Thank you! If you are reading this in the week following my skydive you are one of the lovely people who supported my crazy charity challenge.

As promised here is the video from my skydive (forgive the quick editing, I am still recovering from the jump, but I hope the transitions are fairly OK)

Here is a quick write up from the day followed by my overall impressions.

We woke up early and left home at 5.15 am, which in itself was a bit of a challenge on a Sunday morning. I was quite excited though, and apprehensive, of course. I expected cloudy weather in the morning but upon arrival, the conditions were still quite nice. The GoSkydive area of Salisbury was still closed, quiet and peaceful. It was so calming to arrive at a quiet airfield and ground myself before the opening (it can get really busy out there!).

After the initial morning registration and check-in, we were invited to an induction session which honestly calmed me down. I think sitting in one room with over 20 other people doing the skydive that day made me feel calm in itself. The intro movie and briefing were clear. If it weren’t for the panic swiping through my body in waves, I could even say it was a lot of fun. We were then told to wait for a few hours for our turn to get on the plane – because there were five people jumping for OTR Bristol we were moved to one plane, which also meant we had to wait for a few groups of individuals to go ahead of us. Just as we have reached the waiting area the rain interrupted the schedule. So we had to wait a bit longer, hoping for the conditions to improve (thanks to the weather forecast apps we were quite hopeful!). To me personally waiting was difficult – I was OK most of the time and then for a few seconds the reality would hit me and I would panic a lot. I was trying to do my best to stay calm, but I was annoyingly chatty (my way of easing off anxiety).

Finally, around 10.30 am our names were called to the dress up and training tent. I was really keen on promoting OTR in my video recordings from the day so I put the branded t-shirt over the GoSkydive gear (which by the way was super light and comfortable).

We were then asked to move on to the training area where a really confident and funny instructor showed us the three important ways of diving: the jump out of the plane, the free fall and finally the landing. We practised those but also slowly grew together as a group as well. I noticed the emphasis on gear safety during the training 0 a really good way of making us all feel a bit less worried about the jump.

Once trained we were asked to move to the plane area. Here’s all of us, OTR morning team, all geared up. From left: Anthony, Tom, Dominique, my nervous grin and Susan from OTR.

Waiting was so nerve-wracking for me that at this stage I really just wanted to get on with it. I wanted to get on the plane and go! We just had to take a few family photos…

…a few group pictures…

and recorded our first past of video updates with GoSkydive filming crew. You can see in my video just how lovely the weather was by that point – I could not look directly into the camera, it was so sunny!

Shortly after that our instructors arrived, introduced themselves, checked our gear again and took us to the plane landing area. I was flying and jumping with Ed who completed over 2K jumps and Adam, a video maker (I still cannot figure out how they can time the recording just so well!)

From there it was time to go! On the plane, we had a great view and a lot of fun. The crew’s team spirit really got to me too and so despite my inner terror of this situation (the higher, the closer to the actual jump with only one way back to my husband) I really loved the plane ride. I was obviously super nervous, but also aware of the fact that my video is dedicated to my supporters and to the charity. I hope we can use it in the future campaigns so I kept as cool as possible. In the end, it was indeed a very extreme but also a unique experience. Not my usual Sunday morning, I must say.

I was told to jump out of the plane after Anthony and Susan. This was the step I was really worried about – the boundary of the plane and nothingness. A year ago I could not cross the Suspension Bridge in Bristol. Two years ago I was trembling when sitting in a car or crossing the road. So this was a big thing – testing if moving to Bristol (a kinder place to live) combined with a year of therapy and caring for myself helped. It was a challenging year. While I was recovering from the trauma of social isolation, I was also losing my roots – both of my parents died. I was also studying counselling, writing my entire autobiography and shedding layers and layers of my identity – which is a natural process for counselling students but it is deep. It leaves us raw and new and very sensitive to the world around us. Luckily I was also learning about resilience, self-care and boundaries. All of this combined was about to be tested in that jump. I was terrified, but I was ready and I knew it. I was back to my old, resilient self.

