SJ's COVID-19 diary: The last entry... for now

Throughout the pandemic, one of our clients has kept a diary and shared his entries with us. As his journey with Golden Key has come to an end, this is his final entry. 

At the time of writing this blog, we’ve been in our new version of lockdown for just over a week.  Although I should have expected these tighter restrictions, I’m finding them more difficult than I expected.

I’m reminded of the first lockdown in March and to me, it feels like we’ve gone back to last Easter.  I guess a lot of us are feeling this way. But in terms of my recovery, it is not a time I wish to revisit.  However, there is a big difference for me: I’ve moved house and have my most stable living situation in many years. 

Whilst I haven’t lived on the streets, chaos and unstable living can still occur when you are living with a roof over your head.  Sharing your accommodation with people you don’t know before you move in, because you cannot afford to live alone, leaves you open to chaotic environments. You can end up in a house where using or drinking is expected or you are pressured and manipulated to continue to use or drink.  People can be extremely unpredictable when under the influence (myself included), my safety has in the past been compromised and I’ve compromised that of others too.  When you have sensory difficulties and the people you live with don’t understand, it can cause all sorts of problems. Ultimately this leads to mental health crises for me, and then I get kicked out of my accommodation and the cycle continues. 

Why is this so important?  Because if you don’t have somewhere safe to live, the cycle of using and mental health crisis and chaos is so difficult to break. It’s like trying to build a house on sand.  I’m very lucky that I’ve now been able to move, but I wish there was more understanding from society, mental health services and services in general that having a house does not necessarily mean having a Home. Somewhere you feel is secure, safe, you can be yourself and doesn’t put your recovery journey in jeopardy.  How much more important has this become in this pandemic, when we are spending more time at home than ever?

This is my last blog for Golden Key, as I’ve come to the end of my work with my Golden Key Worker.  Golden Key has given me so many things, far too many to list here comprehensively.  Most importantly, they didn’t shut the door when many others had. In fact they opened it wide and said: “How can we help?”

I wasn’t ‘too complex’ for Golden Key. “Too complex” is often a polite way for people/services to say “too difficult to deal with”, or another way of saying “you are engaged with too many services and we’re not quite sure where to start, so we will just pass you back to the service who referred you to us”.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Golden Key challenged a negative and damaging narrative; I no longer believe that I am simply an inconvenience and drain on those around me and the NHS.  I have skills, I have abilities to manage things in my life. Yes, I have struggles and challenges but, I can manage these myself a lot of the time. I now have some tools and techniques to confront life. 

I hope that whoever you are, you find your voice (mine is writing apparently!), and thanks for reading.

The Golden Key team would like to thank SJ for his contribution to our blog this past year. We've found his entries hugely insightful and we hope you've enjoyed reading them as much as we did. We wish SJ all the best going forward.