The Maelstorm

There are moments when the world rushes past me and I cannot focus on what is going on as my internal emotional war is raging


Standing still I feel wind whipped,
pulled and tugged, prodded and poked,
the roaring grinds me down and rubs me raw.
my ears ring catching words in isolation,
whispered and shouted I hear them all,
slapped by icy anger, the wind knocked out of me.
Trapped inside the storm there is no way out.
The heat of desire, desolation of rejection
Stabs of jealousy, the ripping of my flesh from sarcastic retorts
the gouging of my body from childish taunts or petulant outbursts
All I want is to be free of it all, I cannot stand the pain

Forgive me World

I don't know about you but there are days when I feel chronically guilty for how much I feel. It isn't so much that I feel but that I need time to deal with the feelings that I have when it seems the rest of the world is impatiently tapping it's foot waiting for me to be okay with things that it just doesn't seem to have a problem with.

Forgive me world for I have sinned
I want to hide away from those who cry and moan
who’s lives are not so good.
I want instead to have a life that pleases me
that lifts my soul and makes me glad.

Forgive me world for I have sinned,
work has depleted and depressed me.
I cannot take the empty disregard
I have tried so hard, but all I want is rest
and to enjoy the wonders of this world.

Forgive me world for I have sinned
I do not have a happy smile,
this life it throttles me and
icy fear has sapped my will live.
I cannot take the pain it dishes out.

Forgive me world for I have sinned
I cannot be the woman that you want,
I cannot hide the tears or forget the angry words
I want a life where there’s time to feel and be felt.

Forgive me world I cannot change to suit your needs
I feel so much I have no choice,
I need the time to think it through
to find what works for me

and the will to live again.

Underneath

 I have to say I have had plenty of days when I have wished people a million miles away from. I have yearned for some peace, some space from my emotional responses to their out bursts or tears. Certainly it has felt that I am pulled from pillar to post by how others are feelings and have been unable to find a space where I am within the world. A space where I am calm. So this is just a little  poem about how washed away it can feel when everything and everyone around you seems to be pulling you in every direction

I close my eyes and there is a storm,
my fluttering heart and ragged breathing trying to contain it.
Icy blasts of anger, the hot raging humiliation or desire,
the disappointed tears and burning acid fear. I feel it all.

Both floating and falling my eyes snap open,
the worlds the same, no outward change.
The people walk and talk as the world continues.
I feel a part of it all, I can feel it pulsing through me.

The air is pressing down, waves of heat as people pass by,
icy blasts of anger, or spiky indignation, the slap of pain.
I feel it all pressing against me,
yanked and jostled by what the world feels.

The shrieks of joy and frustration they move through me.
They feed the swirling mass within, the storm ever faster
It’s dizzying. Oh for it to stop to calm,
I could catch my breath and get some rest.

I don’t need to know the words they speak or their histories
I see from gestures and from tone the feelings that they have
I can feel the responses from within.
I wish I didn’t feel it so.

I listen for the leaves, the rubbish moving anything that’s calm.
I listen for the chirps of birds and rustles of the unknown
anything that strokes and soothes,
that calms and lifts me away from them.

Lost in the past

There are days  when it feels like I am reliving my past and though sometimes this can be good it can also be bad. Like many others I was bullied at school and the long lasting effects are far greater than I feel most people realise. Depending on the circumstance the emotional battle that goes on can be huge so here's  just a little taste.

My eyes they lie to me with things that cannot be,
a catalogue of fractured images
that rage within for me to see and no one else.
The litany of mistakes, of losses and humiliations
I’m in a past that frightens me, in thoughts of my inadequacy

So many voices speak at once, yet still I hear the sneering kids.
An icy blast speeds up my heart and dulls my head.
Frozen from within I know not what response to give.
Lost in a ring of shouted insults I feel my anger prickle
but drowning in my fears I cannot breath.

Tearing apart my life the past it bleeds into the present
it shapes my thoughts and guides me in my misery.
So easy to believe it’s now and not so long ago
it erases all the good that has come since
and I am lost in a past that will not let me go.

What lies beneath

Just a quickie but this little ditty probably sums up  how I feel some days, over looked and overwhelmed however it doesn't take much to realise that the world is full of people who feel exactly the same as me and whom a little kindness in any form would be greatly appreciated.

The world does not suspect what is beneath
my placid face too tired to respond to shock or pain.
There is little left that animates.
The noise, the strain, the ceaseless negativity and pain
have left their mark, I smile and acquiesce.

The world looks upon my face but briefly,
does not think too deeply nor too much about me
but thinks instead of it’s own life of what it needs, and what it hasn’t got.
It passes by with joy and pain but not with sympathy,
unable to see what else is there when full of strife itself.

