‘The Caring Collective is very personal, and so much of it is about me sharing my experience to try and find others. It seemed like just as I was finding my feet and claiming the space, it hit me hard…’

‘I still feel like a fraud. Like I shouldn’t claim trauma in case something ‘genuinely bad’ happens to me. But then in the kindest way possible, I have to sit myself down and remind myself just what the last year has been like’

You don’t just have to be happy, or sad. You can be both - and they relate to lots of different things…

I started to make a list of things people could do *for me*, while I was busy doing stuff for others.

Dealing with my own burnout meant facing up to my fragile relationship with hope, and the impact that was having when things went wrong.

When we went through our first admission, I wish there had been a place I could take all these fears and questions and get some answers…

…being able to take some good things away from it means that I’m able to see the experience more richly and to look beyond the obvious things, to consider all that has changed in the last few years.

The problem is that people assume that although they have nothing ‘useful’ to say, someone else will - so let’s leave it to them. But what happens if everyone thinks that?

A while ago, I posted on twitter, asking people to get in touch with me if they had any experiences of caring for a parent with a mental health issue…

It’s about recognising that often, there is an immovable force in your brain (that doesn’t even know to chill out when it should sometimes) and the best we can do is balance that with other things that make us happy, or fun and a bit silly…

My fear in this moment, and the speed of my heart rate, and the weariness in my eyes from crying angrily for the last 15-20 minutes, tells me it is as bad and as scary as an other time we have been here