"We can be surrounded by many people and still feel lonely." What is loneliness? It doesn’t necessarily mean we are alone. It is a sense of feeling alone. As the quote states you can feel lonely surrounded by many people. Being in the same room as people isn’t the same as feeling connected. In fact, it can often make us feel more alone if we don’t feel connected to the people around us. Most of us will go through stages in our life where we feel lonely. Feeling vulnerable and lonely is part of the human condition. Even though the world is now more connected than ever before, people are feeling increased loneliness. In fact, the trend to communicate via social media can magnify our feelings of loneliness and low self-esteem, ‘I’m not getting enough likes on my posts’, ‘I’m not having as much fun as they are.’ Loneliness can be caused by depression, social anxiety or it can activate ‘childhood abandonment issues.’ All of these conditions can lead us to feel ‘not good enough’, ‘not liked enough’, and ‘that there is something wrong with us.’ It is often stated that staying socially connected is one of the main factors of maintaining our resilience, but we all have times where we actually want to spend time alone and may feel socially exhausted. Especially after a busy period of socialising. I often hear that one of the main factors of stress for staff in organisations is feeling ‘not being heard or listened to’. We all want to be understood, and have our concerns taken seriously. Being understood takes connection that requires time and commitment from others. In a highly stressed organisation time is precious and not often provided in the way that is necessary for staff to feel heard. Feeling understood helps us to feel more connected, supported and less isolated. Often confronting loneliness means confronting ourselves, as loneliness comes from a sense of low self-worth. If we are socialising and continue to feel lonely, this would suggest that the loneliness isn’t based on the fact we are alone, but it is based on how we perceive ourselves. Loneliness can affect all of us, from the extrovert through to the introvert. Some people will try to guise their loneliness by being out all the time or partying hard, sometimes resulting in taking drugs or drinking excessive amounts of alcohol, to drown out the feelings of loneliness. The ‘life and soul of the party’ may be creating constant noise around them to drown out the negative berating thoughts they have about themselves. Additionally, some people have a fear of being alone, as they are left with these berating thoughts and the uncomfortable feelings that come up to the surface. Therefore, being constantly busy can be a way of avoiding being alone. People may remove themselves from social settings because they are going through a tough time and don’t know how to talk about it. Has something happened to cause you a great deal of stress? Some people who have experienced a traumatic incident often describe feeling disconnected, as if the world is going on around them and they are just onlookers. Another contributing factor of loneliness is moving to a new area, going through a divorce, or suffering from the death of someone close to us. For others, the people they expect to be there for them aren’t, and this can exacerbate feelings of loneliness, ‘if my own family won’t make time for me, then who will?’ We might find that we are trying to connect to people that won’t be there for us, instead of noticing and spending time with those that are there for us, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, by convincing ourselves that there is something wrong with us. Feeling isolated and lonely can lead to more serious self-harming behaviours and thoughts. Watch out for anyone who is becoming disconnected or isn’t showing up at social events. Check-in with them and signpost them to professional services if they are really struggling. Signs of loneliness:
The best way to deal with uncomfortable feelings is to stop and listen to them. What are they informing me? What advice would they want to give me? Why are they here right now? 10 ways to manage feelings of loneliness:
Connectedness makes our lives more interesting and is vital for our survival, at the same time we need to give ourselves permission to stop, spend time alone, reflect and prioritise our own self-care. Often when we come out of a period of loneliness, we have a renewed energy to connect to others, so be kind to yourself and reassure yourself this will pass. Reframe being alone as a period of rejuvenation and reflection, so you can turn the fear of being alone into a period of transition and empowerment. For organisations looking for employee psychological support, FD Consultants are the trauma specialists and well-being service who will best deliver a reliable, quick, and bespoke support system in the workplace. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly.
