When I got the call to say that the college that I was working for as a Mental Health Lecturer was closing due to the pandemic I realised very quickly that I had a choice to make. 

 

You see, I work with the most wonderful souls who along the way have had their own struggles and trauma to deal with. I knew that unlike teaching Spanish or Italian, (which by the way I so couldn’t and have a great deal of respect for anyone who can!) I could not just walk away and think ok we can pick this up some time later in the year. I knew that actually as much as I had been needed before Covid, NOW was the time that I was really needed! 

So this is how Rainbow after the storm was born. It has been a step learning curve, creating an amazing team, learning skills online and on social media that I didn't even know where needed, I mean who would have that zoom was anything other than a great Fat Larry song. Hours of learning how to create videos on YouTube, daily live broadcasts with people who I had never met before but who soon became the friends who we could no longer see.  

 

We soon realised that being totally online, whilst at first brought its own set of interesting obstacles, it also allowed us to be able to communicate and reach people within the safety of their own homes. Safety is key when helping with matters of the mind, often the feelings of stress and anxiety have been caused from trauma both from recent and past events, any kind of change and a huge sense of feeling lost. Combine all of these things together and we had the perfect storm. We knew we had to change things and do it in a different way as now more than ever we where needed. 

 

There are many reasons for this from, standing (and new) social anxiety, depression, fear or very sadly old fashioned loneliness. Together we have created a group full of people who we may never have reached before, these are the people in many ways who need more support to build confidence and self-esteem even before we can consider getting through the door to one of our face to face classes. 

 

If we fast forward two years down the line after several lock downs, the wearing of many masks, months of uncertainty it now looks like the world is starting to look more normal than is has for a long time. This is however not necessarily the case when it comes to well being and mental health, to us this is where we now need to start the next part of our journey and a very much needed and important path this will be. 

 

See whilst for some the feeling of normality is something they are able to step into, we are finding more and more people need our help and the huge adjustments needed are now the part that have triggered huge reactions. We are dealing with so many people who have managed to 'cover' how they have been feeling, those feelings of fear, loss even terror are now starting to appear.