Welcome back fellow carers. This blog is by Matthew McKenzie, carer activist, author and poet. I write and campaign to raise awareness of unpaid carers. A lot of my focus goes on those caring for someone with mental illness.
I also have a focus on cancer carers, but more on that in a moment.
I have just released my 6th audio story about the importance of carer peer support. The story is called “Just when I needed you”. You can actually watch the story for free at the end of this blog.
The audio story revolves around the struggle to show empathy and the challenge someone faces with their faith. When people care for each other then the community carers, but this is not always the care as the carers in this story have their own struggles.
It takes a couple to walk that journey of someone damaged by the community. They are there for that person when he feels the world has abandoned him. The couple find a bond with their close friend as Barbara who is providing unpaid care can sympathize because she also experienced mental illness.
The audio story provides a story of hope, but raises challenging questions for those caring for someone. Things are not always so clear cut and it can be very difficult to be involved in someone’s care. This is especially problematic if someone is suffering depression.
Watch the video below and enjoy the carer awareness.
My next audio story will soon be released titled “A story of Hope”
Hello, everyone!! Merry Christmas thanks for joining me here today to explain a bit more about future projects that I’m going to be working on. Some of them actually, almost practically finished. So yep, my name. As you can see from the title here, my name is Matthew McKenzie, Carer campaigner, Mental health carer activist who facilitates several carer groups around half of London.
what I want to do is just explain a few things regarding some books that I’m working on. I’m going to start developing audiobooks, I will of course continue to work on paperbacks, one of them is in draft at the moment. I’ll talk about that in a bit.
If you want to see the video version of this blog, please watch below.
Special edition of my poetry Audio book – The Poetry book of mental health caring
So during summer 2022, I published my first poetry book. This was my first attempt at what I felt would be focusing on the experiences of providing mental health care. One of the reasons of doing poetry is that you don’t have to really read a whole book to just sort of reach out to those who perhaps understand, in a sense of what’s it like to provide care for someone with mental ill health. Plus to also reach out to those who’ve never experienced it.
So I’m doing an audiobook project on my poetry, but with the added benefit of contributions from other carers who are activists or are poets who want to produce poetry on the carers experiences. So I’m hoping to publish in early 2023, January, February, by that time, that audiobook will be coming out.
Race, caring and mental health
The next book, which is not an audio book, will be in paperback form. I felt it was due time to come out. This is because I have been writing books close to two years now. I have also been running as carer groups, but two of them focus on ethnic carers coming from ethnic minority background, so obviously, they are providing care and support to someone experiencing some form of mental illness.
I’ve been meaning to develop a book like this for some time looking at how mental illness can impact on the family, on friends, not from the patient side. Let’s look at this new book closely. The book titled “Race, Caring and Mental Health”. From it’s first chapter, I often say to many people that it’s important to tell your story. With this book, I felt it even more important due to some of the tragic consequences that can happen to ethnic minority groups providing unpaid care. This is it’s not just within the mental health system as the book’s second chapter will be looking at discrimination and racism, and links to mental health, for the other chapters, they will focus on health inequalities and the structures. The book will explore the deadly roundabout regarding the repeat situations of those going in and out of the mental health system. Why does this occur?
I don’t have the answers and can only share my ideas of what I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, but I know what I’m learning about. I’d be really interested on people’s views of my new book, which is in draft form at the moment and I will probably change a couple of pages in the hope to release this around January 2023.
Providng Care and other Short Stories
Lastly my 6th piece of work will be an audiobook, similar to the project of the poetry audiobook. But this time I want to work towards fiction. Now, I’ve been writing two years now. Most of the books that I’ve been doing are not fiction at all. I mean, I suppose you could argue in some sense that poetry is looking at certain topics that may or may not happen. So this new audiobook will be my first attempt at fiction, including 20 short stories about unpaid care, here are some of the stories below.
This audio book will explore some of the following carer themes.
