HOPE is a new strategy

[hopeisastrategy]

G'day, Chris here,

I just joined the forum yesterday. I'm a 30 year old bloke who fishes, shoots, drinks and swears and have a pretty solid understanding of how life can crumble around us, often due to something well outside of our control. Difficult situations can lead us down dark roads and cloud our thoughts like a swarm of wasps stinging us from the inside out, then that cloud can seem to hang there like a never-ending storm inside us.

I grew up in country Victoria, the heart of the Goulburn Valley. I love the country life and although I have travelled and worked all over the place from Cairns to Darwin, Groote Eylandt to Marysville and loads of places in-between... I still rate our Goulburn Valley as the best place I've ever lived in.

I now work at in a HOPE department (Hospital Outreach Post-suicide Engagement). I'm a lived experience employee with extensive experience in construction, agriculture, retail and ran my own business that went broke due to COVID-19. So I'm no psychologist, I'm definitely not a doctor (but I'll have a look at it for ya) and I really don't have the clinical expertise that a nurse has. What I DO HAVE is a very unique set of people skills. I can pull ticks, re-wire your house and strip/fit and patch a 30.5/32 Wagon tyre in under half an hour and have good yarn about the local fishing holes while I'm doing it.

There's been incredible bumps in my journey, both marvellous and miserable. In Feb 2012 My grandfather had an accident where he damaged his spinal cord. Weeks after his surgery when he had woken and stabilised we had to have the toughest chat of my life. He couldn't breathe without the help of the machines, and he could only move one arm a little bit. So before the Doctor filled him with Morphine and Propofol, we had to look him in the eye and say goodbye. Time is still healing that wound but the old bloke wouldn't have had it any other way. I've been a heavy drug user, I've lived in flash high rise apartments, farm houses, pubs and meth-dens.

Now I am just here to help. I look forward to this journey and I want to do it together. Cheers fellas.

[Guest_4643]

Hey amberlite, I think it's a Jellyfish

[amberlite]

Well Done And Thankyou MB, I thought it was a berocca tablet hitting the water.

[hopeisastrategy]

Now all I see is a Berocca tablet

[smallwolf]

just thought I would jump and see how you are going?

[Guest_1643]

hi hopeisastrategy, i was offered to do the HOPE program recently

it's awesome.

I wasn't eligible for it but thought of u.

I would like to do some voluntary peer work sometime soon.... hope i can help ppl like u do

[Guest_1643]

Hi hope is a strategy, Ur story is really inspiring.

I love that u know urself well and growing up in the country only enhances Ur down to earth nature and ability to talk to many kinds of ppl.

U sound like an awesome consumer consultant

U give me hope.

[quirkywords]

Hopeisastrategy , hello thanks for your first post introducing your post.

I trust you are well.
You are doing a worthwhile job and using your lived experience to help others.