Tag: brain

November 29, 2022

Stages of Suicide: How to Help Your Mind BOOK is now published.

STAGES OF SUICIDE: HOW TO HELP YOUR MIND

is now available to buy

CLICK HERE TO BUY

This guide is a short explanation of the six stages of suicide with practical activities to help you prepare and assist your mind in the event it becomes irrational and unsafe.

Roy Baumeister, a social psychologist described these stages that people experience prior to carrying out suicidal acts.

Included is a mind-monitoring tool to assist you in identifying if your mind is displaying signs of reacting within the various six stages. This tool provides actions you can do to support your mind. A link to a printable PDF of the tool is included.
At the end of this guide, you can find a list of help crisis hotlines for various countries.

My original article is independently described as a:

‘Very good report, written in a humanistic way. The observed stages of suicide are of serious scientific interest, i.e. can help in preventive terms’.

The more you understand how your thoughts and emotions respond in irrational ways the more you can transform your actions beyond the influence of an unhelpful mind to that of a supportive mind and live freely and fully.

If you are a therapist, this is a useful resource for your clients. It also is filled with illuminating content for those people curious about the irrationality of our minds and how to prevent that from interfering with our quality of life.

“Stages of Suicide is an excellent insight into the though patterns of those dealing with suicide. Each stage very well describes the kind of thoughts, behaviours and emotions one feels as their condition continues, which I found extremely accurate and relatable. As for someone who has experienced these stages second hand, this is an incredible tool that can help non-suicidal people understand what it is like to be suicidal which I believe is one of the most important things for dealing with suicide on the larger scale.

After each stage there is a ‘prepare your mind’ section which works as a helping hand/’what to do about this’ counterpart of the stage. I found this to be really useful in not only making the content a lot less daunting and overwhelming to take in, but the reader is reminded that regardless of what stage you find yourself or someone close to you in there is always a solution to help you get out of it, which is exactly how this book approaches the terror of suicidal ideation.

Moreover, the mind monitoring tool at the end seems incredibly useful to help the user understand their own thoughts and emotions as they go through stages as well as help to generate some rational thinking patterns.

Overall this is an extremely insightful and practical helping hand for those dealing with suicide. Definitely recommend this to anyone who are either going through it or know someone who is, this book can help!“

– Rhys Jones

Feel free to contact me below.

WILD: LIFE DEATH ECOUNTERS WITH WILD ANIMALS

Genre – Adventure Memoir.

CLICK HERE TO BUY.

An exert from this series of true adventure stories can be read free click below

CLICK HERE FOR ONE CHAPTER FREE

Reviews From Australia

cristobel

Wild Ride

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 18 October 2021

“It’s not often I find myself holding my breath as I read a book, however in the opening story of Wild: Life death encounters with wild animals, I was doing exactly that.

The shark encounter at Murramarang Beach raised those old fears which were embedded into everyone who watched the 1975 classic, Jaws. I watched that film as a child and was terrified for some time of the overcast days at the beach, when you couldn’t see what was under the surface. Even though I know Dr Myfawney Webb, and am familiar with many of her stories of an adventurous life, I was still riveted to the pages of my kindle as I followed her narrative of the shark encounter.

Myfawney has a knack for bringing you into her experiences, through the truth of the tales within this book and the authenticity of her voice.

It’s a real talent to be able to convey emotions such as desperation, fear, sadness and terror while staying true and real to her story.

Dr Webb has achieved this, and it was a real joy to see her stories brought to life with such passion.

I can highly recommend this book to any lovers of adventure, wildlife, Australian experiences and those who like to read a book perched on the edge of their seat.”

Helen Menzies

Journeys with Myf

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 17 October 2021

“It seems to happen in my life that I set out for an adventure and it’s dramatically rearranged by the gods into one of those deep priceless experiences.”
So says Dr Myf Webb in Life Death Encounters, and it’s no exaggeration. The book is a stirring tale of derring-do, told in an authentic down-to-earth no-fuss Australian voice.
“I … reflected on how I had somehow survived three direct active threats on my life by three very different types of animal, a Great White Shark, an Eastern Brown Snake and now a wild buffalo bull.”
To that list of adventures the spellbound reader can add spiders, wild horses, wild donkeys, beached whales, the hunt for secretive possums as part of her doctorate work, and being thrown from her horse when it was attacked by a bull-Arab hunting dog intent on murder.
Phew.
Most of these stories were written by Mfy Webb during her year-long treatment for cancer. In a lifetime of challenges this was yet another to overcome. The details of that adventure are yet to be published, but readers of Life Death Encounters will know to anticipate another inspiring journey of curiosity and courage.”

