Men's Health Awareness Month

November - or Movember - is Men's Health Awareness month which aims to raise awareness of men's mental health and suicide prevention, prostrate cancer and testicular cancer. In support of this we are featuring this story about Calum Kennedy who lives with Schizophrenia and works as a Peer Support Trainer in our Mental Health Integrated Network Team (MINT).

Calum's Story

When I first became unwell, I was studying Engineering full-time but found myself completely overwhelmed with no insight into how to support myself. It had gotten to the point of entering a full-blown crisis and needing to be detained under Section 136 to be hospitalized for 3 months. I had received a diagnosis of Schizophrenia as a teenager and never knew how serious to take it or what it meant for me as an individual. Being hospitalized made me realize the differences in my own cognition and perception of events. I was forced to become rather aware of my own inner world being so acutely unwell.

Without the permission to go outdoors, I was forced to turn inwards. I would have conversations with myself and try to ascertain and make sense of what my voice-hearing symptoms were trying to convey. To my own surprise, what at first seemed like an otherwise incoherent and chaotic mess seemed more like a series of abstractions and confusion I had to slowly put together to deal with previous traumas I had experienced in early childhood. What at first seemed like torture and tumult slowly turned into a form of catharsis and self-education of understanding what all of these experiences meant for me and how they had stayed with me in ways I wasn't initially aware of. It gave me space to practice self-compassion and inquiry where I had been too scared or unaware to do so before.

I would spend time interpreting my dreams. I would speak to the staff about all of the bizarre dreams and thought delusions I was having. Sometimes they would laugh, sometimes they would look at me with concern. In this way, I was trying to makeup for the fact I could no longer tamp down my emotions by intense exercise and was forced to begin to express myself and emote on the sensations and experiences I was going through. I would often have dreams about being trapped in a lighthouse on a remote island, with my only option of leaving being by descending further into the depths of the lighthouse into a cavern.

My journey to recovery

After I had received treatment by the staff at St. Martin's (a medium-secure unit in Kent where I studied), I was granted leave. I began to make an exercise regimen for myself as I worked with the psychologists, peers, OT's, and MH nurses. They explained to me that this sense of regiment and purpose would help combat the negative symptoms of my psychosis and would improve the uptake of my medication. I would run around the hospital grounds, waving to people driving in their cars in an effort to remember what it felt like being a part of wider society. It gave me mental focus to work towards, and a target for my recovery was to be well enough to be integrated back into society once more.

How exercise helped me

I would speak to the builders and estates team and ask if I could use old sandbags and carry them around as a workout. I explained I was an inpatient and was just looking for ways to keep my mind sharp. They jokingly started to refer to me as Rocky, and I began to think of myself as preparing for a fight against my own illness. I remember doing every form of physical exercise to keep myself busy. This was during the first wave of the pandemic, so everything was closed.

I would do yoga with the nursing staff and have basketball competitions with the HCA's and other inpatients. I tried to get into a headspace of channelling my nervous and primal energies towards skills I wanted to improve, like sports and reading, so that I could eventually go back to university.

Running was no longer an innocuous chore that I took part in passively. Each time I exerted myself, it became a minor rebellion against my woes and low mood. It became an expression of gratitude and appreciation for my health and a space to reflect on how disempowering and wretched it felt to be in a medium-secure ward with no permission to go outside of my own volition.

Supporting others with their Mental Health

My journey in West London NHS Trust began back in February of 2021, about 8 months after me being discharged from the hospital. During this time, feeling that I had nothing really to lose in trying to reinvent myself, I began to envision a life for myself where I would work each day and commit myself to something I was proud of. After I left the hospital, I was deeply inspired by the sense of camaraderie and commitment to a noble cause from all of the wonderful staff I met at St. Martin's. I knew from then on I wanted to be involved in a Mental Health team within the NHS, so I slowly started to plan how I would go about this and what I would need to do for myself to make sure I could remain well at work.

Joining the West London NHS Trust – Senior Peer Trainer

I considered myself incredibly fortunate to be working as a Peer Worker. My partner at the time had informed me of this role popping up under this new-style community transformation team (MINT) and that it was right up my alley, and I should apply immediately. I revelled at the idea, as I had been using services since a teenager. Growing up in Croydon, I had often felt services could do better to be more integrated into the community, so to use my lived experience in this setting sounded huge.

My time working within the Mental Health Integrated Network Teams (MINT) really broadened my horizons. I could understand with greater depth the reasoning behind clinical decisions and the pressures of working to deliver care to the community.

As a part of my recovery, this was vital. Incidentally, I could make peace with feelings of discontent I had been holding on to from prior experiences of using services and understand that despite our differing backgrounds and education, most of us are trying to operate in good faith and support those in need.

Wellbeing and Recovery College – Brentford Football Club Community Hub

There was a lot of opportunity to grow and develop myself, along with my career. It allowed me to make inroads within the Wellbeing & Recovery College and take part in workshops and course facilitation.

I now work there part-time while studying Psychology, and every day I learn something new that challenges my perspective and beliefs.

It's given me the space to hone my training skills as a Peer and to preach to others what has worked for me. Related to my own interests, I have been involved with the co-production and co-facilitation of courses such as Your Physical Wellbeing, Couch to 5K, and 4 Corners of Kew and Mindfulness, where I can espouse the benefits of what has worked for me.

It’s given me an appreciation of what it means to be human, and clear vision of the person I aspire to be.

Find out more about the variety of courses on offer at the Wellbeing and Recovery college here.

The courses are available to all residents aged 18+ living in the boroughs of Hounslow and Ealing.