In gratitude

I have to say that when I hear a good line I tend to remember it so even though this is mine it is in part because of some rather fine lyrics by VNV Nation (Gratitude). I have also kept the style and length too becuase it suited my purpose although I don't think the people who wrote the lyrics would be at all impressed with it but still.


It is not love that sparks as you run after another
Nor belief that stays the tears of fear.
I just could not bring myself to be gone:
numbed to the core by insults so subtle,
every day an echo of the last, an erosion of my soul.
Without reason, my place is to endure
a fracturing of self that slowly crumbles.
‘Til nothings left of what was my former self.

My god, however did I survive,
the regret of what was lost, of what I never have been.
Thank you for never letting me become like you,
for never wanting me, and for leaving me behind. 

You inspired in me a disgust of ever being like you,
A conviction and a purpose to find a better way to be,
the strength and courage to endure beyond all reason what was a living hell.

Sometimes I wish that you could see me now
to know me as I am, a better person for your trials.
Sometimes I wish that you might understand the hell you put me through
the damage that you did. To close the wounds,
and end the chapter in forgiveness,
but nothing would change, we make the best of what we have.
We are measured by the actions of our lives,
and not the trials we overcome.
We are seen for what we have done.

My God, however do I live with what has been
without regret or guilt for the part I played in it.
Thank you to those who questioned, for the doubts you did express
you saved my life and comforted my broken soul
it inspired in me a desire to live
to all who helped along the way, who gave so much
I write this in gratitude the least that you deserve
for the battles you helped me fight,
the hope that you instilled and for the things you never knew you did

that meant so much to my tortured self.

You call me a misery like it's a bad thing

Because some days are just not that great!



I look at the world like it’s gone mad,

a place of violence and anger, where to shout and rage gets things done:
kids take up arms, the adults shrug like they didn’t do a thing
where people die to make a point,
and I cry for what is lost.
You call me a misery like it’s a bad thing
to cry over the dead, the torture, the wars of world: it’s a waste, just let it go
but to see the pain without remorse, without a twinge, how can you live

I look around this world with paper thin smiles
where laughter dies too quick, tiredness resounds and worry rages.

You party like tomorrow is already gone, where it doesn’t matter if you survive,

it’s the journey that counts.
I cry for what you missed while drunk and high.
You call me a misery like it’s a bad thing,
to party so hard you can’t remember the fun, the people :it’s Friday night, you just gotta
where what is missed cannot be remembered, how can you know you were happy?


I look around as people pick themselves up, again,
make up stories of their escapades and laugh like they can remember it all.
I watch as people laugh too, not knowing what they have lost
alone in their own memories
and I cry for the isolation you can’t but feel,
You call me a misery like it’s a bad thing
when I see the broken heart, countless amounts of offense you caused,

was it really all that good you want to do it all again tomorrow, how can you live?

I watch as people sleep walk through their lives
past those in need, ignoring the pain of others and animals alike.
A shell on it’s way to work
and I cry for us all
you call me a misery like it’s a bad thing
I’m trying to find the happiness I see you ignoring every day
set on a path that leads you to the same tomorrow you had today

I often wonder what other peoples minds are like.

In so many ways I feel I have a unique perspective on the world around me and how people relate to each other. Unique in the sense that this is how I see the world and no one else will see it/hear it through my eyes and ears. The strange part is that although I see myself just like everyone else I doubt that how I react is like everyone else. A long term mental health condition can skew you’re perceptions of what it is to be normal and when so many people are denying that there is such a thing as normal people tend to ask what makes you ill instead. To me normal is simply not being unwell, it is not different form how I am it is just not hurting everyone in the way that my mind/thoughts/deeds are. I find myself talking to many people with mental health conditions who are desperate to tell me that we are different. We are ill and although I agree in principle I still wonder if they are right. Are we fundamentally different or do we just do things differently and that causes the problems.

So this little piece is about one persons imagines, one persons questions about how peoples minds work.



I have often wondered what my place in this world is. Where do I fit and quite frankly I am none the wiser. I look around at the world, at people going through their daily lives and wonder, what are they saying to themselves? Are they berating themselves, do they tear themselves down when no one else is? Do they worry about things that no one has even noticed?

I see confident, outgoing, chatty, happy people and I wonder. They tell me about what they have achieved and talk about their kids or new job. They moan about their parents and the weather, how unfair this or that is, or how obnoxious a boss they have but really what is going on, on the inside?

