Greetings from a rather chilly Hertfordshire. It is nice to be back. I've spent much of the week in London. My feelings about London are often quite mixed; I enjoy visiting but I'm not sure I would want to live there. 16 years ago a spent some time in psychiatric hospital in south London so my view is to an extent a reflection of a very difficult period in my life.
I have many friends in London and am very grateful to my friend Eleanor for putting me up for 4 days. Those who have read previous blog will have already worked out my passion for food so East London is something of a mecca for me; curries and kebabs galore-not quite so good for the stomach or colesterol levels though!
The purpose of my visit was a rather high profile international confernece on mental health recovery. Big buzz word recovery in my world. I quite like the term and would indeed regard myself as being in recovery. But I am not cured of my psychosis, I just manage it better now. All the great and the good were there, the players, the known, and I guess people like me, those who want to get known.
Some parts were truely inspirational, the stories of lived experience, the young Italian man fighting his voices and telling his story in English. These things are what make conferences so special. There were also some excellent papers but still we battle with the so called "evidence base" of recovery. Bottom line, if there is no evidence base funding will dry up and the movement will die. Looks back a little to my justification post of a couple of weeks ago.
It was well worth going even though it left me utterly exhausted when I got home. Had one day in work yesterday then was on a training course today. So a different week.
I had planned to take it very gently today but all that changed when my phone bleeped in its inimitable way and a text from my friend and colleague Sonya asked if I could present a little bit today. So out came parts of the story. It went really well so feeling the warm glow of success; isn't it wonderful when someone says they got something positive about what one might say?
So to tonight; a wind down I think. Will be doing some Thai beef later and marinading Vietnamese ribs overnight. I do love cooking! Then I guess to the pub-as you may have gathered I rather like the pub!
More soon.
I Heard a Voice
PS The times noted on the blog of my posts are not actually right; so don't think I just blog at work-life can be deceptive!
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