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Molly and the Two Pigeons is a short story for upper primary and lower secondary school children to teach them about Coronavirus in a fun and light-hearted way, and records a significant period of time in history. It could also be used as a teaching tool for parents or teachers. A loveable puppy called Molly forms a friendship with two racing pigeons, Destiny and Grace, who live in a wooden hut in the adjacent garden. Grace is kind-hearted and takes a liking to Molly, Destiny is arrogant and is known as the fastest pigeon in the South, proven by his collection of medals. Their circle of friends expands to include Marv the wise Mandarin Duck, Flash Gordon the Goose, and Merlin the Mosquito. This strange group of friends become united through one cause, to find a cure for the Coronavirus and help the people. Their adventures take them far and wide. They travel to China and learn about the origins of Coronavirus. They explore the Yangtze River, where they learn about the legend of the mountain peaks. They head to South Korea, where they learn about "Track and Trace" to prevent the spread of the virus. They also visit Oxford, England, where they explore how a vaccine is made. Their trip to Oxford coincides with a visit from Prince William, who Molly takes a great liking to and manages to get a royal stroke from. Proceeds will be gifted to a charity to support the NHS and all those needing additional support from the impact of Coronavirus. Download the first chapter of the audiobook for free - click here Get your copies today, available in print and audiobook At FD Consultants we specialise in supporting anyone who has been impacted by trauma through work or personal circumstances, whether directly or indirectly. If you work as an emergency first responder, for a mental health charity, or in the humanitarian sector then becoming trauma informed is crucial. To become trauma informed is also vital for lawyers, teachers, medical personnel, therapists, and anyone who works in a caring role and is supporting individuals who may be traumatised. Whether you have personally been impacted by a traumatic event or you are supporting a loved one through trauma, we need to increase our knowledge of the impact of trauma. We need to be able to recognise the signs of trauma, identify distressing triggers, understand the physiology and neuroscience of trauma, and be confident in having tools to support someone who is traumatised. We need to understand the ‘Many Faces of Trauma’, such as, developmental trauma, vicarious trauma, delayed trauma, inter-generational trauma, traumatic grief, PTSD and C-PTSD. At FD Consultants we have had many tech companies reaching out to us for support over the last year. The high-profile case where staff sued Facebook for suffering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), after viewing traumatic material online, has thrown into the limelight the impact of Vicarious trauma. Vicarious trauma, also sometimes referred to as secondary trauma, is the indirect impact of trauma, such as researching traumatic material, listening to stories, interviewing those who have been impacted by trauma, or exposure to traumatic material online. Does you work expose you to traumatic material? Are you experiencing trauma symptoms? Have you been personally impacted by a traumatic event? Do you want to help others who have been injured by the psychological impact of trauma? Do you want to become trauma informed? If you answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then sign up for our half day ‘Many Faces of Trauma’ workshops. We are offering three more dates this year: Thursday 7th October, Friday 19th Nov, Tuesday 14th Dec 2021 To book your place on one of the courses please click here: https://rebrand.ly/TraumaWorkshop “I have suffered from PTSD and this course has provided me with the tools and knowledge that I have been desperately in need of to support myself better.” We can also organise half day ‘Trauma Awareness’ workshops for organisation. If you feel your team or organisation would benefit from this workshop, then email us directly on: [email protected]. “This course is so interesting, and I now understand trauma so much more and feel confident in supporting traumatised individuals.” With the recent news that Facebook has agreed to pay £42m to content moderators as compensation for mental health issues developed on the job, it highlights the significant increase in staff being exposed to traumatic material via social media. In 2018, a group of US moderators hired by third-party companies to review content sued Facebook for failing to create a safe work environment. The moderators alleged that reviewing violent and graphic images - sometimes of rape and suicide - for the social network had led to them developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Untreated PTSD can cause permanent damage to the brain due to the person living in a hyper-aroused state. The effects of PTSD can cause someone to put him/herself in danger or even endanger others including his/her family members. Misdiagnosed or untreated PTSD is commonly associated with substance abuse. Drugs or alcohol can act as a coping mechanism, provide a temporary escape or chance to get away or relieve physical and psychological pain. The misuse of alcohol or drugs can lead to a number of other complications in a life already complicated by PTSD. Alcohol and drug use only serve as a temporary solution. Once the substance wears off, a person will be in the same position or a worse one than before. One of the most popular workshops we offer at FD Consultants is our trademark Trauma and Vicarious Trauma awareness workshop for individuals and