I’m not exactly the shy and retiring type. I’m not the wall flower or the sad little creature. I’m not even the extrovert or the popular person trying to make up for my inadequacies by showing off. I’m just there. I turn up to things, I try things and then maybe never do them again, but hey at least I had a go. I guess to others I seem confident and outgoing and have done so much, but really on the inside there’s a little girl that’s terrified, her heart is racing, the adrenalin is making her cold and jittery, and she’s shrieking with all her might to just get the hell out of here. It’s not like you even wanted to do this, wanted to be here. So just bloody well go and be done with it. But I don’t go, I don’t leave, in fact I just take a deep breath and do what I am asked and occasionally I shake, or have to sit down and in most instances I just don’t agree to things I can’t face doing.

Okay so sometimes this doesn’t work out so well. I fail, I fall over myself either in words or in deeds, but when it comes down to it I guess I usually do okay and people believe...well what they want to I suppose, that I’m confident or good or I don’t know, maybe, arrogant given my shortcomings, but mostly they just don’t act like I expect them too. They just keep asking more and more and quite frankly MORE of me and I try to give it. I try to make them pleased with me and then they say, oh you’ve done everything, or you are a know it all you’ve got all the answers.

But really do they not get it. I’m scared, scared of failing, scared of not being good enough, scared of not being happy, of not having friends, scared of living. It would be so nice to have someone actually say thank you, or good job, well done. Nice to hear someone say that must have taken a lot of effort, thanks, couldn’t have done it without you. But really what I want to hear is so glad you’re alive, you’re a wonderful person to know. I spend all my time trying to be what you want, trying to say the right thing and really I just want to feel like I’m a good person and someone to be proud of, proud to know. But I don’t feel it. I feel I’m bad and wrong and there’s nothing I can do to make up for that but I try because what else is there. What else can I do? Die! No that’s just not me and it’s not about quitting or taking the cowards way out. No it’s about how good life can be, how fantastic it is to solve a problem or make someones’ life just that little bit better than it was because I said this or that. It’s about how great chocolate cake tastes, how mind blowing roller coasters are, it’s about how amazing the natural world is and that there is so much to see in this world that I don’t want to not be a part of it. But oh how it hurts, how hard it is to keep going day after day.


So I wonder, is everyones life full of doubt? Do they feel so wrong all the time or are they as happy as they seem? Do they ignore the shadows that appear and the voices that scream at them, do they put up with all the voices telling them they are no good or is it just me? Does everyone see things that disappear and feel the earth move even when it hasn’t? Do their emotions take their breath away or are they as unaffected as they seem. Or are they fighting their own internal battle to be who they want to be and do what they want to do.

A life not lived.

It seems to me that as children we start out getting much of what we want and desire and then as we get older far more gets in the way of those desires. The need for money, the need for a home and children and really as adult so many of us lose out on the things that we would like that don’t make it onto the necessary list of thing we need to achieve to keep the roof over our heads or food in our bellies and the kids in school etc. the thing is that so often I hear people bemoan the things that they haven’t done and how they woke up and found their lives had passed by without really realizing it and now want so much more than they had. So this comes in part from all the people I’ve met who have suffered just that bit more than average.



A life not lived



6/7/2012

I woke up to bright sunshine streaming in between a break in the curtains way before I wanted to. 4:30 for Petes’ sake who wants to be up at this time. I am so tired my sleep has been plagued with night mares of pain and suffering. Mine to be precise and really vivid and gruesome too I just can’t stand this anymore. Night after night running for my life, getting beaten or raped and why because life isn’t how I want it. I have a job and a home, a family, a loving partner and every night I am chased, beaten, often raped and killed. I just don’t get it.

Today I have a day off, a day just to myself and now I am awake at 4:30 feeling like my head hasn’t touched the pillow in years. The family will be getting up in a few hours and I was hoping for a lie in and some rest. Well really I was hoping to spend the day in bed sleeping off some of the bone weariness that is so much a part of my life right now. The fog that surrounds my mind is so numbing, the routine that I live in means I could do it in my sleep. Well really it feels like my whole life is done in my sleep.

My husband will be at work, the kids at school I can sleep all day well that was the plan. So what now, my eyes feel like they’ve be sucked back a little further into my skull, my body weights so much more and my muscles have wasted away and I can’t lift myself any more. I am just sinking through the mattress and rising above it all at the same time. Wide awake and in a deep slumber too. Oh to feel like I am really alive. Oh to feel like the blood is pumping through my veins and pushing me on to greater things.

But no I have things to do, places to be, children to sort out, problems to solve and all I want is to sleep and feel rested, to feel happy and content and alive. It’s all very well to have children and a family and good career but really what does any of it mean when I am fighting to feel alive, am I asleep or am I dreaming. I can’t even remember when I did something and enjoyed it, even before I felt so tired when did I ever do something purely because I wanted to?