Providing Care Story about a woman finding out her husband has developed a form of mental illness, she now has to battle to become an unpaid carer.
Digging out of a hole A young man caring for his sister, but this time there are horrible things that make his life difficult.
A family Affair Story of a main carer feeling isolated by the family, everything is thrown at her and no one wants to help.
Never thought it would be me A female carer whose partner is caught in a serious accident, her life is turned upside down as she battles to provide care for him.
Angry A carer thrown into anger and despair as she is let down time and time again, leading her to becoming angry.
Just when I needed you A story of carer peer support and why it is needed, a story that is more hopeful than previous stories.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a lovely holiday break.
Welcome back to a summary of chapter 3 of my book “Experiencing mental health caregiving”
This blog focuses on my 2nd book – Experiencing mental health caregiving. The book helps raise awareness of unpaid carers providing care to someone close suffering mental illness. The book highlights the experiences of providing unpaid caring.
For Chapter 3 – “Carer befriending and peer support” I asked carers several questions, but this video will look at the first question that being “What does carer peer support mean to you?
The reason I asked such a question was down to how can carers relate to others when caring can be a private and personal experience. Do carers know they can get support from others to reduce stigma and increase carer knowledge?
Just like the videos I have done on my 2nd book, I will sum up a few responses from those regarding “Carer Befriending and peer support”.
To check out the video summary see link below
So going back to my book, chapter 3 got responses regarding carer peer support, you can see the responses below.
One carer Jacqui Darlington responded
“A carer peer is someone who can offer emotional and practical support to another carer by using their own lived experiences which may enable them to overcome barriers, challenges and fears to achieve whatever it is they may need. They may also be known as Experts by Experience .”
I not only asked knowledgeable carers, but also engaged with mental health trusts.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust rep responded
“We train people up as peer support workers or carer peer support workers. We are now employing them in the jobs at the NHS trust. I think as a carer peer support worker, the difference between that and pure peer support worker is that the carer peer has lived experience in caring. .”
One last point – Another carer responded
“To me, carer peer means supporting a carer who may be struggling with the sometimes overwhelming difficulties experienced when caring for a loved one with mental health issues. Being there for that carer, sharing personal experiences and showing an understanding of what they are going through”
I asked 8 other questions for Chapter 3,
Have you experienced carer befriending and what did it feel like?
Where should carer peer support be located?
Do you think there is enough education on carer peer support?
Would you befriend other carers?
Is there a line or boundary to carer peer support?
Is there a difference between carer peer support and service user peers?
Why is carer peer support lagging behind?
The responses I will cover in a later video, but to sum up What does carer peer support mean to you?
I noticed that lived experience was critical to becoming a peer carer. To share your understanding and knowledge of the caring role and help those new to caring is vital in forming a connection.
if you are interested about mental health carers, you can buy my book on the link below
Hello everyone. As you can probably tell from my website. I focus on the experience of providing unpaid care, especially regarding those suffering mental ill health. I am in my poetry phase and am to get a large number of poems off my YouTube channel.
My latest poem, which is rather short looks into how mental illness can be catching, perhaps not as bad as what the poor patient is going through, but unpaid carers are not signing and jumping for joy.
You can view my latest poem by playing the video below.
Welcome everyone, This blog post is about World Suicide Prevention day.
World Suicide Prevention Day is held each year on 10 September. It’s an annual awareness raising event organised by International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
World Suicide Prevention Day gives organizations, government agencies and individuals a chance to promote awareness about suicide, mental illnesses associated with suicide.
If you would like to see the video version of this blog post, please click on the video below.
This year the theme for World Suicide Prevention Day is “Working Together to Prevent Suicide.”
Although it is difficult news to share, More than 800,000 people take their lives each year across the world. In the UK, more than 6,000 people die by suicide a year.