organisations. The training enables individuals to identify trauma symptoms, triggers, and have resources to process traumatic material. As a preventative training it helps to build a healthy organisational culture, with wellbeing at its heart, ensuring staff are working in a psychologically safe and compassionate work environment. Managers also feel confident to recognise the risk of trauma and help or signpost staff to the most appropriate support. We have seen an increase in demand for these workshops from Journalists, IT Companies, Artificial Intelligence Organisations, Mental Health charities and the Humanitarian Sector where teams are identified as in ‘high risk roles’ likely to be exposed to traumatic material directly or indirectly. FD Consultants are trained in the recommended (WHO, APA and NICE) treatments of trauma and PTSD which are Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT). Please do contact us at [email protected] if you require our psychological support services. For organisations looking for employee psychological support, FD Consultants are the trauma specialists and well-being service who will best deliver a reliable, quick, and bespoke support system in the workplace. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. A recent study published by PLOS ONE and carried out by a number of esteemed psychologists has found that Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) appeared to be the most cost effective intervention for adults with PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a severe and disabling condition that may lead to functional impairment and reduced productivity. A considerable proportion of people exposed to trauma, around 5.6%, will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [1]. For staff in the Humanitarian sector and emergency first responders research has suggested PTSD is as high as 30%. EMDR: how does it work? Francine Shapiro, PhD, Senior Research Fellow at the Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto, California and Executive Director of the EMDR Institute, California, is the ‘originator and developer’ of EMDR. Since then, EMDR has been adapted and reworked based on the research and contributions of therapists and researchers the world over. Initially used as a treatment with Vietnam veterans who weren’t recovering, it has since proven successful in treating various other presentations, including anxiety, phobias, addictions, depression, complicated grief, abuse and performance anxiety. The unique feature in EMDR therapy is that it uses bilateral stimulation (BLS) whilst processing the distressing memory. BLS can be conducted by following the therapist’s hand as it moves from left to right, watching a light bar, or tapping. The same can also be achieved through listening to alternating bilateral tones or holding buzzers. The BLS alleviates negative cognitions, negative emotion and unpleasant physical sensations associated with a traumatic or distressing memory. An important concept of EMDR is the ‘Adaptive Information Processing (AIP)’ theory. This means the client begins to reformulate and update dysfunctional self-beliefs and replaces them with positive self-reflecting beliefs. Therefore, EMDR promotes our innate healing process and reformats dysfunctional information to functional, so that it becomes adaptive information processing. ‘Just as the river flows to the sea and the body heals the wound, EMDR clears the trauma and brings integration and wholeness’ (Parnell, 2007, p. 6). In discussing EMDR, Professor Gordon Turnbull states: ‘Therapists and patients were reporting that problems that had been resistant to years of psychotherapy were being resolved in a very short amount of time – sometimes within a few sessions’ (Turnbull, 2011). In my experience of working within the field of trauma for over 15 years I have never witnessed such a powerful and successful way of working with traumatised and anxious clients: ‘EMDR works effectively and helps the client return to work quickly and safely after a traumatic event’ (Dunkley & Claridge, 2012). FD Consultants are trained in the recommended (WHO, APA and NICE) treatments of trauma and PTSD which are Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TF-CBT). We have worked extensively with emergency first responders and aid workers globally to combat PTSD and vicarious trauma. All associates have over 10 years’ experience in the profession, are highly skilled, and qualified to meet the requirements to work for FD Consultants. We can offer appointments and training in various languages. Associates have experience of working with the humanitarian sector, emergency first responders and mental health charities. They have worked or lived internationally, facilitate training, and have trauma expertise; making them perfectly placed to support a broad cross-section of society and organisations. Please do contact us at [email protected] if you require our psychological support services. For organisations looking for employee psychological support, FD Consultants are the trauma specialists and well-being service who will best deliver a reliable, quick, and bespoke support system in the workplace. FD Consultant’s team of accredited specialists will offer ongoing support to help manage stress, prevent burnout and provide specialist trauma care where required, enabling your staff with the tools to cope, and recover more quickly. References 1. Koenen KC, Ratanatharathorn A, Ng L, McLaughlin KA, Bromet EJ, Stein DJ, et al. Posttraumatic stress disorder in the World Mental Health Surveys. Psychol Med. 2017; 47(13):2260–74. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291717000708 PMID: 28385165 |
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