I’m on 45 for Petes’ sake and I feel about 100, worn down and weary of living. So many chores, responsibilities: are the kids at school, the job, the chores, have I done the shopping, cooked a meal got the kids to clubs, taken some exercise, seen my friends, so much of my life feels like a big fat chore that I have do but would much rather not. Something I will be asked to do again and again and will not enjoy something that others want and say we all need but not something that I actually want.

How did my life get like this? Get to me taking a day off work so that I can sleep, so that I can do absolutely nothing and feeling that that will not be enough to revitalise me. I just want to feel...

And there we have it. I have no idea how I want to feel, I just don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to feel so dead to everything. And now I think about it, it’s not just doing something, it’s everything: things don’t taste nice, I never have any energy, I ache all the time, the world is talking about things but I am not really hearing any of it and the other day I swear I was seeing things. I just don’t feel like I know what is going on around me. My life is deadening and deafening and I don’t ‘feel that anyone is really hearing what I am saying, seeing what I do or even noticing what I achieve; I may as well not be here.

I mean really when was the last time I had any fun?

Well my friends would probably say last Fri when you were out with us, my work colleagues the day before yesterday when we celebrated the new contract, my husband the evening in we had, and the kids the last time I took them out or l joked at breakfast. But really I’m not sure any of this was fun. I don’t want to do this anymore; I just don’t want just this life, I want more. So why does it feel so bad, so wrong, it’s not like I’m bouncing around with energy doing things that I enjoy. Most of what I do is for everyone else. For the kids, my husband, my friends, because when is there any time for me in all this. When am I doing anything that I really want?

Maybe today!? But what do I want? And what can I do in a day that I really want?

What is normal for me?

It seems an age since I've actually had anything ready to post but believe me when I say it isn't from a lack of ideas. Life has been somewhat busy recently and much as I have been writing none of it has really made the grade and I'm not even sure that  this one is up to it. I am not sure if the tenses are quite correct but I'm going with it for now and may edit it later. As you might note most of what I write comes from my experiences although totally fictional and this one is no different. As with many people who experience mental distress there are good days and bad ones and what you do to get by is often not quite what others might choose. This is a little story about how it can feel to have found something that works that appears to only be done in movies or by children.

What is normal for me?

It is a pleasant Sunday afternoon around my friends, playing with her two children, but oh my, there comes a point when they’ve had enough. The youngest is only two and like all two year olds is somewhat demonstrative with her emotions. I wouldn’t say she was a drama queen with attitude but there are times when I look at her and wonder what is going on in her head.

I can see the stomping down of her feet, just so, and the increased tension in her arms and then her body. Her face changes subtly, her eyes narrow slightly and then she throws up her arms, screams and screws up her face as the tears flow freely and in variably after what seems like only a few seconds she slumps to the floor or into a chair and great wracking sobs shake her frame. Her arms become lose and flail as the howling bubbles up from her belly in fits and starts that judder out through her mouth. Touch her and she might just throw an arm your way but it is a sight to see. The temper tantrums of the young are amazing and as she succumbs I am transfixed with fear as I watch her abandon herself to everything that she feels without a care for what might happen to her while she is like this. To be so oblivious to your surroundings, so in the thrall of what is going on for you is incomprehensible for me, but then she is not an adult and now as the howling begins her mother moves forward to intervene. I am rooted to my seat so scared of what this little flailing monster is going through to move. I am not a parent and quite frankly am very pleased about that the tumult of life with a child seems too far removed from my quiet life for me to contemplate. The raucous goings on scare me, root me to the spot and generally make me want to run and hide rather than go to the screaming mass that is the child and although my friends tell me you get used to it and learn to deal with it I sincerely doubt that I would. I feel it is much more likely that I would want to join in.

As I watch my friend pick up the dead weight of crying child I wonder if this tantrum is really about. It was as sudden as a guest of wind and as all encompassing as epileptic fit and now it is beginning to pass I do not understand how. Little Charlotte is starting to respond to her mum and very quickly she’s wiping her eyes, dusting off her clothes and is back smiling like nothing happened. Another toy is found and she’s back to playing in the garden without a care in the world. But what really happened and is it really alright?

‘She’s fine.’

Yeah sure she is. Me on the other hand not so much.

‘She’s fine really...it’s quite normal.’

I raise my eyebrows. I really wish people wouldn’t say things like that. Quite normal what the hell does that mean.

She turns around and looks at Charlotte.

