, portion sizes and eating less carbohydrates and more vegetables I have lost about 1 and half stone in weight or 9.5 kg. I was a little worried about my weight this week because I went out on my first lads night on the beers for the first time in over a year and also had a meal out to. But I was still able to loose a little weight due to the healthier eating and drinking in the rest of the week.

I still have a heavy weight to loose and a long way to go but it’s all going in the right direction. My biggest risk to my physical health will be when the pubs open up full time and I want to go out and be social and have a pint and listen to live music. But if I do so once a week and keep on track with my eating for the rest of the week (and my life) I should hopefully be ok.

Gabrielle Aplin – Home
The Killers – Human – Live with Orchestra & Choir

Dyslexic diabetic

So since last Thursday that is what I can be boxed off and defined simply as a dyslexic diabetic and to be honest I have been called worse.

I really wanted to put something down on here but at the same time I wanted to absorb the new diagnosis of being a diabetic first and begin to try to understand more on what that definitional and diagnosis now means to me. I have been being tested for it for years and kept on coming back as negative and not having it but blood suger levels slowly increasing year after year and I knew my time would come. My brother had it and so did my Grandfather. My mum has it and so does my Grandmother.

The mental health medication I take also increases my chance of putting on weight and developing diabetes and it seems lockdown and my desire and ability to increase the amount of cakes I have been eating also increased hugely my chance of being diagnoses with diabetes this year, plus the sedentary lifestyle with working at home more and just not having many places to go or reasons to go to them, my chances of getting diabetes this year along with my blood sugar levels just sky rocketed up, up and away.  

It was like I was playing Russian roulette with a gun that had as many bullets in it as it had chambers to fire them out from.

Prior to the diagnosis I really was kidding myself that my health was ok, my diet was ok and my lack of exercise would change. I still don’t know if I am kidding myself but I am trying to get my head around this and make changes that will enhance my health. I have been for so long focused and dedicated to looking after my mental health, holding down a job and keeping a roof over my head that I really did feel there was not much time left to look after my physical health or pretty much do anything else and I am still not sure if this is true now.

So now I have had a wakeup call and if I want to have a good quality of life, I do have to make some lifelong changes to my diet and improve my physical health. I’m pissed off this has happened I see life like a big beautiful, messy and  complicated picture that paints a thousand words or life like a potential journey to a thousand places in a thousand worlds.

world keeps on a spinning

When some new negative words or views are added to my already complicated llfe bubble, one of those words being diabetes and the second being diagnosis it just feels like what was already a struggle to live as a life just got a little harder and it sucks right now.   

First Aid Kit – Silver Lining

Although I am already feeling much better now than when I had first heard the what felt like inevitable news and am beginning to get my head around it now somewhat more and implement some positive changes for myself.

I have signed up to get advice, be educated by and taught more about diabetes by a diabetes mentor of sorts, through our lovely National Health Service and I have stated keeping a photo diary of everything I eat and drink now for the diabetes dietician to mull over and tell me what I am doing right or wrong.

My Coronavirus antibody test results

A grim reaper of a covid milestone

Today the UK marked a grim reaper of a covid-19 milestone. We recoded over 100,000 people that had tested positive with Covid-19 prior to their deaths that then went on to die. One hundred thousand people are such a large amount of people that it is almost unimaginable. As a teenager in high school  we had a large sports hall that could fit around 1000 pupils in it for an assembly, so that is a way I could try and visualise the amount of people being 100 high school sports halls of people having died because of this terrible virus.

So far I think on a personal level I have not been as severely affected as many, many people have. I hope that that continues to be the case. I am not a huge social butterfly and so I don’t miss going out that much although it does feel like life is on hold sometimes.

With work I still get out to the office 3 days a week and so that is still taking place although I prefer working from home to going into the office.

I live on my own and covid-19 has not changed that I enjoy my own company and through new digital platforms such as this have continued to express myself and feel like I am doing something constructive or real. But it often just feels like I am typing a diary to myself for my memories and forget or don’t worry too much that others might read this too.  

I received a letter from the National Health Service a couple of weeks ago asking if I wanted to sign up to take a coronavirus blood test which will try and determine if I have had covid-19 in the past and whether I have any antibodies to Covid-19. This sounded really interesting and important research to help with so I signed up and got my testing kit today.

So I did the test not 100% sure if I made a mistake when doing it (which I told them about when feeding my results back). It looks like it might have come back as positive for having had it in the past, but I would prefer to take a second test to be sure.

I volunteered to have my test results shared with the NHS and also for them to be able to access and monitor my health results for the next 20 years should they need to, I am in no way paranoid about giving them access to my records and not that I need to but I am sure I could withdraw my consent at any time should I change my mind.

I thought I might have had a serious case of flue last January which I always thought could have been covid-19 and this test result simply backs up that case. I hope to not have again what I had then. It was the mental side effects that unrolled last year more than the physical that concern me the most.

Having been a person who has experienced severe mental health difficulties in the past and who now takes two tablets a day (possibly for the rest of my life) to prevent things like that happening again or at least to reduce the risks or chances of things like that reacuring. I cannot over state to you the joy of experiencing non negative or even positive mental health days and moments in time.

Amy Macdonald – The Human Demands