menace aforethought

Wild by Nature

Reviewed in Australia 🇦🇺 on 3 October 2021

“It’s wonderful to see these works collected into a book. These are stories not just of the wild, but of the inner being, how we tread our path through the world, how we learn about ourselves and how to become a fully engaged person through challenges that we sometimes seek and which are sometimes thrown at us by life.
The stories not only surprise with the breadth of Myf’s experience from her work as a mammal specialist, travelling and living in remote Australia, but also in her love of animals and the wilderness in general. She takes on an immersing ride surfing, fascinated by a shark attack until the reality of the risk finally hits home. ‘This is the first time in my life I have completely and absolutely maxed out on exerting my body physically.’ We are there with her, feeling that intense moment, the stress of trying to get back to shore when there are no waves to help and splashing could be the worst possible idea! Fortunately, this is followed by ‘White and pure EUPHORIA’, and she is safe on the shore. But danger was never far behind her in the bush while she studied mammals, or even when she was young, and being confronted with angry brown snakes as well as death adders, yet that didn’t seem to faze her. Although she has learnt to respect the angry brown snake a little more over time. I remember going out with her and her reptile specialist husband, Johnno, on one of his field trips to collect death adders near Darwin. My partner John and I were in the back of the ute as he drove along a road between rice fields where he would jump out from time to time and bag one, only to toss it in the back with us! One thing I learned from our early time living in the upstairs flat from them in Glebe, where they were breeding Funnel web spiders to feed his study animals – death adders – life was never dull around Myf! A photo of her in the book, smiling while a python winds itself around her neck is a classic!
Whale rescues and her surprise at the bond she formed with one, her hundreds of efforts trying to trap wild Rock-ringtail possums in Kakadu, and I know she had to wear beekeepers kit at least at times to protect her from swarms of killer mosquitos, lost in the Kimberly among ‘dodgy mineshafts’ with a ‘team of blokes’, ‘waking up in the morning, la de la de la, walking down the sandy creek bed,’ and being confronted by a wild buffalo, one of the most dangerous animals you can encounter in the bush, the scientist in her even taking in that he pawed the ground with his left foot, so perhaps one part of the 7% of ‘left-handed’ creatures! How she escaped this situation is classic. She came off less well when her horse she was riding was attacked by a dog, ending in a 15-kilometre trek with a broken arm and a one-handed drive to hospital!
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
This quote from Alice in Wonderland seems particularly apt when I think of how Myf has crashed her way through life to contribute enormously to our understanding of the natural world, and perhaps this is how people have to be to do this work. So, it is not surprising that she has fought cancer with the same chutzpah, and now has given the world a wonderful collection of stories from her adventures to inspire new generations to get out there and go for it!”

October 19, 2018

Synaesthesia… syna what? A merging of my senses

It might sound airy fairy to you but this ‘merging of the senses’ is as solid in me as the pain felt from stubbing my pinky toe on the unforgiving steel plant stand in my kitchen. I thought everyone experienced what I do and it shocked me when I realized the truth. I always assumed we are all the same especially when my brother described the pain he felt one day in his side as green. It turns out he’s not synaesthesic. None of my family is. It’s supposed to be hereditary though. I’ve never met anyone who is either. Not that I bring it up much, mainly because no one EVER knows what I’m talking about so there’s no chance I’ll get anything out of the interaction, so I don’t bother. There was one time I did mention it and I was slammed as a liar. That was at a friends’ big birthday bash down at the surf club a few years back. A bunch of us were talking near the bar and I was explaining it to them and this one know it all woman, yes you know the type, goes “I don’t believe in it” like I was trying to convert her to some zealous religious sect or something. I couldn’t care less about her rebuttal but her response made me realize that I probably sounded like a lunatic. So here I am telling you about it. You can take it or leave it too of course. I won’t hold it against you if you conclude I’m a looney tune if that suits you. I’m okay with that.

Synaesthesia n. sensation produced in part of the body by stimulus elsewhere; production of mental sense-impression by stimulation of another sense.

That’s the definition of synaesthesia from my 1988 Concise Oxford Dictionary. When I hear sounds, I see in my mind’s eye shapes and colours. These shapes and forms and images change as the components of the sound changes. I love listening to techno music with synth sounds because they give me these fluid smooth and soothing patterns and lines that flow into each other. I haven’t taken LSD but I’d imagine what I ‘see’ is a slightly more restrained form of that sort of drug-induced, colourful and expansive trip. Lucky aren’t I, getting free trips all the time. Ying and yang though, loud piercing sounds give me harsh shapes and snapping sharp colours. One thing I’d really hate is to live next to a noisy traffic intersection with all the hideous patterns and forms that go with that type of constant audio stimuli.

