It Gives you a Bit of Worth, Doesn’t It?

This week is mental health awareness week and the theme is anxiety. 

We’re not doing anything out of the ordinary in the neighbourhood to mark the week, you wont see a hashtag from us. We are just carrying on as we are, knowing that creating Camerado social spaces all over the place really helps. 

We know it helps because people talk about it a lot, and so this week, that’s what we’ll talk and think about in the journal- share peoples words, with some musings and reflections later in the week.

Between September 2022 – December 2022 we had lots of specific conversations, carried out a survey, hosted some conversation groups and interviewed a dozen local people to help us think about what we might want to evaluate.  Community, and each other, as an antidote to anxiety was a common theme.

We shared many of the findings with the community (we had 6 themes) in the hope that people begin to see, that in the case of anxiety they are not alone. Other people feel like that too, it is common in humanity. Knowing that, and being in community with others, who feel it too, or accept it as a human emotion is healing in itself.  I should know about that, as I’ve experienced it. 

Here’s what some community members think about the importance of no agenda, open social space and the way in which being in the company of others has helped with the feelings of anxiety or those associated with it.

“It gives you a bit of worth, doesn’t it?  You feel a bit better in yourself. Get stuck in and actually doing something. And having some ideas and maybe putting them into motion.  Doing something rather than doing nothing.  Cos you find yourself in a rut doing nothing and the more you don’t do anything the more you get stuck in that rut. Just getting up and going out and doing something with yourself, even if it’s just a cup of coffee and a chat.”  

“I also think you can be your own worst enemy sometimes.  You can go to things and just think.  I don’t think they like me.  I don’t fit in.  Where probably, you did, or it might just take a bit more of an effort.  I think sometimes our own anxiety, our own paranoia, stops us from doing things.”

“I used to take anxiety tablets  and I’ve not had to take them.  You know and I just feel like I’m getting better and better.  Small steps but it’s building and from rock bottom, and I’m so much better now than I have been for a long time.”

“Since I’ve joined this group, it’s just brilliant, it opens your eyes, you’re meeting people, you’re doing things and you know sometimes when you are just talking about things, it helps. I used to have panic attacks a lot, and I do suffer from anxiety, like a lot of people do, even coming out of the house.  Like before I joined here, I really didn’t have any friends.  So since I’ve been coming to these community things it’s just been fabulous. There is always someone to listen.  I do think it’s a good thing.  Get Britain talking.”

“The school system isn’t very good at the moment.  I think there should be more groups on at lunchtime where people can go to to make friends.  I’m struggling to make friends at the moment and I don’t like getting involved and trying to say hi to people.  Cos, a lot of my old friends left me.  And, I felt like everyone would reject me.  I think more people need a little bit of a push, so if people made more groups at lunchtime, loads of different lunchtime groups, and everyone has to go to one a week then we’d make more friends.”

“Without trying to work out why, I always feel better when I get back to my flat after I’ve been here. You feel better and you’re not quite sure why you feel better. Whenever I’ve left here, no matter what the conversation has been I’ve always felt better when I’ve got back to my flat. That feeling always lasts. You’re not quite as stressed.” 

I’m particularly struck by the last quote, and the ‘without trying to work out why’ statement.  I feel that speaks volumes about the way in which community heals. Some things are best left unsaid, until they’ve passed. We hear that a lot, people talking about how they used to feel worse, as if it’s shrunk enough to be able to articulate. When I hear this I get the sense that the open, social, multi generational peer groups offer a kind of silent hand holding through the worst parts, and are there to listen when the seas are a little calmer and you know the boat wont capsize if you talk about it. There can be such patience and wise knowing in community.