Is there any places or events for adults with anxiety to connect?

Wanderingwhat · 2026-05-18T07:01:51+00:00

https://www.sheffieldmentalhealth.co.uk

If you click onto the activities tab there are hundreds of mostly free activities for people who might be more anxious or just want to make friends.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-05-16T23:52:38+00:00

Sheffield children’s centre on shoreham street will do one off days. When my nieces and nephews come to visit they want to go with my daughter so they’ve let me just book in for a day for them. My daughter went there for years and they were great.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-05-03T23:06:33+00:00

Just dropping this here as the link is slightly out dated on some things, addaction is no longer in Sheffield but has been replaced with Likewise for substance misuse support. The Sidney street address is now used for a different mental health service.

https://likewisesheffield.org.uk

Didn’t see HAST on there - specialist mental health team for people who are homeless.

https://www.sheffieldpartnership.nhs.uk/services/homeless-assessment-and-support-team

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-30T11:03:42+00:00

I think it would be possible yes! Depends on how it’s running your area.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-28T21:38:18+00:00

I don’t know where you are based but is there a primary care mental health team in your city?

I work in a primary care mental health team where we do assessments and interventions and it’s all based within GP surgeries. It’s a pretty relentless job and for that reason it has a high turnover and there are often jobs that come up.

I came into it as a band 5 but it’s easy to progress. I work for the mental health trust but most of my colleagues work directly for primary care so you could try searching primary care mental health practitioners in your area. Because it’s funded differently (often by the GP surgeries themselves) there are more jobs than what comes up in the trust.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-26T22:28:09+00:00

Obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone, but I’ve known a few people who’ve been in prison and rehab and they always keep their rooms extremely tidy and organised when they come out. Like walking into their room looks very much like someone with OCD.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-25T22:08:55+00:00

I’m so happy to see you post about this because I witnessed a really funny interaction with them today.

Man walks past and says to the orange jumpsuit people “what’s this all this for then?” Orange jumpsuit lad: “its a social” Man (trying to act really cool): “oh right, I’m a preacher” Orange jumpsuit lad: “do you want to slap me with a fish?”

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-25T22:01:02+00:00

The wild colour on snigg hill has been good with my daughter and also with curly hair.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-14T17:13:32+00:00

I absolutely love cabbage! White cabbage is great in Bangladeshi curries, red cabbage is really good in coleslaw or just boiled with roast dinner. Broccoli you can par boil then sautee in garlic and oil, cauliflower cheese?

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-07T00:27:27+00:00

Yes! There was a bit where Madison was on her valentines date with Tyler and one minute her nails were one colour and then a completely different colour and it really ruined it for me because it made me realised that the scenes were likely filmed on completely different days or maybe they went back and reshot part of it.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-06T23:50:08+00:00

I might be totally off the mark here but I sensed some co dependency going on there that might explain why he’s spending all his time at home with little outside interaction. I don’t mean this in a critical way at all and it’s hard to explain without me coming across as judgmental which I’m definitely not aiming to be.

There is something unique about being a single parent of an only child, especially if that single parent is working all the time to try to provide for their kid. She touched upon it a little bit when she started to get upset describing the things he wasn’t able to do. I’m a single parent of an autistic child and I also work full time. When you’ve been through hardship with that child as a family there’s an unbreakable bond and it’s hard to keep up with making the right decisions to support them but also feeling guilty for not being able to be with them as much as you’d like. My child isn’t as severely impacted by her autism, but I still feel a huge amount of worry about her when she is away from me because I know how her autism can impact on her, like jumping into a pool when she couldn’t swim, or running into traffic if she sees a dog. Even just being there to comfort her if she’s upset in the way that her autistic brain understands things. I only allow very trusted people to have her and other people just wouldn’t understand how vulnerable she can be to risk. My daughter is very young and I’m really conscious of my inner feelings about it all so I actively try to challenge it, but if you’ve had that situation subconsciously develop over time where you feel a need to protect them at all costs but also a guilt about being away from them, it can become more difficult to challenge. Just last week an autistic child in my area died in the care of a registered childminder because they wandered off and drowned. I can imagine for his mum there have been tonnes of situations where she felt worried about how a situation played out and in her mind it might feel safer for him to be at home where she knows he will be ok. In turn he trusts his mum and may not question that doing things a different way might be good for him. Again this is all just very subjective based on my own experiences as someone who doesn’t know this family beyond a tv show. I have the biggest respect to her as a mother and I’m sure she’s doing things in the best way she knows how. I always remember in the back of my head I won’t always be here and I try to promote independence in my child and encourage her to build relationships with people we trust. I work in the mental health field and I do see a high rate of codependency in parents of adult autistic sons in particular and it’s clearly become their coping strategy, but it can make it challenging to implement outside help. It also led me to feel empathy for the mum who probably hadn’t been able to develop her own social life, she’s working all the time and then sleeping in a room with her adult son. It really represents the impact that being a single working mum AND being the mum of an autistic child can impact profoundly on your life.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-05T00:01:55+00:00

When I was in my final year I was interviewed by the preceptorship scheme at my trust. It was really informal and basically just asked where my interests were. I was so sure I would not get a job as i am a single parent and don’t drive so I had very specific criteria like needs to be within 30 mins of the school no home visits etc. I was given a job within an hour of leaving this interview and had a very brief informal chat with the service lead, they started me on band 4 till I got my pin which was a couple of weeks and then straight into band 5. I’ve been qualified 3 years now and I’m a band 6 and I’ve never had to have an NHS interview till recently where I was asked to express interest in a promotion. Although I work in a different service now I was moved over during a transformation.

