Well, My New Substack Account Seems to Be Growing. Time For a Welcome Blog!

What today brought into my life

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Hello Dear Subscribers! It has already been a great day and it has just started. Today I went to MacEwan University and gave a talk to a group of second year Nursing students. I decided to give a different version of my usual talk about my life and how I live with schizoaffective disorder and anxiety. I was working with a new employee who has a great deal of experience giving mental health presentations and he had so much to share, much of it about far off places on the West Coast where I have spent some of the best times of my life. There seemed to be a somber mood in the class though, and no one laughed much at my jokes. It feels great to be comfortable now about sharing my story and when I can talk to a group of people like a nursing class or a group of police recruits, I really feel like my efforts will pay off.

One of the things I mentioned in the class today was that I feel that the only thing keeping me sane in the long term is reaching out to help others who suffer from mental illness. Tomorrow is going to be a big day for me, I will be starting a two-day class at the University which will give me the knowledge I will need to teach poetry on a psychiatric ward, which will start soon. Part of this class will include a session taught by me as I have a good deal of experience teaching psychiatric patients. The project will run for eight weeks and I am anticipating that I will greatly enjoy working with this segment of the population. It also means a lot that I will be employed for eight weeks with one of the top Universities in the country as an instructor.

Having my plans twice derailed to get grades good enough to enter The University of Alberta, I can’t wait to be able to add this new employment to my resume.

All that aside though, I wanted to mention something that I have found benefits my mental health. I purchased a “Seasonal Affective Disorder” light from Amazon for a reasonable sum, and have used it daily to lift my mood by turning it on when I work at my computer desk. The belief (which is likely more than just a belief, but actual science) is that, especially in northern climes like Edmonton where I live, low sunlight hours in deepest winter can cause a person to have low moods. The special light my new SAD light emits counteracts that. It may be a little late in the season to purchase one, but I am sure I have readers who spend a lot of time indoors and get little sun even in the summer. My suggestion is to look up SAD lights on Amazon, viewing as many as you can before making a decision, and taking careful note of the number and rating of as many reviews as you can. It is also important to note that if you do order it, you will have a couple of weeks to return it in the mail and get a refund as well as free postal service to return it.

I would be greatly complimented if any of my new subscribers would leave a message in the chat for me to respond to. It is there so anyone can ask questions, say hello or even critique my new substack account. I am very excited about substack, and am exploring some of the many options available to creatives. It would be a good place to let me know you would prefer a video post now and then, and to even suggest topics that I could cover in them.

Well, that was a bit of a quick one. I will have to experiment a bit regarding if longer posts get more or less attention. For now I wanted to welcome my new subscribers and thank Bethany Yeiser who put together an amazing resource in a book called “Awakenings” which I was asked to contribute a chapter to. The book is just $15 on Amazon, and if you enjoy it, Bethany has written a book about her experience with homelessness and mental illness, and her mom wrote a book about the same time period and all the things she did to try and help Bethany. Take care dear readers, hope to hear from you soon!