Coping Techniques

So, lately I've been doing a fair amount of that more traditional Mentor work; you know, mentoring students rather than showing up to training sessions and gorging on danish pastries. And a lot of the time I'm dealing with people who, like myself, suffer from depression. It usually surprises people when I admit it, as until recently it wasn't ever something I really talk about, but I'm willing to do so if it helps other people.

You have no idea how hard it is to find an amusing meme
about depression that isn't completely, well, depressing.

One of the side effects of all this has been thinking about my own depression a bit more, which in turn has resulted in me talking a bit more candidly to the people I've been known to confide in myself on occasion, and a frequent topic is coping mechanisms. The more obvious ones are pretty well known, but I figured I'd share a few things that I've found at least a little helpful.

The first is this blog post here. Now, I'm not sure about a lot of it - the first two points in particular seem flat out defeatist to me, though maybe I just don't experience that a lot thanks to the whole not-ever-talking-about-it thing. They kinda answer it with point nineteen though, so there is that. Your mileage is gonna vary a whole bunch with a lot of these things, but the way I always figure is it never hurts to try something that might cheer you the hell up, right?

The second, and somewhat more radical, is from fitness and well-being guru Elliott Hulse. Remember how in my last blog I mentioned that I was opening up to all that namby-pamby life-coach bullcrap? Apparently I wasn't kidding, 'cause even a year ago this is exactly the kind of bloke I'd have written off right away. I can't link to the video like I normally would, but here's the link:

Though you might wanna read the next bit before you click.

The reason I can't just put the video on this page is that it can't be found just by searching Youtube, you need the direct link. Near as I can tell, after the poor bastard put the video up he was swarmed by piss takers and insults. Nice one, internet. And the reason for that is, as you'll notice when you watch the video, he seems completely batshit, window-licking crazy.

But take it from me, that shit really does work a treat. It isn't a cure, but if you can spare ten minutes or so before you've gotta go somewhere and it'd be handy to be a little more confident and less withdrawn, give it a shot. Because for awhile at least, every time I give this a whirl I feel better about myself.

There's a sciency explanation for it all, too:

Took me a little while to get past the whole "like unholy fuck am I doing that to myself, privately or otherwise" thing. But I'm glad I did. Here's two tips from a now-seasoned veteran of breathing through one's balls:

1.) If you've flatmates or family, lock yourself in and blast music. The music should cover the damned strange noises, and prevent your loved ones from having you locked up. I recommend the heaviest metal you can stomach, as the aggression of it helps too.

2.) Do it in front of a mirror. Because trust me, when you can see yourself doing this crazy, crazy stuff, you'll laugh at yourself. And laughter is one hell of a cure-all.

Anyhow, that's enough from me. Like I said, I'm not really a one for talking about this sorta stuff, but I figure one of my fellow mentors might find this stuff useful for helping someone. Or even just help one of my fellow mentors. At which point what has it cost me, really? Aside from you all having a nagging suspicion what I might be up to if you ever knock for me, I don't answer and you can hear Slipknot...

Anyhow, signing out. I'm off out tonight, and first I need to vibrate and breathe through my balls.

Training Session

So, today was the first big Mentor-ey day in what seems like forever! What can I say? S'bloody good to be back, I really do love these days.

Except you, of course. Yes you. You with the face.

So today was actually really useful. I say actually, as if I wasn't really expecting it to be. And it's true that in the past I've always hated that namby pamby team building crap, and even more than that I've hated a lot of the bullshit business speak that comes with a lot of these training schemes. Business speak is bad.

Except when Jack Donaghy does it. But
you aren't Jack, are you?

But the truth is, I've actually really come to respect a lot of the stuff we do along these lines. It's still a sorta basic business-y setup, but the company means I've got little issue with that. And the actual stuff we learn is flat out bloody practical. We first learned that ABCD personalities stuff back in what, September? And while it should be so broad as to be completely useless, I've found it comes in damned handy both in dealing with Mentees (I'd totally never heard that word before today...) and outside of it.