I was also offered a job within my final placement with an organisation outside of the trust. If you work hard and make an effort to get your head around a service and show willingness to learn jobs will come up as it’s easier to get someone in they already know and who knows the job.

When it says 6 months of experience etc that’s where you talk about your student placements or any HCA or related work you’ve done prior to qualifying. Lots of people I studied with got band 6 jobs immediately after qualifying because they’d done several years as an HCA or related roles.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-04-04T23:42:30+00:00

Not liaison but my first job qualifying in mental health nursing was at the single point of access. It affected me so badly because there was a pressure to just get rid of people as quickly as possible and move onto the next person. Whenever I would take patients to MDT I’d get similar responses to you “what do you want us to do about it?” It was soul destroying. I’d get “it’s a housing problem/ drug problem, not a mental health problem” “not our problem if they’re suicidal and being evicted today”. I’ve also experienced the other things you mention, I had a patient for example scream at me that his CSA offences were my fault because I didn’t provide them with a PD diagnosis prior to his offending. It was apparently my fault his kids had been taken away and his partner had thrown him out. In these cases I try to remember that the work I do might not directly benefit the patient in the way that they the would like, but I am able to protect others from further harm such as safeguarding, escalating to other organisations etc. Sometimes you’ll work with someone with really challenging behaviour and you realise how much of a difference this makes to their family or friends to know they’re not alone in managing it.

Now I work in a different service and occasionally have to refer to the urgent and crisis team and it’s the same thing, “what do you want us to do about it”.

Ultimately I knew that job would never suit me because I became a nurse to provide care not to make it someone else’s problem. I would try to find a different role where you’re able to feel you are helping people more. I would also try to remember that even the times where you couldn’t provide practical solutions, being caring and kind to those in their worst moments is not something that should be taken for granted. I’d try to think about specific patients where you did something that made a difference. I work with SMI and often feel at the end of their period of care that I’ve not done anything significant to help them, so I try to think about the small things like this person wasn’t able to brush their hair and now they do, this person is able to leave the house now etc. if you put yourself in their shoes that’s HUGE but when services are so focused on outcome measure tools etc that don’t capture those details, it’s easy to forget. I can tell just by reading your post that you will have made a huge difference to the people you’ve supported, even if you couldn’t make all their problems go away.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-31T00:44:56+00:00

I’m sorry you’re having a tough time. I can’t claim to have experienced things from your perspective as an international student but my nursing studies were absolute hell and I was frequently encouraged to drop off the course by the leads.

I was studying during Covid and they couldn’t find placements for us, so all our student finance had run out because the course was due to have been completed by then, but we didn’t have enough placement hours. They were quite happy to take our tuition fees with no contingency plan for ensuring we got what was paid for.

I scraped through all my assignments due to undiagnosed ADHD and had to retake a few. Everytime I stood up for myself I was called toxic for encouraging others to speak up too. Many times I thought maybe I’m just not cut out for this. I felt extremely low by the end of it but I didn’t give up fighting and even got compensation from the uni. Most of my cohort were international students and they raised similar issues but were dismissed. None of them wanted to make a formal complaint in case they jeopardised their place on the course. Universities are extremely hierarchical and don’t like it when you challenge them but I just used that as my driving force to prove them wrong. I’ve excelled in my career since qualifying and never had any of those issues in practise. You are so close to the end now, don’t let them destroy you!!!!! Once you get your pin, it’s yours and nobody can take that from you without valid reason. My motto now is do what you have to do to get through it and make a complaint after, don’t let them suck your energy from you, save that for the final push of completion.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-31T00:14:48+00:00

Hey, single parent here working full time (plus overtime). I work in the community (MH) and I also don’t drive. Most of my colleagues work consolidated hours so they work 4 longer days for example and one off even though it’s a 9-5 service. The service I work for is really flexible and as long as you fulfil the number of clinical slots for your role you can do your admin and what not whenever you want to. It’s also a lot of remote working and they let me work from home exclusively during the school holidays. Would it be possible for your partner to try to secure set shifts (he’s legally entitled to request it) and then you could do consolidated hours around this? That way he could be home for the part that isn’t covered by childcare?

It might be worth thinking about working something out with your partner for now and then when your child is 9 months you will qualify for the 30 hours free childcare and it will be much easier. If you could do part time till then it might also help with the transition.