Sitting on that plane with people who clearly knew what they were doing and cared for the quality of my experience was really lovely. Anthony’s jump was smooth and fast, so was Susan’s and by that point. I trusted my instructor Ed entirely, especially that he has spent most of the plane trip checking all my gear one more time and really making me feel safe. I trusted Adam, the filmmaker because he was engaging, confident and fun.

I was really worried about the complex dive but our jump was super smooth and steady.

Shortly after the jump, I locked my eyes with Adam, the video maker. The tapping from Ed to remind me to spread my arms and Adam’s calm look really made me feel peaceful. Actually, for those who really fear the skydive, booking filming is a good tip – you do not have to feel entirely alone as you have an additional skydiver in front of you all throughout the free fall part of the jump. We connected in the air and I completely relaxed into the fall. I actually did not feel fear whatsoever, just ease of the fall and calmness around us. Additionally, I was so so glad we had lovely weather for this!

Later, when the parachute opened, I started feeling very sick – probably due to the tight gear and really strong winds. The sunshine was actually quite misleading – it was so windy we had to do two circles around the airfield to get the landing right. I did not want to steer myself, because I could feel that Ed had enough of a challenge to get us safely to the ground. We did look around though and even though at this stage my stomach was really distracting me I was doing my best to focus on the uniqueness of this experience and the fantastic views. We recorded my OTR message and slowly landed on the airfield.

You can actually see in the final section of my recording that I am finding it quite difficult to speak after the landing, praying for quick access to mint tea – but I managed it. We waited for everyone to join in and got into the minivan which took us back to our friends and family. And for the last group photo.

On the way back home I was high on adrenaline but also exhausted, working on calming down my stomach and my nerves. As well as reliving every moment of our adventure.

People asked me today a lot: how was it? would you do it again? I had to admit that for me personally it was a unique experience and I am really glad I did it, especially for OTR. I am glad that the level of my anxieties is down to a manageable state and my old resilience is back. I am just as confident and grounded as I was a few years ago. I am sure that the upcoming days will result in a lot of journaling about the meaning of this experience and its impact on my life moving forward, but at this stage I am mostly noticing the immense power of the skydive as a metaphor to what the OTR Bristol team does on a daily basis and what young people experience when approaching us.

You see, to admit that you are not OK in the current times and then to have the courage to want to get better and to actually ask for help in a reality which really does not favour young person’s voice nor place in society can be ever so terrifying! I see it on the faces of young people coming to our offices every single time I am at work or at our events. It takes courage and a huge amount of effort to walk through the OTR Bristol door. I actually think even for an adult it takes a lot of bravery to ask for help. So just imagine how it feels to someone 11 to 25 who quite possibly is already in a bad, vulnerable, uneasy place. And who possibly might think of themselves as not deserving help in the first place. So once a young person crosses that immense bridge we are there to hold them with trust and competence of a good skydive instructor: we create a safe space for them to gear up, train up, fly higher up and then jump, let go of their worries, to free fall and to land safely, hopefully in a better place. It is almost always a challenging but formative growing experience and so I also see a lot of happier young people, happier parents and educators coming to us every day. I also see a lot of supported young people staying with us to volunteer, work or launch their career in the sector too. They are at the core of the current and future services provided by OTR. We, the instructors and the witnesses of their challenges, are there to calm them down, to validate them as humans and to build more and more platforms for safe jumping, flying and landing.

I have dedicated this skydive to my dad. His generation did not have this kind of support. I was lucky to be born an early Millenial, so I did. I found it and I have no problem asking for it. Unlike many OTR clients, I can afford therapy. My son has a loving home but his reality comes with immense new pressures (no, not social media or tech but the most test-driven one-size-fits-all school system, exploitative economy, PR & marketing practices making us feel less and never good enough, de-humanising and divisive politics, ignored climate change and overworked, disillusioned adults who do not give their very own youngsters a voice). My son and his friends have so much to put up during such a formative period of their lives.

And so I am immensely proud of OTR Bristol. It is a treasure with more than half-a-century of experience and impactful work in the area for generations of young people to come. I am also proud of myself for joining the skydive and for completing it fairly smoothly with a mix of extreme feelings and an overall score of “FANTASTIC”. More importantly, I am proud of all my family, friends, clients and colleagues who supported me on this journey and donated to OTR.

