This one for St Patricks Day
This one a 17 syllable summary of suicide prevention training
And this for the weather
My week of study went well, I managed to be engaged with every class for about 7 hours a day. The topics were heavy, talking about how to support people in the middle of critical incidents, domestic violence, contemplating suicide, poor mental health, grief & loss. In many ways, support is support and the approaches taken are all similar but we were learning some background. Not everyone will tell us, or even know, that their mental health is poor. most people won't be direct about their suicidal thoughts, grief has a range of "normal" or can become pathological. It will never be my job to be the only support for a client so a bit of background on other resources and with what kind of urgency to seek other help is what we were trying to learn.
I had pre-arranged catering for the classes (because when I am at work to work, that's my job) and it turned out to be excellent.
Then Sydney's weather (and a large section of the NSW coast) turned very wet. There is footage of a house floating down a river, an exhausted cow was rescued from a surf beach after being washed away in flood waters, houses have lost rooves to a "mini cyclone".......and on it goes.
Harry is always a terrible toileter and doesn't want to go outside in the wet, Lucy is super clean but is currently on a medication which is causing her to be "caught short" in her crate overnight. We might have managed her better if we had known it was a possibility.....
So, my place is vaguely chaotic with wet patches on carpet and damp laundry. It's not easy but it could be harder.
My new mattress arrived and I'm still having some neck and arm issues but the pattern of symptoms has changed so I'm hoping that I'm now in a healing process.
I'm hoping to come and say hello to you all at your own blogs sometime soon. Meantime, hang in there, find some joy and keep safe!
I am glad that your first week of classes went well.
ReplyDeleteI hope that you too can hang in there.
And of course the question about suicide hit home for me. Thank you.
I'm sure you've forgotten more than I'll ever know about suicide prevention. I thought of you often in that class
DeleteWater, water coming out of the sky virtually nonstop in NSW. Your classes sound like very hard work Kylie but the path you have chosen, supporting people in need, is vital work. Do take care of yourself pls.
ReplyDeleteAlphie
Thanks alphie!
DeleteThe learning is easy enough but how I'll go in real-life is a whole nother question
I like the suicide poem. I can relate to that.
ReplyDeleteLife sounds hectic but also interesting. The dogs weeing in the house adds another level to the chaos!!
I've been watching all that rain and wishing desperately that we could have some of it. Things are so dry and we have been in another bloody heatwave - at the end of March for goodness sake!
I wish everything wasn't so extreme, we need less water and you need more and a heatwave in late March is just unreasonable. Unfortunately though, it's going to be the new normal, I think
DeleteAbout suicide...no one thinks to ask. But, I would lie.
ReplyDeleteThey tell us that most people will need to be asked three times before they admit to thoughts of suicide.
DeleteDo you have access to mental health support?
I came over to see what was going on at "Eclectica" because I have been hearing about the flooding and torrential rain in New South Wales. Glad to hear that you are essentially fine Kylie. I have spotted an ark on e-bay. One previous careful owner with twin cabins for a wide range of animals. The pygmy shrew cabin is incredibly small but the African elephant cabin is enormous.
ReplyDeleteI live on high-ish ground and well away from water ways or strom water drains so we do pretty well. I wouldn't say no to a spacious and dry ark though!
DeleteI hope that all goes well for you. Kia kaha.
ReplyDeleteThanks Graham! It's no more than a minor inconvenience for me, really
DeleteThings could be worse, I guess. I’m reminded of those lines from Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”:
ReplyDeleteWater, water everywhere,
And all the boards do shrink;
Water, water everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
yes, it could be significantly worse.
DeleteI read Rime of the Ancient Mariner at school but I don't remember a thing about it
Pleased to read your studies are going well. I think you'll be excellent at supporting those who need help.
ReplyDeleteSo much rain. Stay safe, Kylie.
Sx
It's dry today!
DeleteThank you, Ms Scarlet
Suicide prevention training is great work, Kylie.
ReplyDeleteI heard of a young man in Ireland who killed himself on Christmas Day. In 1970 I had a drink with a psychiatrist in London (a friend of the lady I was staying with) who killed himself in 1971. He hated himself. A humble man, he gave no sign of being gay.
Read *Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It* by Jennifer Michael Hecht - review.* The Guardian online. Jennifer Appignanesi. 2014.
*Stay* is available in paperback.
See YouTube: Stay and the Secular Argument Against Suicide. Jennifer Michael Hecht.
I like your three pieces which I shall call Slave Boy, Death, and Rain.
Honouring Saint Paddy's Day with beer is fine as long as it is no more than two beers as Karl Barth used to say (see Barth speak on YouTube).
As Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, *Never be ashamed of coming to faith because of fear of death and judgment, that is why most of us become Christian.*
I heard Sam Harris on YouTube talking of death as a mystery: I have been praying for his conversion.
See online The Latter Rain. OpenBible.info
Jack Haggerty
The suicide training is part of the chaplaincy course I'm doing, though I'm beginning to wonder if I'm kidding myself.....
DeleteThe one about St Patrick I wrote as a response to something very flippant and I was moderately serious.
I'll look up your references, thank you.
It's good to see you back!
You are not kidding yourself, Kylie.
DeleteI support women in the ministry and chaplaincy because they bring gifts that men can't bring. Pope Francis understands this.
In Scotland a high number of young men take their lives.
I can think of writers I admired who committed suicide: Cesare Pavese, Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Randall Jarrell, B.S. Johnson, Primo Levi, Zha Haisheng; Ann Quin who swam out into sea in Brighton; John Gale who worked for The Observer in London (read his old articles through the online Guardian) and a brilliant memoir, Clean Young Englishman.
In the 1970s my young brothers worked at an old hotel in Edinburgh. Just after they left a young man they had befriended hanged himself in the hotel's remote and haunted top corridor. He was just a week away from joining his brother who had a flat in London.
Kim Daul the Korean supermodel killed herself in 2009 in Paris. In her diary she said she felt like a ghost. She was 20 years old.
Jack Haggerty
*Model Diaries: Daul Kim Reads Tolstoy.*
DeleteYouTube. New York Magazine.
Thinking of this tragic young woman, I reread one of Tolstoy's greatest stories, The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
*Lives and Deaths - Essential Stories* Pushkin Press 2019.
J Haggerty
Karl Barth on Revelation.
ReplyDeleteKarl Barth's Theology with Bruce McCormack, Cambria Kaltwasser and Kait Dugan of Princeton Theological Centre.
Both YouTube.
Quoting Barth, Cambria says there is no other Lord above, below, or alongside Jesus Christ.
J Haggerty