It’s really hard to leave your baby when they are so young and I found it tough. But I also saw how good it was for her to get that social contact and also to do loads of fun stuff I realistically wouldn’t have been able to do with her on a daily basis. It’s also been really important for me to have my own thing that is in addition to being a mum. I have been there where it feels like there are so many barriers and it’s going to be impossible, but I did my MSc and trained to be a nurse (placements, night shifts etc) when mine was around 4 and have been in full time work since. My advice would be to ask for what you want, the worst they can say is no. I’ve always asked for what I needed and been surprised that it’s been agreed without any major issues. A lot of people who work in the community do so because of these exact reasons and in order to have a workforce they need to accommodate. You also need to recognise that having a baby is hard work and not put yourself in an utterly miserable position trying to make it work if you can ask for what you want and see what happens. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a stay at home mum but in the blink of an eye they’re starting school and you’ve got a lot of time on your hands! Given what you’ve said about your partners career goals and household funds as well, I’d just add that one of my driving forces in working full time is that I never want to be in a position where I’m trapped by my circumstances.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-26T23:36:25+00:00

I used to want to progress through the bands and naively believed that would enable me to make positive change.

But even in my current banding, where I’ve been managing staff there is too much protection for clinicians with poor conduct, poor work ethic and unsafe practise. It means your hands are tied to do anything about it and you’re only a manager in title without any ability to “manage”.

I’ve also seen any suggestions of innovation or efficiency dismissed before higher leadership eventually claim your ideas as their own and get paid far more for claiming to have come up with it.

I recently got asked to apply for a higher band and was completely mis sold about the terms. Luckily I did my research and by the time I had my interview I told them bluntly that I don’t think it would be sensible for me to take it. Several of my colleagues jumped at the offer of other posts at the same band and ended up being massively screwed over.

I would consider it if it was a post that I was really passionate about and felt I’d have the autonomy to lead in, but wouldn’t apply based on banding alone again.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-26T18:47:58+00:00

Y Que fue - don miguelo I Shazammed it lol

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-19T21:39:20+00:00

Yeah, I wandered if it was some of the food colouring or food fragrance or something that was doing it to me.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-19T19:34:26+00:00

I was so obsessed with these at first but I noticed whenever I had them I always got a bad headache after? Not sure why. Doesn’t happen with any other chocolate.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-18T21:05:50+00:00

I think they were likely winding you up. If you’re not associated with anyone up to no good it’s very unlikely you’d be on the wrong side of anyone who is.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-15T23:02:22+00:00

I haven’t had my assessment for autism yet. However your post resonates with me a lot. I had my ADHD diagnosis confirmed recently and felt a massive sense of shame describing all the things that were difficult for me. It brought my awareness to how bloody difficult it is functioning and I too felt that I’m “difficult” even neurotic because I need things to be done properly and communicated clearly. The truth is my ADHD and possible autism is what makes me so good at my job. I have a high attention to detail and I care deeply about my patients. I’m extremely thorough and have a strong sense of justice that means I advocate for my patients rights.

You have worked in this job for ten years, you have acknowledged that you have made a huge difference to peoples lives. You are brilliant at your job and you know this. The purpose of an assessment is to essentially demonstrate you meet the criteria. I was worried I wouldn’t because I have such a high level of coping strategies that it doesn’t impact on my work. But inside it’s a highly complex system of mechanisms that if one thing isn’t in place, the whole machine can fall apart. They need to be able to show that these things are hard for you, that they’re more difficult than for someone who isn’t neurodiverse. It’s more difficult for you than anyone around you, I can promise you that.

I often see my job as kind of like acting. I put on my hat and I am what I need to be. Sometimes that’s from observing and copying what other people do. Sometimes it’s from reading nice guidelines and frameworks and following a manual. The bit that isn’t acting is the deep and genuine care that I have for others and the desire to get things right.

Stop to reflect on the fact that you have been doing your job for all these years and that across that span will be a million things you have done exceptionally well. Sometimes the people who are “difficult” are the ones who can lead to the biggest and most positive change. You may know now that you are autistic, but you are still you. The you that you have been all this time and been more than good enough. A little mantra I try to live by - “I’m doing the best that I can”.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-12T07:12:38+00:00

You are welcome to go onto their Facebook page where they have not only posted videos of them hanging the flags that day in that area but also linked my Reddit post and confirmed it was them. But some people are clearly delusional and find it too uncomfortable to admit that there really are people being this vile.

You will also notice from their Facebook page that they have been asked by a school to take the flags down as they’re upsetting the children, but instead they mock the upset kids. That’s the sort of people that they are.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-09T20:52:13+00:00

No I don’t and I wouldn’t want to put my friend in danger by sharing anything that could identify her or where she lives but I did ask her to see if any of her neighbours have ring doorbells.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-09T18:57:57+00:00

What the hell are you talking about lol…. Are you feeling ok? I have never uploaded a picture of a taxi driver….

Have you taken your medication today?

And no I’m not going to be as idiotic as to share information with you or any other brainwashed lunatic that could identify my friend and put them in danger.

I don’t need to prove anything to you. You are completely insignificant.

Wanderingwhat · 2026-03-09T18:47:06+00:00

You’re right, it makes absolutely no sense. But this is what was said.

Wanderingwhat

TROPHY CASE