Mental Health First Aid: Day 2

And thus concludes the training. Interestingly, I thought today was going to be even more intense, given the topics. But whilst I was a bit wobbly in the morning, all told it seemed a lot easier; guess there really is a lot to say for being prepared.

So yeah. The whole bloody thing has been particularly enlightening, from gaining a 'proper' understanding of things I've already experienced in some capacity to learning things I was previously flat out wrong about. Including some quite frightening things; not from the mentally ill themselves (forget what you thought you knew, you're more likely to be eaten by hedgehogs than actually harmed by a schizophrenic or the like), but from everyone else. The police? Less training in mental health than I've now had. GPs? Less training in mental health than I've now had.

I'm now considerably more confident in dealing with these things. Sure, the certificate is gonna look great on the old CV, and it's gonna make certain aspects of Mentoring that much less intimidating. But frankly this is the sorta stuff that'll always be bloody handy. Intense as it was, I'm really hoping to do the ASIST training if I can, really round off my capacity to help with these things.

Mental Health First Aid, Day 1

So, day one of the Mental Health first aid course, that some of you'll no doubt be doing early next year. Here's the thoughts so far;

If you've ever had mental health difficulties, or have known someone with mental health difficulties, or some obscene combination of both, this course is heavy. Really, seriously heavy. I don't say it often, but I could really use a sodding hug at the moment. Or a pint. Or both. I figure it'll be a bit different for everyone so there's not a great deal of sense in me getting specific, but don't do what I did. What I did was walk in expecting something a little hippy-dippy about not being judgemental and the value of listening; that stuff is there, but there's a lot of much, much deeper stuff.

Thought two is that despite that, I'm really glad I'm doing this. Sure it's tough, but few things of value are ever really easy, right? And as life goes by, the odds of any of us never meeting someone who suffers from a mental illness are slim to none. And while a two day training course isn't going to provide you with the tools to fix them - nor is it supposed to - but the level of understanding that you pick up is already invaluable.

Well, there we go. Not my most cheerful post I guess, and not a single nerdy picture to break things up a bit. But like I said, definitely a worthwhile course to be on, even without the Mentor pay and the CV-enhancing certificate at the end of it.