The money we have raised will already pay for hours and hours of support for young people. The campaign runs at least until the Mental Health Day (10 October) and if we reach £775 on JustGiving we will cover counselling programmes for ten young people – people who have never experienced unconditional positive regard and kind space for opening up and working through their problems with professional support. It seems like something every young person should have access to, but they don’t. I am often angry about this, but more often than not I prefer to focus on making my little bit of a difference to change that. Thank you – thank you so much for doing something about this too. You are brilliant and you have already made a difference to someone young and lonely out there in Bristol. Quite possibly you have saved a life.

Thank you for supporting OTR Bristol.

Thank you for believing in me.

Thank you for reading.

This blog post is long overdue, I am sorry. I was distracted panicking about my summer SkyDive. I have, however, talked to John about Internet Addiction term over on YouTube. Here it is:

As a follow up to that chat, I would like to write up my take on it just in a bit more detail. What do I think about Internet Addiction? I think it is a problematic label at the moment although I hope the context of it is going to change in the upcoming years. 

First of all, let’s remind ourselves that every person will have a different definition of Internet Addiction. Those personal interpretations of the term will range from media fed assumptions made by people who hate change, technology or both and assume that anything to do with the Internet is evil. Those clearly lack critical thinking but affect all of us. Walk into any mental health training and you will hear that social media is the first example of factors of bad mental health. (Why and who said so is never stated – we simply repeat what we hear). Media outlets have been scaring us with Internet Addiction since its first years and yet in reality how many of our friends actually suffer today? (some people do, I am asking about your personal average here). The problem with those personal, media-fed interpretations is actually political. Internet Addiction is very often combined with conversations about online safety. I know that at first, it seems like a very irrelevant connection because it should be. But that’s not the case. Not many average web users know that authorities of many countries have managed to restrict access to the Internet under the excuse of safe Internet practice (without defining what “safe” really means).

Midway on the scale, you will find the official definitions by APA and WHO with pretty specific criteria. Those definitions are new and problematic (see below) but at least attempt to define the concept of Internet Addiction. Acknowledging Internet Addiction as a mental health condition paves the way to open conversations about the negative impact of compulsive Internet use. It helps mental health professionals prepare to support their patients. It justifies the funding of related research. It allows support for individuals who suffer from addictive behaviours. There is a problem with the term though. The diagnosis, if given, is based on a term which has not yet been confirmed and researched enough. In the history of APA’s DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – the Bible for mental health professionals) it is probably the first term of this kind). One which enters media and political discourse without the clause stated in the DSM that it still needs way more research to be confirmed. I repeat: it is NOT CONFIRMED. Labels are helpful but can also be political. Rumour has it, I will put it gently, that some governments would prefer their citizens to stay offline and in separated networks so they have lobbied WHO to introduce the term. (I am yet to see a government happy for its citizens to have access to free information, education and collective thinking). Of course, we will never know for certain. What we do know is that many mental health professionals and new startups are starting to make a brilliant amount of money on curing people of Internet Addiction – without a clear explanation of what it really is.

Finally, at the end of this spectrum, there is also common sense, which of course is very individual. When I asked my son what the term means to him his first reaction was to ask for clarification: “Internet is a bunch of tubes and cables so what do you really mean?” – my son is 13 and yet so many adults fail to ask that question. If you ask a counsellor, you will probably hear a description of a classic addiction (withdrawal symptoms, impact on daily life and obsessive thinking about the cause of addiction). But there is a problem with that application of addiction – a lot of forms of Internet use are actually pleasurable and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If the social web is the extension of who we are than it is perfectly OK to crave learning more, finding out more, connecting more, missing chats with friends etc. What I am saying is – the addiction treatment model does not help!

I do not think we know just yet what Internet Addiction is. I think we need to be really careful and specific when talking about Internet-related addictive behaviours and use those, not the general term. I am really glad to see the Wikipedia definition of the term finally listing different, more specific formats of addiction: gambling addiction, gaming addiction, communication addiction, VR addiction. I think we need to specify it even more and treat each and every single person experiencing addictive behaviours with very individual, tailored but also contextual support.