She’s playing quite happily, bit smile on her face. She looks fine, quite happy even but still my gut is taught and the adrenalin is only just subsiding. Is she really alright? I look at my friend who after a quick glance in Charlottes direction is pouring tea and offering biscuits and cakes to the other mums who are here with their children. How can they be so calm.

‘It passes you know’

Huh!

‘The terrible twos, they pass.’ The lady points to Charlotte. ‘The temper tantrums, the expansive outbursts, they all pass as they get older. They settle down.’

I smile and nod.

‘You don’t have kids do you?’

Like she really needs to ask. ‘No’

‘You get used to it, they just want to feel you’re around and everything’s going to be okay and then they’re fine again. You just reassure them a bit and distract them and then their back to normal again.’

I sigh as I recall how fast Charlotte recovered. ‘Yes I see that. It’s just so...’ so what, noisy, expansive, demonstrative, physical. So what, so damned scared to watch and feel like the end of the world is coming for her.

She pats my arm a few times. ‘You’ll see, they grow out of it real quick. In a few years you won’t even remember she was like this.’

I smile and look at Charlotte, playing with her friends like nothing happened and I know she’s right. Well mostly I feel she’s right but still there’s a little deep dark part of me that’s scared that she won’t. Scared that this is how she will be for the rest of her life. It’s obviously not a fear that is shared by the parents in the room and one you would think I would be able to dispel really easily as the world is full of people who don’t react like that to the world. Well you might think that but I know different.

The fear comes from deep down, a place that I have sequestered away from the world, a place I only go when I am alone. The place that knows when things get bad I do exactly what Charlotte does and just like her after I have flailed and cried and collapsed into a heap I can pick myself up and get on with life. I’m nearly thirty and I am ashamed that my emotional handling amounts to a two year olds tantrum but in all my years I have found no better way to cope with what I feel than to let it out in such a physical and noisy manner.

What I feel wells up and takes a hold of my heart rate, my breathing, my temperature, it is heavy on my chest and leaden in my body. It raises the hairs on my scalp and my arms and causes pain in my limbs. It gives me great racking sobs that feel like I am physically pushing it out when I breathe, it makes me sick. The world goes dark around my fear and lowers my blood pressure so that I am faint. I gasp for breath and sink to the floor but it is not panic it is just how I feel and I feel like this all the time. When I am upset it is so physical I am not aware of anything other than what is going on in my mind and body and it is why I push it away. It is so encompassing that I am vulnerable to the world and the people in it. So I hide it, I keep it safe until I am safe to be that vulnerable because much as it is normal for a two year old at twenty seven I feel the world with judge. I world will crucify me and lock me up in a mental ward but it is just how I feel. It is how I have always felt, so strongly, so acutely, so physically that it takes up my consciousness and I know no other way but I fear the world and its ideas of normal. I fear its ideas of how I should be and the intolerance of my differences but what am I to do. I have always been like this, I just learnt to hide it and despite the problems it causes me I do a damn good job but I feel alone.

I feel so different to the rest of the world, to everyone who is in it. Oh and don’t get me wrong there are people who have similar problems to me but somehow it really doesn’t feel all that great to know that someone else has the same diagnosis as me because what does that really mean. I cannot be myself and let my emotions out as I need and really when the entire medical profession is exerting so much time and effort into making me like everyone else it just doesn’t feel so good. I am not a criminal, I am not addicted to anything, and I am not even that dysfunctional in the world. I have small job and some friends. I take responsibility and have my own home but still it feels bad because unlike the rest of the world I am not like them. But what is so damned different about me? Nothing, I just feel a lot.

The Crowd Pleaser

We all have these moments, where everyone else seems to be happy and we're fighting back the tears as something hits a sore memory but what do you do? I guess for most of us the simple answer is we sit through it. We try not to cry or upset anyone else and sometimes people notice and comment and sometimes they don't it just depends on how good an actor/actress you are. But there are times when I wonder if people really do have any idea of what it feels like for someone who's depressed or who has suffered from a past that most people cant' even imagine. In fact I feel most people don't think about it they assume that peoples lives are going to be quite similar to their own. Well this is a little story about that assumption and how it can impact peoples decisions about wanting to be around people.




The crowd pleaser

Oh yes there have been many moments in my life where the world has seemed like a very distant and cruel place and none more so than now. It’s an ordinary night out with friends, the pub we’re in is quite full and despite the background music we can still hear each other speak. A rarity I’ll grant you and one that I would much rather forego right now for my friends are talking about their childhoods. The happy times that they had and they are reminiscing about the wonderful toys they were given and the enjoyment they got from them. And here I am cold as ice, trying desperately not to cry, not able to move or smile or join in and certainly not able to run away and hide like I would very much like to.

