personal development course

i used to be SOOO skeptical about these things, like 'The Secret' and stuff like that... but then I actually watched The Secret, and it really wasn't that bad. It's not going to give you everything you've ever dreamt of on a silver platter, but it certainly won't make your life worse. For the average, intelligent person it will motivate them, and I do admit that motivation is usually enough to make an initial step towards change.

anywayz! My friend, D. from dancing, went on a 2 and a half day intensive seminar and referred me to it. When the lady called me at work my clients were shitting me up the wall, I'd just found out two had attempted suicide, the day before the guy who worked in the next office to mine was arrested for possession of child pornography (for those of you who don't remember... I work with kids)... basically i needed all the motivation i could get my hands on, so i jumped.

So i'm here, end of day one, blogging. and it's pretty much what i expected... except for one teensy little bit. The seminar is like when you go on camp and you do all those motivational and strength building games, fun stuff really. Some of the activities were quite challenging, some downright frustrating; but that's me saying those things...

Enter exhibit A:

what happens when you do one of these courses and you are so depressed, so incredibly low and the state of your mental health makes me feel inclined to check your wrists and call the CAT team!?

there were two women (out of maybe 100 or so) who clearly would not not be benefiting from the seminar because they were so far gone. One lady cried the entire day... and when she did manage to pause she would only have to make eye contact with anyone and she would burst into tears again. She couldn't interact, talk, get her own food, contribute... nothing.

The second became extremely distressed at the amount of noise that was being made in one of the activities (quite loud i must admit) and began having a panic attack in front of everyone. The facilitator then wouldn't let her go until she admitted to the rest of us that maybe she felt fine (what the fuck i hear you ask? that's honestly what happened)

I'm still trying to work out why, when we first turned up this morning they got us to sign forms stating whether or not we were suffereing or had ever suffered from a mental illness... what were they planning to do with that information? I'm not pro medication, however i do know that sitting around talking about motivation can't always work if your world is truly upsidedown. Much less if you have a chemical imbalance that won't allow you to see it any other way.

The seminar has been great, don't get me wrong, but it has to be said that it is totally unsuitable for anyone who is sufferering from a mental illness... so that cuts out around a third of the population (no citation for that... it's my average... if you look up the percentages the studies always do ridiculous things like discluding anxiety attacks and including snake phobias)

and if you want them... or just a read...

lifeline
beyondblue
orygen youth health
cat team
and my current favourite Headspace