Tuesday 10 October 2017

World Mental Health Day

Hi everyone. I only realised that it was World Mental Health Day a minute ago - I got an email from FutureLearn with some links to relevant courses. Writing and wellbeing, for example - sounds great. I really recommend FutureLearn - the courses are all short (usually just a few hours a week for about six weeks) and they are free, although I notice there's now an option to upgrade, for which you have to pay...

I don't think I am going to sign up right now. I have just finished my MA in novel writing - I handed in the dissertation last week, which included the first fifteen thousand words of a novel plus a five thousand word critical commentary on it - and now I need to finish writing the book. I enjoy studying, but I don't want to distract my self with any more courses right now, even if they are short, and free.

So, World Mental Health Day. I am a little out of touch with the issues, although I don't suppose things have changed that much. Part of the reason I stopped writing about it regularly was that nothing seemed to be really changing, or not in the way I hoped. I would still love to see and hear about less diagnosis - of 'schizophrenia' in particular - and of more access to talk therapy.

In any case, having come to the party late in the day (it's nearly three and time for me to start the school run) I will be looking out now on Facebook and Twitter for debate on the subject this evening.

Enough for now.