I cannot look at them and although I cannot move I wish most fervently that this topic of conversation will pass swiftly. The men liked the macarno, the lego sets, and board games. The women played with dolls and doll houses, rode bikes and even occasionally chemistry sets. And then there’s me. I don’t remember what I had, well one or two things but even then I’m not sure and I certainly don’t remember what I enjoyed. In fact truth be told, I still don’t know what I enjoy. They talk of their mothers and fathers, friends and family who gave them the toys or played with them and again I am frozen.

They don’t notice me at the end of the table quietly sipping my drink and casting my eyes anywhere but into their eyes. They don’t notice that I haven’t spoken for a good 15 mins since they started talking about their pasts and even then it was a very short ‘Oh yeah I remember that,’ and I am glad. I’m also quite bored and as mentioned quite tearful. My heart rate is elevated and I can feel the icy spikes of adrenalin and cold sweats of fear. In checking the mirror behind the bar I can see that to the rest of the world I seem fine; normal in fact, although maybe a little bored. Just need to work on that smile and the slightly glazed look to my eyes and no one would ever guess. I look at my hands gripping the arm of the chair I’m sitting on and feel the taught fiery stress of my overly tense legs and wonder what good this is doing me.

Get out they said, meet new people and enjoy yourself they said and you’ll feel much better. Little did they know how it would affect me. I want to be happy and enjoy being with the friends that I have made but there is so much that is so painful and who would have thought that talking about what toys were available when we were young would cause me so much stress and pain. They certainly didn’t, don’t as their animated faces and much joking around proves. They have completely missed what is going on for me and why should they not. Their childhoods were not like mine and they have no idea what mine was like as it has never been something I have talked about. I have pretty much avoided thinking about it to for the most part: I can’t change it so why upset myself.

I want what they had. I want to have felt loved and wanted, deserving of those toys and attention and I don’t, and hearing about their childhood and how good they were cuts to my heart, strips it bare and yanks it painfully in my chest taking my breath away. They may as well be stabbing me with every joyful laugh and excited exclamation and their desire for me to join in with them.

I can see their affront when I say little and without enthusiasm. I can see the way they deflate in front of me and I wish I could explain but they look so happy and excited, and I don’t want to see that change; but I can’t change my past or how I feel about it. I can only keep it to myself. I look around watching them and the rest of the pub and I want to be away from here. Far, far away where there is no one watching and I can let the tears flow and the anguish out. Where I can scream and shout and sob theatrically like a child and throw a tantrum, like I never did then. But I can’t, I can only sit and listen and grasp at my chair or my leg until they have finished. They are my friends and I don’t want them to be unhappy like I am and I definitely don’t want them to feel that they can’t talk about their past because I am with them.

“Drink?!” Pete holds up a glass and looks around the table.

I smile briefly. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

He smiles back with far more feeling and genuine warmth.

I sigh and my eyes prick with tears. I blink. “Just a J2O, I’m driving.”

He nods and looks at Rosa next to me.

“So what’ve you been up to?” Sarahs looking at me.

I shrug. “Not much.” And I tell her what little I have been up to and the conversation moves on. I take a deep breath and sigh. It has passed and I am okay. I can begin to relax: to breath a  little easier but it will be a while before my heart rate is really steady.

Torn apart

I guess more than many I have doubted the reality in which I find myself.. never really sure what is or isn't real and the hallucinations made it much worse but still despite or maybe because of their brevity of duration I find myself doubting that I have heard or seen what is really happening around me. For how can anyone really be sure that what they perceive is there, actually is, because as we all know people lie, are not very observant and are in many ways completely unaware of what they themselves are doing.Torn apart is about how the doubt, about how what can be appearing to be anything other than reality.

Torn apart

The world seems fractured, broken, showing opposing views

but what is real, there is no sign they segue together

yet so different. The brutal and the loving milliseconds apart

to blink and everything is changed.

A flickering milieu of human nature in a single breath;

To see, to hear, to feel at once what is, what was and what could be.

At odds they tear me apart, desperate, despairing, lonely yet happy, hopeful, at peace

people caring for each other and so cruel as well.

It contradicts and overlaps not one thing or the other.

A waking dream of fitful sleep, with cries of fear

that are uttered but not heard, where tears have flowed

and the rivulets are unnoticed, unfelt and left to dry

Where limbs that move too much and ache are not given rest;

For though the pain is felt the reason is not known

But what to do, for did the person really mean the words that were heard

And was resentment seen where only kindness was meant

Was that flicker really there or am I sleeping still.

Will I wake and find that life is not this hell that I am living in.

