Here we can all be heard for a little while. Part 3

Lambyr

It's OK, Pyxis. I did quite stupidly manage to stress and upset myself yesterday so I'm gonna take a bit of a break for a bit until I get my anxiety under control and my head in a better place.

No need to worry.

Pyxis

Lambyr wrote: »

It's OK, Pyxis. I did quite stupidly manage to stress and upset myself yesterday so I'm gonna take a bit of a break for a bit until I get my anxiety under control and my head in a better place.

No need to worry.

Oh thanks, Lambyr! But please don't take a break! I really like your posts! They're very interesting and enlightening, but also, I feel you need to be here. :A

Would hate to think that you're feeling alone and sad.

Torry_Quine

Pyxis wrote: »

Oh thanks, Lambyr! But please don't take a break! I really like your posts! They're very interesting and enlightening, but also, I feel you need to be here. :A

Would hate to think that you're feeling alone and sad.

I agree. We're here to support you.

Pyxis

"Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing".
(University of Warwick)
Explore how poems, plays and novels can help us understand and cope with deep emotional strain.



This is a free FutureLearn online course, 6-week course to do in your own time, starting 5th September.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/literature?utm_source=FL_DB&utm_medium=crm&utm_campaign=15_06_2016_FL_newsletter&utm_content=text


Aspects covered include stress, trauma, heartbreak, bereavement, depression and bipolar, and ageing and dementia.
Eg:

Depression and Bipolar: The writer Rachel Kelly subtitles her memoir Black Rainbow “how words healed me – my journey through depression”. Which texts have people turned to during periods of depression, and why? What can we learn from literature about the links between bipolar disorder and creativity?

Torry_Quine

Pyxis I'm considering doing something to stimulate my brain. Are these courses something that would be appropriate.

Pyxis

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Pyxis I'm considering doing something to stimulate my brain. Are these courses something that would be appropriate.

Absolutely!

FutureLearn is a free online branch of the Open University, and is a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). That means you get people from all over the world doing the course at the same time as you!

The courses are all online, and there are no exams. There may be small online quizzes so that you can gather your thoughts on different sections of the course.

Once the course starts, you have access to the entire course, so you can do one module each week for the 6weeks, or more than one or less than one. When the course ends, you still have access to it, so you don't have to finish it 'on time'.
Some courses, including this one, have certificates of participation available, to prove you have done the course, useful if you want to use it as CPD or for some other reason. These certificates are chargeable, but you don't have to have one at all.

There are also discussion forums attached to each course, so that you can discuss aspects with others taking the course, and at intervals, there are also live online discussions with the tutors.

They aren't hard, and how much you do is entirely up to you. For example, they might give references for further reading for each section, but you don't have to do that.

The modules are well laid-out and are fairly user-friendly, although it may take a new person a couple of weeks to get used to them.

They are a good way to use your brain without any pressure or time constraints.


(I've also tried courses with an American MOOC system, EdX, and they were total rubbish. FutureLearn is infinitely superior).

Torry_Quine

I will have a look. I think it will help me to have something other than my humdrum life.

tea_lover

That course sounds fascinating.! I absolutely can't take on anymore at the moment (she says, facing the prospect of running an entire brownie meeting single handed this evening and trying to fit in music practice).... but it looks so interesting!

Pyxis

Yes! FutureLearn do run some super ones!

Sometimes they can give you the taste to do a full-length course, in more depth, so they are a very good toe-in-the-water to see if you like it!


They do a huge variety of subjects. My first one was an Introduction to Music Theory which I used as revision. Then there was another one I did, about language. And yet another one about Falls and why they occur.

So a huge variety, covering sciences, Maths, Humanities, Arts, everything!


This link gives you the total list.......... It's very long, but you can browse by category.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/upcoming?utm_source=FL_DB&utm_medium=crm&utm_campaign=15_06_2016_FL_newsletter

Lambyr

Pyxis wrote: »

Oh thanks, Lambyr! But please don't take a break! I really like your posts! They're very interesting and enlightening, but also, I feel you need to be here. :A

Would hate to think that you're feeling alone and sad.

Thank you, Pyxis. But the truth is that I know what I'm like when I'm like this, and what I'm like isn't very nice. I don't handle my condition very well and I'm inclined to start behaving... oddly.

I saw your link though. I'm not much of a poet but sometimes I dabble a little when I'm feeling down and I wrote this today. It's nothing amazing, just a 9-10-10-9 syllable structure, with a 2-4 rhyming scheme.

PENGUIN (it's a depressing poem)
I know not when I last truly slept,
for every night my mind's disturbed.
Spiteful fingers caress my brain.
In the darkness, my cries are unheard.

Nights bring promise of something new.
A chance to run from the day departed,
yet fear's cold grasp grips my weak body tight.
I cannot move from where I started.

To move forward would be some progress.
To cast aside the shackles of despair.
To embrace the future, to see some hope,
Awakening from endless nightmare.

But to sleep takes strength I do not have,
to silence the eternal drums of war,
ferociously beating without relent,
leaving both my mind and body sore.

Deprived of sleep I lie unsettled,
my weary eyes twitch, my tired muscles ache.
And without that sleep my nightmare goes on,
Left to weep 'til the coming daybreak.
END PENGUIN