ABOUT

This blog is a place for conversation and discussion about wellbeing and good mental health. It is for all of us who struggle with our mental wellbeing or simply want to have greater connection and happiness in our daily living.

We are a network of diverse people coming from different backgrounds, professions and experiences. Some of us are living with mental health distress and others are friends, family and allies. Some of us have professional connections as doctors, academics, support workers and community workers. And some of us live across these boundaries!

We all have in common that we want to engage in conversations about being happy, healthy and connected. Each one of us has been in a space where we have needed support or have provided this support. We all search for a place to belong, find ways to increase community connectedness and reduce the stigma and shame we can experience because of our mental health. Belonging is not a state it is something we do, it is active. Recovery occurs in relationships and in the reciprocity, we find connection and belonging.

The Rhizomes network and blog is intended to be a space where we respect each other’s experiences and knowledge and learn from each other’s wisdom. It is a space for everyone who has ever felt, excluded unhappy, different, and out of place. We want to create a space which celebrates differences and fosters the opportunity to talk about mental health, what makes us happy and feel that we belong.

The inspiration for the name comes from the nature of grass – it grows whichever way it wants- rhizomatically! We acknowledge the thinking of the philosophers Felix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze who came up with that concept.

We are also continuing the work and thinking of the small community agency A Place to Belong that worked in inner city Brisbane West End community for over twenty years.

Contributors

Who We Are

You can see a little about our current members below. We welcome new fellows to join us by the fire and share their story.

Jeffrey Johnson-Abdelmalik

Jeffrey worked for ten years at A Place to Belong, lending administrative support and also as a support worker before his retirement in 2020 with the closing of the agency.

Although he had spent a lifetime in management of community agencies and in public service in the field of disability his time at A Place to Belong convinced him that real recovery depends on the support and kindness of people in community. He firmly believes that an individualistic approach to life is a sure road to misery, and that love is best experienced with others!

For him the Rhizomes approach is a new frontier of expression, although he has a background in writing and research and a PhD in Social Science. In his retirement he is developing his art and hopes to be able to share relevant and enjoyable pictures with the blog.

Neil Barringham

Issues of belonging, wellbeing and community are at the core of my vision now more so than at any other time in my life. I have constructed a sense of identity and belonging from various sources through the different stages of my life – the bullet-proof adolescent years filled with opportunity, energy, achievements and idealism; the seizing of religious ideologies which gave me structure and security; then to committing to the hopes and dreams of marriage, family and local community building; then to educational and professional achievements and qualifications. The passage of time has seen the dismantling and challenging of these ‘external’ sources of belonging and safety. My closest long term friend – my wife - has died an untimely, sudden and unexpected death; the community association which we built successfully together with others over 25 years has been dismantled and terminated by others; ‘truths’ which I held determinedly have been tested by the mysteries and paradoxes of life; organisations and groups have come and gone; friends are dying - and I watch my own physical capacities decline and diminish as I negotiate my late 60’s.

Thus the elements that I have used to bolster and bulwark my sense of identity, wellbeing and belonging over past decades – my health, my ‘truths’, my achievements, my credentials – have been threatened, challenged and tested.

Being part of this Rhizomes learning process – along with my music, my sons, my friends, my spirituality, my allegiance to myself, and my participation in various peace, justice and learning associations - is firstly, about my own belonging, liberation and restoration. And secondly, only others will discern whether contributions I make in this space might be of enablement for them as well.

Marianne Wilder

Over the past 20 years in my work as a research academic I have listened to many stories of people experiencing mental health distress and more importantly recovery. Most of our work is written up as academic abstractions. I am interested in making this knowledge more accessible to the community, people with lived experience and their families. Because of the stigma, shame, the potential impact on others, it can be difficult to write about our own experiences of mental health and as a result many of our stories are left unheard. I have been working on writing what I have called collective fictionalised narratives, to bring these experiences into the light.

The offerings for this site are based on the writings of a small writing group which was based in Brisbane. We met monthly over a space of 4 years, share our experiences, and write diary like pieces about what was going on in our lives. These writing form the basis of the short stories that are published here. They are based on all and none of our experiences.

I am hoping that sharing these stories will amplify the voices of these amazing people.

Kimberley Dillon

For more than 20 years I have worked in the human services sector. I believe in the power of community and individual contribution. Our Rhizomes network evolved after many years of working with and around each other in various paid and volunteer roles. Time and time again we came together to share stories, passions and ideas. People from a variety of walks of life and experiences, connected by a belief in the power of inclusion and togetherness.

Peter Bell

I presently work with an organisation which supports persons in independent living. We can be hit with a disability at any time in our life. From birth to approaching old age. The questions which exercise my imagination are 'why is it that we behave the way we do?', 'how can we be our true self?' and 'what elements make for a good life?'