Carried away

There are moments when things seems less stable than before and external stimuli cause big internal battles. It is at these moments that i feel carried away. I seem to zone out as I try to cope with what is going on in side of me and lose track of the world. Some would say a panic attack but it is never that simple.

Carried Away

In that split second after, I am paralysed

and washed away from the present.

Now just flashes of light, snippets of sound, the odd word

and anger, despair, resentment and pain.

Weightless buffeted and bashed

I tumble headlong uncontrolled without falling

confused by a dizzying assault on my senses.

Panicked and scared I try to understand what’s around me

I cannot keep up, I cannot even pretend as I spiral out of control

I know not where or what is going to happen.

It changes so fast without stimulus;

I am lost yet some things still seem known

The turmoil it drags at me, pulling in all directions

I feel the impending loss of cohesion and will it to happen.

Escaping the friction and strife that connects me

then each part would be free to be as it wants

The balance is tipped I am free

yet still I am here not calm and serene but alive

I know not how or why this world has pulled me apart

nor how I still live but I am here.

The heavy heart

There are times when life gets you down and it feels like you're walking around reacting like normal but still feel dead on the inside. All the time we are asked to put aside how we feel, to be professional, and deal with what is going on now but it can be very difficult and can leave people feeling very alone. So the heavy heart is the unseen problem.



The heavy heart it walks amongst us
it passes by unnoticed
it smiles and laughs
takes part in life like nothing’s wrong
then hides away to cry alone
to moan in pain, to try and heal the wounds
than never seem to fade.


The heavy heart it yearns to feel light
to dance and sing and reach the sky
where the warming sun shines
but for now it does not feel the heat
it senses more of what might be
and hopes for better times to come.


The heavy heart endures
it beats, slow and laboured
it’s painful rhythm pushing life to places
that long since abandoned hope
reminding that life might change and sometime soon
the light will come, the sun will shine
and it will skip and race again.

Know thy self

There are times when I consider where I have gotten too and how it might have been different had my life not been what it has. I think most people could say the same although I can see that many may not have so much they may wish to change. I guess the thing is that we carry on with life when we're young not really considering things or considering them too much and it can lead to a sense that we don't really know ourselves at all well. That we are in fact very far from where we might want to be in terms of careers or family/relationships and not really have any idea how it happened. Maybe you haven't but I certainly have. So this one is about feeling completely divorced from who we really are and how it can lead to not choosing to do anything with your life.


If I could only reach you
only know what you want
I could be so much more.
I could rule the world
or start a business.
I could do so much more, be so much more.

But alas I know what it is that you want
what you are passionate about.
And so I slip from one thing to the next
never really doing anything
for I fear that it will not be what you want;
not what you would like
and I fear I have failed you because
I do not know what to do.

And how to rejoin the soul that split at birth
to find a better way, far away from all that hurt
from all that demanded I be I know not what
for now I am lost not knowing you
and do not know how to change it

I feel the loss the empty space
the place of certainty that says
this is me and I am proud of her
for all of her mistakes, her missed opportunities
for all those miss steps I am who I am
and I am still proud of her
but oh how I wish I knew who that was

The answers lie within

As with many people I watched my mad fat Diary and unusually I watched them all. I say unusually as most of the time I find depictions of any kind of mental health problem to be either a bit insipid or so way off the mark I want to put my fist through the screen. But as I watched the first episode I became uncomfortable and intrigued because in a way there was that bittersweet moment that you see/saw yourself so very long ago and wonder whether this might give you some answers to the questions and unresolved emotions that you have without really wanting it too. And yes I did see myself as Rae, I heard the things my parents said in her mother too. There were things I didn’t like but the most memorable scene of the series for me was when Tixy and Jester are in the toilets and he says after some lead in ‘in my job I just slowly torture people’ or something like that and it reminded me of how I saw therapy. So this poem is about therapy but also about those answers we all seek but are unlikely to ever have, and how the come and go and sometimes we see how the fit but often don’t. So

The Answers lie within

The tortured mind of the child within
does shout and scream and bawl in pain
it writhes in agony trying not to feel what it does.
It runs like the wind from person to person
skittering about so flighty, the storm clouds
from which the lightening comes,
the memories of times gone by in perfect Technicolor
they slice through as scalpel to skin
and shoot and burn along the nerves
to freeze the heart and leave the body aching.
So intangible and unreal
yet destructive to the soul, they rip this world apart
then jump out of reach as if it never was,
to leave this mind in pieces grasping for it’s life
stability and solace, without a reason.
The memories they slot in place
chaotic random acts that tortured this soul
still move around inside, still cause the pain they did
but now so much has changed that some are not so bad
nor so much your fault that things move on at last.

