Actually, You Really Are Important!

An important message to all our Members.

Our mental health can be a very fragile thing sometimes, can’t it?  And, in truth, even the seemingly smallest thing can impact it. Very often resulting in  an attack – whether from within or without – on our self-worth.  And the words, “Actually, you really are important.” can be words that sometimes we really need to hear in order to combat such attacks.  So I am very much saying those words to you now and I truly mean them.

Of course, mental health issues present themselves in different ways in different people.  For me personally, one of the ways that they present themselves is that things start to slip.  Almost always without being noticed until such times as something reaches a crisis or near crisis point and it is brought to my attention.

Years of experience have taught me that, when this happens, I then need to take stock and look at everything else to make sure other things aren’t in a bad order or even reaching the same point. And that is exactly where I was a couple of months ago.

In fact things had slipped to such a degree that, this time, the ‘recovery phase’ – a phase often comes after the ‘panic phase’ and a phase which I am far too familiar with – was going to take a long time.  Especially since the Christmas period is for me one which is usually very busy with other activities.

And, as I am sure so many of you can relate to, once you have realized that things have slipped that far and are thus facing a long and difficult ‘recovery phase’ that in itself can have an adverse effect on your mental health.

Maintaining this guild and this site (and all related emails etc) was – sadly- one of the things that I had let slip.  And for that I really do apologise.  Of course, and again I am sure many of you will understand, in terms of ‘panic rating’ it didn’t feature as highly as other things.  Things such as paying bills so as not to have essential services cut-off, sorting out finances, getting my meds straight again, etc. But it was and is still important to me.

As a result of this I have over the past day or two been trying to repair and get back up to date with guild related matters.  I have answered a whole plethora of emails. (I still have some to go so please be patient with me).  I have updated the guild logos for this year.  And I determined to work through all of the Member Blog links and bring them up to date.  As many of them were broken or linked to sites and blogs which were no longer being written.

In truth, I knew that this would be a long and sometimes difficult job – especially because my mental halth is still not great and additionally I am fighting some sor tof flu bug which is kicking my proverbial butt so to speak.

What I did not anticipate however, was my accidentally wiping all of the links on our Member Blogs page!

But I will not be defeated by this!

Thankfully I did keep a printout as a back up – just in case of such emergencies.  So all is not lost!

And I am therefore now in the process of entering all of the links back onto that page.

In terms of the process I have decided to enter all the names of the Member Blogs (as detailed on that back up) and then add the navigational links to them.  (So far I have got as far as the ‘Bs’ on that list).

So please be patient and please know that I am working on it. But as I am sure you can appreciate, it really is a very laborious task.

However, it is one well worth doing because as I said before – “Actually, you really are important!”

As I am working  through the list I am also checking the links and am removing any entries which are reporting as broken links or blogs/sites which no longer exist.  So, if your blog or website is listed on that page but you have recently changed your blog name or your blog address please could you email me to let me know.

Many thanks and my apologies again.

Kevin