Book Review: Me and My Mate Jeffrey By Bressie

Hey everyone!

I had some time to kill at the airport before catching my flight back to England after the Christmas break nearly three weeks ago, and I wanted to buy something to read on the plane to distract myself from my fear of flying and also to keep me company on what would be a long journey back to my student house in Cumbria. I don't have any interest in celebrity gossip magazines (I could not care less about what Kimmy K is doing, celebrity culture doesn't interest me in the slightest!) and I decided I didn't want to make my post-Christmas blues even worse by reading the offers on the Ryanair magazine. Needless to say I didn't want to whip out my university books on ethics that were stuffed in my bag either! So I ended up buying a book.

This book, Me and My Mate Jeffrey, is by Niall Breslin or 'Bressie'. In Ireland, he would be somewhat of a household name. He was in a band and also gained admirable success as a solo musician, and is a coach on the Irish version of The Voice. He is also a mental health advocate. I have often heard him giving interviews speaking about his own personal experiences with mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression. Just earlier today, he gave a passionate speech to members of the Irish government about what needs to be done regarding mental illness in Ireland. Please do check out his speech HERE. 

In Ireland especially, mental health is still not adequetely addressed, and the negative attitudes that surround the issue are quite harsh, despite the fact that one in four people will suffer from a mental illness at any stage of their life. Any sign of a mental illness leads to an individual being labelled as "weak", "crazy", or a typical Irish phrase of "away with the fairies" (that is: crazy). Another issue is this whole mental issue thing will "go away". If someone were diagnosed with a serious physical illness like cancer, would anyone say to them, "it'll go away" and "you're just imagining it" or you "need to cheer up". I think not. Then why are people who are diagonosed with a serious mental illness being told them things? It's something that infuriates me so so much you would not believe. It's these kind of attitudes that only lead to bright, intelligent individuals such as Bressie suffering in silence, and for a population of just over four million, Ireland has the highest female suicides and the second highest male suicides in Europe. Pretty scary statistics when you think about it.

This book provides a more in-depth detailed look at Bressie's own personal experiences with anxiety and depression (Jeffrey is the name he gave to his illness) from his childhood experiences of living in war-torn Lebenon (his father was in the Irish army, whose role is peace-keeping), to his teenage days where he struggled to catch his breath, to his time playing rubgy for his university and his province (Leinster), to his music career in a band, solo and as a judge on the Voice. The book is extremely revealing, making sure you really get to know Bressie as a person throughout the book. It's no Oscar Wilde literary classic, but I think that only adds to its appeal; it is written in a way that makes it easy for all readers to understand, as well as adding some good old Irish humour along the way. He spoke with refreshing honesty of how his mental illness problems had affected his relationships, friendships, career. Honestly, I found myself really not being able to put it down; I read it on the flight to Liverpool and then on the train up to Carlisle, and started reading it again when I arrived in Carlisle, so I finished the 308-page book in just a few hours! Obviously though, given the issue, it's not an easy read and there were a few times while reading it on the train that I welled up.

I feel like in penning this book, Bressie has done more for mental health in Ireland than all the politicians put together, offering some hope to those who are in a dark place in their lives. He even offers some practical solutions on what worked well for his recovery, such as exercising and eating healthily. I had a lot of respect for him previous to reading this book, as like I said I have seen his interviews discussing his problems before, but I have even more respect for him now (if that's even possible). It's never easy to talk about what intense problems you may be facing, we all know that. As it's been a while since I did a book review, and as I felt that the book might help others, I decided to do a quick blog post about it.

Thanks for reading guys x

• For those of you who live in Ireland, this book is widely avaliable in all good bookshops.

• If you live in the UK and are interested in checking this book out, it is avaliable on Amazon.co.uk HERE.

Lifestyle - May is Mental Health Awareness Month!

Rewind back to this time last year when I was in my final year of college. I had just handed in my dissertation on the Attitudes and Knowledge of students in my college to Mental Health and Mental Illness and was feeling disappointed by the predominately negative attitudes to mental illness among the student population.
I wanted to do something to lower the negative attitudes around the issue as some people seem to forget that we all have a mental health, and it it needs to be nourished and looked just as well - if not more - than the physical health, and it was then I got in touch with an Irish organisation called See Change. They are a national charity who work hard to raise awareness of mental illness as it is the belief that the more people know about the issue, the less frequent these negative attitudes and opinions will occur, and frustratingly enough, receive little funding whatsoever by the Irish government (because, like I've mentioned, Mental Illness is just not thought of as the same way as physical illness even though 1 in 4 people will suffer with a mental illness at some stage in their lives). They rely on volunteers completely, so I went along to their training day in Sligo which taught us how to start a conversation with people about mental health and openly discussing it.

May is Mental Health Awareness month, so it means it's a huge month for See Change's campaign to promote open discussion of mental health. Throughout the month, hundreds of local and national events will take place as part of the Green Ribbon campaign. This social movement, in it's third consecutive year, is led by partner organisations plus volunteers who attend training days like I have mentioned above. Many of the volunteers who attend training days also have some real-life experience of mental health problems ready to share their own stories to help others and end the stigma that surrounds the issue.

You can support See Change's stigma-reduction campaign by picking up your green ribbon at major Irish rail stations at at every Citizens Information Centre and MABS office nationwide throughout the month, and by taking part in National Time To Talk Day on Friday May 15th by simply making the time and space for a conversation about mental health with friends, family and collegues. See Change have set themselves the goal of having over 500 social media users similtaneously posting about the Green Ribbon campaign on May 15th, for more information please see here:
https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/25702-national-timetotalk-day-2015. 

Other ways to support the initiative:

• Wear the Green Ribbon on your Twitter or Facebook (or both if you have both!) profile picture in 3 super simple clicks (like I have done on the right!). To do this: please click HERE.
• Get a Green Ribbon banner to use as your business page Facebook cover page (download HERE).
• Get a Green Ribbon banner to use as your personal Facebook page cover photo (download HERE).
• Get the Green Ribbon email signature (download here, or if you're using Gmail, simply add this URL to your signature settings: http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/y350/SeeChangeSorcha/Email%20Banner%201_zpsc39xxpga.jpg​​​
• If you're a blogger like myself, add the green ribbon bloggers badge to your blog (download HERE).

We often hear that we need to talk more about mental health and the simple Green Ribbon provides a practical way of turning that into action. The 500,000 people who will be wearing Green Ribbons this May will not only be showing their support for the campaign but also leaving the door open for conversation. For someone who might be going through a tough time, just knowing that they don't have to avoid the subject with you can make all the difference. You don't need to be an expert to start talking about mental health or be expected to have and know all the answers. You can go to the volunteer training day like I did, but you don't have to. I just went purely because I wanted to find out interesting ways to spark the conversation among college students.
Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to let someone know you are there for them and simply listen! 

1.6 million conversations were started last year during Mental Health Awareness Month, so this year See Change are hoping there will be more, and with everyone's help it is possible!!

To find out more about See Change's inspiring work, please visit their website (www.seechange.ie) here.