Yes, this is a Manatee and not a Mentee, but I'm still
not certain on the difference.

Mostly, I think that I can see a definite use for all this stuff when I finally take up my mantle as the new Doctor Doom and take over the world. Before I planned to do so through force of arms, but with enough practice I'm now fairly certain I can convince you all it was your idea in the first place.

Don't say you weren't warned, peons. 

Students as Partners in Practice Conference

Hello there, Blogger! S'been just over a month since my last post, mostly because I've up to the metaphorical eyeballs with uni work rather than work work. Actually, that isn't true. My eyeballs are not metaphorical, they are in fact very real. But it would still be untrue to say that the work is metaphorical, as although I do frequently use metaphor in my writings they are, on the whole, also very real. The metaphor actually only works if you choose to imagine me standing in that work, which is a little odd visually as I do most of my stuff on the old computer. I suppose you could imagine me up to my eyeballs in a pile of electronic goods, but that would probably give the impression I've just won a particularly cool prize, like on the Gadget Show. When I have, in fact, been doing work.

Look, I've been busy.

A busy bee. Or a swarm of busy bees,
determined to take their revenge
on humanity.

The one major piece of Mentor work I've done was attend the Students as Partners in Practice conference at the University of Glamorgan's Treforest campus. Or "the old homestead", as I like to think of it.

In essence, it was a number of speeches followed by a number of workshop-like affairs, followed by questions to the panel. On the whole I was rather pleased by the whole affair; particularly in that it wasn't just a group of academics and bureaucrats deciding for themselves the needs of students. Students appear to be consulted at just about every stage, and a lot of sensible questions were raised. Most of those can be found here, in a handy Twitter Storify thing. Yes, that is about the extent of my understanding of what happened there. 

Incidentally, the event appears to have turned me into some sort of Twitter whore. For those looking to see what was said on Twitter, #HESTUDENTPARTNERS is the hashtag that you're looking for.

The only controversial question that seemed to arise - on Twitter actually, and was scarcely touched upon by the panel itself - was the concept of remuneration for student advocacy roles. Put in English, that is to say paying students for fulfilling roles such as Student Mentors. Or, put in Gaf, Paying Me for my Mother F@&%ing Time.

Granted, it's not as clear cut as all that, but it seemed a shame to end an otherwise positive event on a note that seemed to fly in the face of an equal relationship between students and institutions.

It's okay to sound mercenary. Boba says so.

Other than that? I grew a glorious moustache for Movember and raised £45. I'm not actually sure what the MoMentors raised as a whole, but between bake sales and assorted other shenanigans I'm sure we did very well! Nice one Rogue Squadron. I also got Photoshop back on my computer after several years, and have been wasting far too much time re-learning how to use the bloody thing. As a consequence, I now have a shiny new header for this blog, which makes me approximately 76.7% more awesome than I was before. 

I'm clearly rambling now, so until next time!

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.

So, there's been a few Mentor-ey things happening over the last few weeks. Figure I'd best be blogging, then!

The big one was the Holistic Learning seminar. I'll be honest, I was suspecting this one might be a little on the boring side; you know, a bunch of people talking in dull voices about dull subjects, maybe the worlds most boring people talking about about making learning exciting.

Gaf's Amazing Mentor Bloggerarium of Stuffs does not
condone this sort of behaviour. Yes, really. 

 But while there were a few dull moments (which lead to some of the most productive poetry writing I've done since getting back; five stanzas under the pretense of note taking [just don't tell Kerry]), I was actually pleasantly surprised. For one, it wasn't a purely UWN event, meaning that we got to meet all manner of folks involved in education from all over the shop. Secondly, being a CELT/CDEL thing the information given was actually practical and useful, rather than entirely theoretical. Third, us Mentors actually got to give a student perspective (which seems sort of important, really), and fourth, the free lunch was "bitching", as they say in my home ghetto.

