The Crying Lightning

Sorry about the quality of some of the pictures. This is just a sample of some of the things that I’ve done; obviously some also need touching up! From left to right:

1. This is a page of positive affirmations - things for the reader to look at when their self esteem is low, and they forget all their great qualities.
2. A list of music, alphabetically to listen to when the reader is feeling down. It has a range of songs from upbeat, happy songs to lighten the mood, to slower and perhaps more meaningful songs that they could relate to.
3. These are reminder cards. I also have another pocket for safety cards. The reminder cards are printed from here, and the safety cards printed from here, filled out by me after talking to the reader about what they want put on, and then I laminate them so they can safely be carried around.
4. This is just one of the projects designed to stop self harm (this particular reader has been suffering from self harm in particular, so I thought it’d be appropriate to focus on that a little). I’ve also got the paperchain project in the book, and if there were any other projects I would probably include these.
5. A mood diary for the reader to fill out. They could also make their own. It’s a quick thing where they can rate their mood on a scale of 1-10, and then write the good and bad things from the day, as well as how they could improve tomorrow. It can be very helpful to keep a track of your emotions, especially if you’re in therapy.

This is just a prototype if you like, and I’m going to be producing the real thing (if I can get the funding for it) through online publishing, so that I won’t have to hand-write every single page. There are about 18-24 pages in the book, and it has quotes, coping strategies, reasons to recover, helpful resources and lots more. - Finola <3