A week or so ago we called out on Twitter looking for a guest blogger who would be willing to write once a week for us about living with mental illness, as a way to provide a break once in awhile for us, immediately we got a DM response from Kerry asking if we would be okay with a mental health nurse as a guest instead. We replied right away and are very excited to have her contributing to our blog.
We met Kerry (@kerrystott) about a month ago as a new follow, she helped come up with a blog topic one day The Flavours of Emotions, and soon became a Twitter friend.
Kerry will be guest blogging for us about twice a month, it’ll be a way to give us a little reprieve from our self-mandated writing schedule through the summer, and when we have one of our Twittercrushes here for a visit for a month, starting this comig Thursday.
Anyway, this entry is an introduction written by Kerry.
We’re going to paint, play with our Twitter lists , do all the other stuff we usually do on a Sunday.
Happy Sunday, all!
~Frank et al
An Introduction
Hi, I’m Kerry. I have been following Frank on Twitter for some time when she tweeted that they would like someone to write a guest column on the blog about mental health. I bit her hand off, I think she still has most of her fingers left. So, this first post is a bit of a ‘hi there’ and ‘hello’ from me; introducing myself to you.
Right: what’s your name, where do you come from, what do you do?
I live in Cumbria in the UK, Google it, it is the most beautiful place in the world, which is why I live there. I live with my husband and son and we are all fairly normal though prone to making rude/silly jokes. I work in a town called Darlington as a mental health nurse. I have two jobs. One is working on a locked ward as an inpatient nurse, it is for a private health care company and deals mainly with people who have schizophrenia. It is very interesting and I like the people that I work with and the people that I look after. My other job, my main job, is working for the National Health Service (NHS) as a care co-ordinator which is also known as a community mental health nurse or CPN. This job I work with people who have mood disorders such as anxiety, depression, bipolar, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, ADHD, and personality disorders. Quite a range. I prefer my main job but currently the NHS are unable to make my job full time – hey ho.
On the side, when I am not busy with my two jobs and my family (because obviously there is soooo much time left over), I enjoy writing. I like writing as a form of therapy but I also write for publication and I have been published in national nursing journals such as Mental Health Practice and Nursing Standard. These articles are on various topics relate to nursing. In addition to this I have written a book, an autobiography of the 10 months or so that I had cancer (Double Decker Bus: Amazon.co.uk: Kerry Stott: Books UK and http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=kerry+stott&x=0&y=0 US) feel free to buy it, it is the only feel good humorous cancer book out there, plus I need the royalties to break even (blatant book plug). So I can actually write for others to read which is interesting because I also have dyslexia too, see if you can spot the typos because I won’t be able to.
What will I be writing about? Well, I will be writing about aspects of mental health twice a month. I will be writing entries that are between 500-1000 words to keep things snappy and interesting. Topics I have already thought of include: what is mental health, depression, anxiety, creative therapy, food and mood, suicide, family and support networks, deliberate self harm, fun and laughter, alcohol and drugs etc. I have a list in my mind but please feel free to make a suggestion as they will be gratefully accepted.
OK, so I’m a mental health nurse and I know Frank; do I help her, I hear you ask. No, is the resounding answer. Apart from the fact that we live on different continents I can be either a writer or a nurse but ethically I would not and could not write about my patients, particularly not on such a public forum. But won’t being involved with someone with DID be confusing? Ummm, probably; but not really any more so than other people I know with a personality disorder; plus I find that people are more than a label that is stuck to them. People are REALLY interesting and I love finding out about them, Frank is a little bit more interesting than most but apart from that she’s just a regular lady.
So this is me, I look forward to hearing for you and getting to know you all; I’ll see you in 2 weeks.
Kerry x
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