The behaviour itself is usually a function of something else going on in our lives. Games are full of elements of positive psychology – they make us happy, achieved, connected. They can also be really much more fun than a toxic boss and a boring job. Online gambling can be the extension of our offline gambling habits or a deeper unfulfilled need. Communication addiction can be a result of being abandoned, isolated, alone. And even this is not explicit enough. Because the place of the Internet in our lives is complex, it works together as an element of our reality – something happens online, affects our offline behaviour, we go back online, our habits online escalate, our online contacts respond one way or another, we react or not.

Internet Addiction as a term is problematic. For over 15 years of the Safe Internet Practice Day we have been talking about the impact of the Internet on us in purely negative terms without even considering checking the facts. We have been telling our children that screens are detrimental to their health when it is now proven to be a myth, not a scientific fact. We have been over-using the term addiction without really exploring the meaning of it. And the problem lies in overused, meaningless terms. Because we take those labels and label ourselves too – without any critical thinking.

The bottom line is this. As it is today we do not know what is the impact of the Internet on humanity. It is a complex issue and it needs to be researched contextually with as much objectivity and critical thinking as possible. It’s not enough to state that teens are affected by social media, because we know from good research already that some groups of teens (women, poorer or isolated individuals) suffer, while others thrive. What we need to do is dive into a good set of data with a very contextual set of neutral assumptions and questions. We need to focus on what is said and what is on the other side of the coin. Here is a recent example from Sonia Livingstone’s research here in the UK:

• “Nearly half of parents (46%) and teens (44%) describe themselves as ‘addicted’ to their mobile device; also, a third of teens (35%) and two-thirds of parents (63%) think the other is ‘addicted’ too.
• Half of teens (54%) and parents (51%) say they get distracted by mobile devices at least once a day, and 72% of parents say their teen gets distracted.
• Screen time conflicts are common in today’s families with children – ranking as the third most common source of conflict for parents after chores/helping around the house and bedtime/sleep, and ranking fourth for teens (after chores, sleep and homework conflicts).

Yet 86% of parents say their teen’s use of mobile devices has not harmed or has even helped their relationship; and 97% of teens say the same of their parents’ mobile use. Further, most UK families do not think mobile devices disrupt meal times, most parents allow their teens their privacy online, and most are optimistic about the benefits. “

Even though we are not technically addicted, we think we are. Because the term was so overused for more than a decade. So how do we start to approach this topic with more care? Here is my personal suggestion. Next time that red dot of notifications on your screen calls for you stop for a second and think about the following:

• How does it make me feel? Am I addicted or do I want to know if my friends are OK, have an opinion about my recent post, plan to go out to a nice local event?
• Do I need to do it now or can I do it later? Which is better for me?
• Why do I rush to check it out? Is it because I have time and want to feel connected with other people online? Is it because I am busy at work but also bored? Is it because I am ill and stuck at home? Is it because I have time and I feel lonely?
• Is it OK to feel this way with those motivations? I suspect you will judge yourself, but think about it carefully – is it really bad to seek contact with your friends? Is it really affecting your work or supporting it?
• What is the actual impact on your health and on your relationships? Are you thriving, functioning or struggling?

When I see the red notification dot I know my friends are active and I can check in with them in the evening or at lunch, or I simply have something to do for a client. I plan my day work well to allow myself for online check in and keep an eye on the time I spent online. Usually I spend so much time online for work that I do not rush to check notifications anyway – I treasure the time off screen. But I also love to chat to my friends and love the feeling of online connection, so I make time for it. It does not affect my health or work or life.

Think about it carefully. Question what you read or what you are told on the topic. Next time you say or even think that you are addicted to something related to the Internet I urge to review it carefully in the context of what makes you happy and what impact it has on your health and social connections. Do not overuse the “addiction” – reserve it for the very few who really struggle because their lives are falling apart. Yours probably is not, you might just need to tweak your habits or accept that watching a YouTube movie is meaningful for you right now. And that’s OK.

In the meantime there are a few wonderful people out there who are pushing for the change in the actual Internet Addiction diagnosis and that change is coming. So we will know more soon enough. For now, we just need to look out for each other and keep calm. There is a lot online to read, learn, do and enjoy and that’s perfectly fine. We are actually quite OK.

Good luck and let me know how you feel about Internet Addiction.

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash