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NO ONE DESERVES TO BE FORGOTTEN
A safe place for a network of likeminded people to talk and relate to one another during difficult times.
BY ELENA SCIALTIEL
A
newborn social media group makes positivity its banner, and mutual support and encouragement its sole aim. It reaches out to Gibraltarians who feel lonely and isolated, with a number of socialising initiatives in the pipeline. The first one, which is also regarded as a kind of ‘almost official’ presentation of the group No One Deserves to Be Forgotten to the wider public, will take place (weather and Covid-19 public health regulations permitting) on the afternoon of the 5th of April at Commonwealth Park. It will be an informal picnic open to members and prospective members. Founder and main administrator Thomas Lawrie, originally from York and working in Gibraltar as an elderly care enrolled nurse for ten years, invites everyone wishing to take part to turn up with some finger food and a bottle of soft drink, if they can, and cement the friendships that are already blossoming online. 56
Under the banner ‘No one deserves to be forgotten / No one deserves to fade away / No one should come and go / And have no one know / they were even there / No one deserves / To disappear / To disappear…’ the group has grown to almost 5,000 members in the first three weeks since its inception in mid-February. “I started this Facebook group because I was going through a bad patch of anxiety and depression,” Thomas explains, “and wanted to create a safe place for me and a network of likeminded people to talk and relate to.”
platform to voice one’s feelings, concerns, hopes and fears, and for seeking each other’s support and advice, sharing experiences and feedback. No negativity, smugness, or trolling are allowed, but it is ok to break down and cry out one’s darkest feelings, because expressing oneself is the natural way to work out the issue and self-heal. Supportive response and advice are encouraged, as long as they are kept empathetic and nonjudgemental.
“Emotions have no age or gender,”
The idea is to openly talk about mental health, exorcising taboos and expunging stigmas. Members post positive messages, pictures and quotes to brighten up each other’s day, and make it a little less hard to get through it. It is also a
Thomas says that he would like to strike off the word ‘mental’ from the expression ‘mental health’, to describe it just as ‘health’, without making distinctions between physical and mental, since they are interconnected or associated, and all of us will unfortunately suffer of either or both at some point in our lives. A person is made GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE APRIL2020