Some people remember faces and or names, I remember voices. Each person’s way of speaking is unique and has its own indelible and unchangeable signature. Some voices I love, some just annoy the absolute hell out of me thanks to their particular set of squiggles and lines. I hear some people talk and I think, how can anyone be married to that? Luckily, I have a reliable audio memory that balances out the fact that I cannot remember people’s faces or names. In fact names can become a problem because of my synaesthesia due to what colour hair and complexion they have. How this works, or rather, doesn’t work is, when I think of or see letters in the alphabet, I see a colour with each letter. Each letter has its own unchanging fixed shade. Together, a bunch of letters form a word and that word I see as a whole colour, usually with the colour I see matching closely the first capital letter. Where it becomes confusing for me is if I meet someone or know someone who is say blonde haired and pale with a name spelt Katherine not Catherine with a C. To me, Katherine should be someone darker and brunette because K is dark blue in the word Katherine and Catherine should have an overall paler face because C to me is cream. Mix them up and I’m stuffed.

Right now, I am listening to the neighbour’s lawn being mown and it looks roughly like this; …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. . As you can see, no rocks or sticks on their grass and no backfires, a dark subdued brown in colour running along a similar toned background, small dashes and not too bright because it is in the distance, low in pitch and not right outside my door. If it were closer and louder and running over rubble, the line would be jagged, thicker, sharper edged and brighter and depending on pitch, lighter or darker plus a different colour. The background would also most likely be more contrasty like a pale one that makes the darker pattern more sharp and defined. Yukky in other words.

What I do like about what I see is it is way more accurate than other facets of my memory and I can trust it. The other night I heard one of the distinctive calls of a Yellow-bellied glider. I saw an image of something akin to a question mark with the vertical base line forming a twisting, almost spiraling pattern at the end of the call. Listening to the call from an app, gave me an almost identical image. Other possum calls from other species, (of which I have studied as part of my PhD, Scent marking and vocal communication in the rock-haunting possum Petropseudes dahli 2004), are completely different and give me their own specific signature imagery.

Although what I experience can be a kind of painful intrusion sometimes, at least it’s not as painful as my repeated stubbing of my little toe in the kitchen. I also have to be happy that my synaesthesia sight is as accurate as any photograph and it is more detailed than flat photos as I usually see 3D imagery like a hologram. Oh and it’s free for me.

***** *** *****

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May 11, 2018

Story 1 How my ancestors gave me strength – Sourcing Strength 2 min read

Last month I knew I had to do something. May 1^st was on its way. That day I would be doing something I truly feared. The fear is from not knowing if I am doing the right thing. I knew that if I went through with it then I alone would be responsible for the consequences. If I choose this I would allow my body and brain to cop a heavy hit of cell-destroying drugs. These drugs have a low probability of working on my rare subtype of breast cancer but maybe, just maybe they will save my life. The drugs may have irreversible side effects including serious cognitive impairment. This scares me the most. I know that these drugs may prevent secondary cancer that I may not even have right now, or later on in the future. I feel like there is nothing rogue left in me. No bad cells anywhere. Do I put my body through this and come out the other side a zombie? Or do I not go through with it and maybe regret my decision because I die young from a cancer that spread? So this is the fear.

I cannot reconcile my fear in my head. Usually I am good at doing that but for this I can’t, not yet. I needed something additional to give me some strength. Already I have been overwhelmed by support from friends, family, acquaintances and strangers but I am greedy. I reached beyond the living to the dead. I gathered up strength from my ancestors to go through the third nasty infusion of chemotherapy drugs. Two weeks before the horrible day, I asked my mum for her father’s old Masonic ring. The next week she gave it me.

I never knew this man but everyone is strong in their way and that’s what I wanted from him, a little piece of his strength.

Same goes for my other ancestors. I wished to suck up some of their strength.

On May 1^st 2018, I dressed and slipped onto my fingers, my grandfather’s ring from my mum’s side of the family and my grandmother’s ring from my dad’s side who, with her husband I never knew. I wore my wedding ring and gained my husband’s strength and I wore a ring from his grandmother who I was very close to. I also wore a ring I had made at school for myself to remind me not to forget my own inner strength. None of these rings are full of jewels and they are not valuable in terms of money but to me they are priceless. To touch and handle items my ancestors wore, particularly those I never met, helps makes these people real and tangible to me.

As I settled into the passenger seat of mum’s car to go to the hospital, mum presented me with her mother’s beautiful Dux award from school. She told me she would wear this around her neck with a piece of string during exams for good luck. This took me by surprise. It made me feel complete. I loved my Nan and now I had something from her. I thanked mum and told her I didn’t need to wear jewelry she had given me because I had what was better and that is the real thing, her, by my side. I now had all my families with me now and I felt ready to face my fears.