Last Wednesday (11th Dec 19) as many of my friends know I done the filming telling my story about my life. Going through a brief childhood, homelessness and how my mental health affected that. Also, we discussed how the program I am currently in has changed my life since coming out of hospital 19 months ago and why now after over 20 years of homelessness what made things change for me. This was a little hard at times, but something that was a lot easier to do then I expected. I didn’t even have to have any extra medication whilst doing it, apart from my normal lunchtime dose and the dose I had in the morning upon arrival (which was a normal due dose anyway).
The guy that was doing the recording of the video when I had to take a break after the first period and gather my thoughts and have a smoke and just relax before we went on mentioned how already he had 5 moments that he was like “that is going in, that is going in”, I think in the industry they call them gold moments or something like that. And by the end after the afternoon when we finally finished the filming he mentioned how he had lost count as to the amounts of footage to use. But there was a lot. I do feel sorry for home though, as with where we were we had to stop and go several times due to noise in the background the overtook from me talking, even with the microphone hook up I had. Things like trucks and cars speeding by for the major thing. We would wait a few seconds, he would check the headset clearly and then we were off again. And now he has to edit it into snippets and also a full video (which he said would be around 45 to 60 minutes in length). I can’t wait to see the end results.
The thing with this is it was raw, unscripted and me just having a conversation talking to Rachel, so I was hardly ever looking directly into the camera. In the end, I had a message for my support workers and the Men’s program directly, which I insisted no matter what I wanted as the ending of my story to the film, which they agreed upon. This program that I am in and the workers don’t get the recognization they deserve for everything they do for us clients. There is a major difference in how the Men’s program is treated and viewed compared to that of the Woman’s and Youth programs. I can honestly say as well, without these workers and this program I would be in one of 2 places right now. I would either be dead (as according to the hospital and my Doctors) or I would be back laying in a park at night, mostly freezing and having constant anxiety attacks and many suicide attempts, same as before. This life is now getting close to being 2 years behind me and I have come way too damn far to turn back now. Which isn’t going to happen. I am going to keep getting stronger, I am going to keep pushing through till I get to where I want to be.
Now, onto some other things currently going on …
A few weeks back I met with a lady from the local Salvation Army to discuss an issue. And she put me down to get a Christmas Hamper from them this year, I pick that up at 11.30am today (Monday). Would be nice have a few little treats for over Christmas. And it will be nice to see what is in it. But anything will help for this time of year. If I remember, I will take a picture of it before I unpack and put it away. Only if I remember that is …
I am not really sure why, but my anxiety has been a little more chilled lately than it normally is. At this time of year, usually from the end of November right through Christmas is a really bad time for me. Thinking about all the years I have missed and everything I missed during my mid-teenage years. But this is the same as last year, at least I have a home to spend my Christmas Day at and I ain’t just sitting in a park or at the beach watching everyone play happy families. Something I didn’t have for most of my life.
But times, they are changing … And not just because we are a couple of weeks out from a new year, OMG 2020 has come so fast. But because of how things have changed for me directly,
Now my health, this is a lengthy topic at the moment with everything that is going on with this, so I am going to leave discussing that for now and I will write another post in the next day or two just about that. The longer a post is the more boring people get and they don’t end up finishing.
So I am going to leave it there for now. But on a final note, when I know when the video snippets and video is online in full I will let you know the links to view it. You might need your tissue boxes though, I have already been told it is a strong and powerful story. So stay tuned for that … This is me signing off for now …
