Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[NikNik]

Missed the session? Watch it here

Or learn more about Penny's story -  

[CherryBomb]

Hi everyone, and welcome the SANE Forums if you are joining us from the Healthy Minds webinar. I'm @CherryBomb and was behind the scenes of the webinar, @suzanne is also joining us to continue to conversation. So please feel free to put forward any questions that you had that were unanswered in the webinar tonight. We can discuss them amongst each other. 

[suzanne]

Hi @CherryBomb, I'm here.  Were there many questions we couldn't get to from the webinar?

[CherryBomb]

Hi @suzanne, yes there were quite a few questions in the webinar that we couldn't get to because time ran short. Unfortunately, GoTo shut down so i can't access all of the questions. But one that I was hoping that we could address was: how can you find out what repite services are available?

[9350]

I think the webinar was a great concept. Keep up the great work

[CherryBomb]

That's good to hear @9350. If you got any questions left unaswered, please feel free to discuss these here. 

[Mazarita]

Hi @suzanne and @CherryBomb, thanks for the webinar. It's a good format. 

One question I asked that wasn't responded to related to the situation of people with mental health issues caring for each other. I ask this question as someone with bipolar living with someone who also has some mental health issues (undiagnosed). We care for each other in different ways. I'm also asking as a peer carer on the SANE Forum, something I've struggled to engage with for some time due to becoming too easily triggered by suicidal and self-harming posts. Do you have any advice about either of these situations?

[suzanne]

Great question @CherryBomb. It's a valuable service that I don't think is accessed enough.  There are Commonwealth Respite and Carelink Centres which can help you work out what services you can access and what's available locally.  You can find your nearest service by ringing 1800 052 222 during business hours.

(Sorry about all this bold font.  Can't seem to turn it off 🙂

[leitor]

I didn't get the promised survey at the end of the webinar - it just closed down abruptly

[CherryBomb]

This is a great question @Mazarita. I think establishing boundaries here might be useful here. By this, I mean, knowing what your limits, and knowing that these limits may change depending on where you're at with your mental health. This might involve a constant check-in with yourself to determine where you're at and how much you can take on and offer your parnter as a carer and visversa for your partner. Limits aren't static and change so it's important that you communicate openly and consistently with your partner about where both of you are at, what your needs are at a given point and how you can both work together to support each other. 

@leitor yes, it also closed down unexpectedly for me too, but for others it worked. We're going to try and organise getting another survey organised for people who missed out. Stay tuned and I will post a link soon.