Feeling hopelessness and that there is no point
Consumed by negative thoughts
Feeling unwanted by others
Thinking or feeling that you have no other choice
Assuming everyone would be better off without you
Suicide or those suffering from illnesses that can lead to suicide can affect more than the victim or person themselves. A death of a loved one can affect the family, friend or their carer. Unpaid carers can play an important role in providing support for someone suffering suicide thoughts.
What to do if you are suffering from suicide thoughts
Speak to some close you can trust.
Contact the Samaritans on freephone 116 123.
Contact your GP.
Call NHS 111 (England).
Contact your local crisis team.
What can you or others do to help raise awareness?
Welcome back to another blog post, this blog is on a well known subject within mental health fields and sometimes controversial. I decided to do a collaboration video with Malika Salih from “A Oreo Family”. We talked about mental health recovery, but this time Malika chose to focus on how mental health recovery affected her life.
If you wish to watch the video please click on the video below to play it.
As you can tell from the video Malika talked on how mental illness distrupted her life, but also gave her some insight into putting things into pespective. Malika rightly stated that mental health recovery is not the same for everyone, it all depends on the mental illness, the support one is getting and fighting stigma. Still it is so important to raise the awareness that mental health recovery can be possible under the right circumstances. It is a terrible situation to be aware that others fall deeper into mental illness when there are several chances of recovery.
As mentioned in my section of the video, I spoke about what impressed me about what Malika mentioned. It can be incredible difficult to speak openly about mental illness, there is still much stigma to face and the person can face ridicule. Without the support of friends, family or health professionals then the road to recovery will be a difficult one.
When mental illness impacts someone’s life, it can throw the persons life into turmoil, chaos and desperation could be the outcome, but there is always a small chance of reflection. We can begin to see how life can be incredibly fragile and as we begin to reflect on our own illness we slowly become aware of others, we become aware of the daily battle people face if they are struck with mental illness. This is just one of the reasons why Malika and myself continue to raise mental health awareness.
When you have time, please check out her videos off her media channel from the link below.
Welcome everyone and I am hoping you have had a good weekend. Today’s topic is another collaboration. This collaboration is with Alex from her Youtube channel “The truth about mental illness”. We decided to present on the importance of caring for someone suffering mental ill health.
There are situations where those with lived experience do not get support from a close relative or carer. There are those who feel carers are not essential. Each situation is complex and there is not often a right answer, but if someone suffering mental ill heath can get support from a carer (e.g. someone in the family or friend), then the outcomes usually tend to be better.
Living with mental illness can be challenging enough and having to go through mental ill health by oneself can be overwhelming. So I was glad to hear that Alex who is a mental health survivor wanted to present on how her mother provided support for her.
Alex promotes mental health experiences and well-being off her Youtube channel, it is worth a look to get her views, but before you check out her videos. I hope you could view the video we collaborated with below.
Alex spoke about important caring and support tips regarding how carers may have to judge the situation by gut feelings. There will be times when a carer has to assess how to provide care and support. It can be almost walking like eggshells if a carer crowds the “caree”. Alex explains this well in the video.
The collaborated video also looks into how a carer’s experiences can be vital in providing care and support, plus we look at some other tips which could be important to both the and service user or carer’s journey.
What is it like to live with someone suffering from a mental illness? I felt it was about time to do a quick write up about the situation. This time I decided to collaborate with someone living through a mental illness in order to get their views.
The collaboration was from an experience mental health survivor Jessica Temple who has her own YouTube Channel.
Welcome everyone, This blog post is about World Suicide Prevention day.
Welcome back to another blog post, this blog is on a well known subject within mental health fields and sometimes controversial. I decided to do a collaboration video with Malika Salih from “A Oreo Family”. We talked about mental health recovery, but this time Malika chose to focus on how mental health recovery affected her life.
Welcome everyone and I am hoping you have had a good weekend. Today’s topic is another collaboration. This collaboration is with Alex from her 
A Caring Mind 