So, how does one boil a really long seminar on complicated stuff down to the bare bones (and preferably without inane jargon)? Well, essentially it was about an expanded curriculum. As it stands, we humble students pay out a small fortune, and in return we get a degree. Simple enough concept.

However, these days a degree isn't much on its own. Chances are you'll need additional things, like a MA or a PGCE, even a PhD. At the very least you'll need a whole host of extra-curricular stuff, and sometimes you'll even need the extracurricular stuff to get on to the relevant post-grad course.

Basic stuff, and not exactly news. What is news is that institutions are looking at addressing it, and some already are to a degree. Things like guaranteed work experience and increased access to other relevant  CV-worthy stuff for one, but of particular interest to most of us was the idea of putting support in place for explaining how the stuff we already do can be put into terms potential employers may like. Sure, some faceless bureaucrat might not be interested in how you blew every Wednesday evening watching anime with J.A.M.S, but they might well be interested in how you managed to work as part of a team to organise multiple trips to London expos. Or had to deal with assorted departments to book rooms every week. Or managed the society budget. Or had to operate the technology. And so on.

Heck, as Mentors we already have something pretty damn cool to put on our CV, but with a little careers advice we could go into job interviews knowing how to milk it for all that it's worth. Handy stuff to think about it; hopefully it'll all be integrated an highly visible for future students, but in the meantime it's well worth thinking about now...

Restructure Meeting

So, just got to attend a meeting about the recent restructuring of the university, and the effect it's had on everyone. Was anyone actually aware of said restructure in any real detail? 'Cause while I knew something or other had happened, all the info I was getting fitted into that sorta vague, impending-doom-of-Glamorgan category.

So yeah. Turns out their was a restructuring, and now the support staff are a fraction of their former glory. Sorta like the British Empire, but without the dubious history (or maybe it does have a dubious history. These were some shady looking characters, and I'm certain that it can't be a coincidence that they arranged the tables into the bloody Cerberus logo. It was all a bit Illuminati, if I'm honest, though the dysfunctional Marvel version at best).

I will continue to post Mass Effect pictures
until you learn more about Mentoring.

Anyways, random I'm-Up-Too-Bloody-Early pseudo-rants aside, this is essentially the reason you may have noticed an increase in the fields of Cock-Ups, Chaos and Carnage (the three C's, seeing as no business meeting is complete without that sorta thing). Students not knowing what they're doing, where they're going, what their timetables and book lists are... essentially, it appears that all this is down to the restructuring.

Which would have been handy to know before, really. In my experience stressed out students are a bit easier to placate if they understand that actually, something has gone wrong. It's not them being useless, it's not that this is the system that is actually in place for dealing with this. It would have occasionally been handy, such as when we were calling people, to be able to say "Yeah, sorry about that. You see, there's been a recent restructuring to make the Uni a better place, but while it's adjusting it's a bit chaotic. Looks like you got hit by that that, so lets see if we can't fix it," rather than "What? Huh. Yeah, that's weird  Yeah, let's see what we can do."

But we can do now, which is nice. And frankly, whilst all this might well have impacted our jobs somewhat, we've gotten off lightly. But you might want to give Kerry a hug, or pretty much any member of staff you see who looks in danger of being strangled by their own temple.

Also, go watch Stressed Eric. It will make
you a better person.

Anyway, a proper feedback report thingie will no doubt appear on the Mentor Portal* at some point. Until then, I hope you enjoyed my incoherent babblings.





* Does anyone else really like the term "Mentor Portal"? It's like we have some sort of actual, extra-dimensional form of teleportation at our disposal.

"Wow Gaf, you sure got to class early today! Don't tell me the hellish form of mental, social and emotional torture they call the bus was actually on time today?"

"The bus? Ho-ho, I don't use the bus! No, the Mentor Portal sent me directly through Limbo to the front gate. I can't stop though, for wherever evil rests, we Mentors must be there to haunt it's dreams. Mentors Assemble! I am the Night."