The life of a person with a mental illness is often accompanied by the necessity of taking prescription medications. My name is Matthew McAllum, I am 50 years old. I have been on mental health medication since 1991. I was raised in a Christian family in Dunedin, New Zealand until I […]
hope
54 posts
Comparisonitis kills joy. Comparing yourself to others robs you. Instead, explore who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. I’m just recovering from a severe case of comparisonitis. I think I caught the most recent dose from the Internet, but this disease has […]
Mental health is discovering what you were born to create, building a supportive nest around it and protecting it like a Viking shield maiden. It was the scary wild eyes that made me take a step back. Recently I have been doing some gardening at a retirement village. This isn’t just […]
You just keep going back to something that actually repulses you. It maybe sniffing the vomit or wallowing in the mud, but you keep returning to foolishness. Perhaps it’s a change of heart that’s needed. They kept on repeatedly going back to experience the same abuse. They could see that […]
There is a party going on, all around us, where God is inviting us to stumble on in and enjoy. When we are attentive to the music, it grows depth in our mental health. So I am just back from a holiday in Italy and Spain for a holiday. My […]
They were so caught up in themselves and their selfish desires that they got lost to the concerns of others. Without recognising the wealth of love around them, they were the prodigal, a child of abundance squandering it away. What drew them back was a memory of love, faint and small, […]
‘Am I doing ok?’ was the question I was most frequently asked when I was a pastor/chaplain. ‘Is this Church safe’ was another. Keeping pace were other limping souls … ‘Am I welcome here’ ‘Does God really love me?’ ‘I can’t seem to get it right’ ‘… keeps telling me […]
Just outside my window, I can see a beautiful yellow rose. It wasn’t there last week, well actually it was, but it was just tightly bound up under its green calyx. A lot can happen in a week, in a day, in a moment. I can see the beauty but to deeply […]
Around the hillside of the sheep farm where I was raised were grooves worn into the soil by hundreds of sheep following each other. It was the easiest route. I also have routes in my thinking patterns that have become ruts. Familiar paths that have been worn deep into my thinking. A thought gets […]
It was my routine that I had built up over the years that got me through the dark morning. Do you have a routine? Ever had one of those mornings where you just don’t want to face the day. You’re sort of glued to the bed. It’s a safe, warm […]
I want to do it my way. I don’t need others help. I can rebuild my life and recover in my own strength. To admit that I need help is a sign of weakness. That I am just like them. No, I am better than that. I will continue to […]
The old saying is true. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. It’s also true that you can take the water to the horse, put the water in a china cup and sprinkle rose petals over and it still won’t drink. In my years as a […]
Rebuilding Walls have weakened, crumbling, sinking low to ground, sagged like our spirits as they view the sorry edifice before us
Something happened here but it didn’t happen overnight. As a gardener I have been working on an old homestead garden for two days every week for around two years. When I first started, the garden was in bad shape. Over grown with weeds, dead trees and sick looking plants it […]
I almost overlooked it. There it was, a small little camellia flower. Deep pink, just beginning to burst out of its green cocoon. I had almost walked passed it without noticing its gift to me. While I was busy pruning and looking at some straggly looking shrubs, I saw this […]
I’m not a dancer, but I am a musician. I believe that our Mental Health is closely linked to the rhythms we keep. I have played guitar since I was thirteen and one of the little practice exercises I used to do in the early days was to play a […]
Letting go The more difficult the problem the tighter we tend to hang on as if by grim determination we should squeeze the answer out like the last toothpaste from an already-squashed,
I’ve had a taste and now I want more. I’m not being greedy or demanding or ‘push in line’ about it. It’s just that I have had a taste and I long for more. There are wafts of joy coming from the kitchen. There is a party going on and […]
It was so delightful that you could smell the perfume of joy sweep the room. She was in her 30’s and had been diagnosed with a psychotic illness. Voices in her head were her constant companion. She was into some New Age stuff mixed with Catholic teachings and a liberal dose […]
I loved to watch planes as a child. On the farm in which I grew up on we would often get fertilizer spread by aeroplane. It was exciting to see that noisy plane swoop low over the fields and hills and see trails of white powder spreading over the landscape. […]