Disconnected from life

So it has been a very long time and although I've had plenty of ideas they've all been very difficult to actually write and this one is a bit of an odd one too. There are times I think when everyone feels a bit distracted from the present, away with the fairies and everyone assumes that it's a nice day dream they're having. Well for some I guess that is the case or just staring into space but sometimes I wonder what if it's not, what if the distraction is something you wished would disappear from your life completely. Or what if it was something that seemed real but wasn't. Well working with this theme I started to write this piece about being disconnected.

Here I am curled up on the floor in the dark again. It’s not cold but then it’s not hot or airy or anything much; can’t tell where I am it’s just here. It’s almost like I’m suspended in a warm air flow except that nothings moving and it feels like I’m lying on something, yet I can’t tell what. I hate it and I’m scared. It feels like I’ve been crying and I’m rocking back and forth like a baby trying to comfort myself, it’s almost like I’ve been beaten and yet I don’t’ feel bruised. I feel sore like I was bruised and then they healed in seconds and I am left with this after sense that I should be bruised and swollen and not able to move, yet when I do I feel fine.

I can’t hear anything much, no birds, no cars or trains and no one moving around close to me. I cry again, why can’t I stop, it’s not like I’m even hurt or am I? I just can’t tell. What was that? …Not sure it was there at all and now it is gone like the sound just evaporated: like it was never there to start with and yet I can remember hearing it. This place is weird it’s like all I ever hear are echoes, that disappear so quickly, sound that has no source or substance. Even the beatings are like the never happened. They start and end without warning as flashes in the dark and then there are gone, so unreal yet I can remember them. Am I drugged? It feels real and I feel awake but I’m not sure. Oh it is so confusing I feel so disconnected from myself. Was that something? Oh God what if he comes back…?

And who is he I don’t remember anyone. Oowww…ahhhh. Don’t hit me, don’t hit me, what did I do?

I rock back and forth, cuddled up stroking my top arm trying to sooth myself and melting into the floor, yet not sinking: moulded into air yet lying still and crying silently. Why will this not end and what happened did they beat me or rape me, are they starving me or just drugging me and why oh why do I always feel that they have done something and yet never know what.

 

The sunshine is beautiful and warming to my skin, I could sit here all day just soaking it up.

“Hey there…lovely day isn’t it?”

I smile. “It is indeed.” I sit back lifting my face to the sun and closing my eyes. Humm this is lovely. However better get on, there are things to be done like work unfortunately. Back to the grind stone and back inside to the paperwork.

As walk in Sarah looks up from her desk. “How was lunch?”

I walk across the office towards my desk. “Too short!”

Sarah laughs. “Yeah, know what you mean.” She turns back to her computer. “Can’t wait for four o’clock, then I’m out of here. Home to the garden and a bottle of wine.”

“As if.”

She shrugs. “Should have got in earlier then you could go too.”

Yeah she was right this flexible working was great but it still required me to get in earlier enough to do all of my hours if I was going to leave at four. I sigh. “Oh well there’s always tomorrow.” But for now there was a mountain of data entry to get through. Damn shame no one ever filled the paperwork in legibly. The hardest part was working out what people had written the rest was a cinch.

Everything was blurry, oh I need a break, only three, oh dear. I rub my eyes; they feel so gravelly I need a break.

Sarah was shuffling files.

“Want a coffee?”

She looks up and shakes her head. “No thanks.” She turns to the window, a smile playing at her lips and then she looks down to the files again.

Right just me then. Soon be break time.

“Arr Bev, glad I caught you.”
Great Dave, this can mean only one thing; he’s trying to palm something else off onto me, wonderful.

“Oh you’re looking tired. Can I have a word?” He motions to the wall

“Yeah sure; I was just going to get a drink.” And I move away from my desk and head towards the office door.

“Taking a break, it’s not that time already is it?”

I stop at the door and plaster a smile on my face before turning around to face him. “No sadly not, just needed to give my eyes a rest from the screen.” I point towards my computer screen.

I have never worked out why I always feel so guilty about getting a drink when I’ve been staring at the computer for well over an hour and health and safety say I need to give my eyes a rest every hour for five minutes. Look at something in the distance they say, change the distance at which you’re trying to focus and let your eyes relax. Yeah great idea and wonderful for them, however every single time I actually do this the boss comes along and says something like ‘oh taking a break blimey didn’t know it was that time’ and I feel like I’m skiving off. It’s not like they couldn’t give me something to do that didn’t involve using a computer so I could vary my work but hey they’re the boss’s. Damn pains.

“Oh right. So have you finished the routine samples?”

I sigh. “No not quite.” There were thousands and when you can’t even be sure they’ve put a one instead of seven it really doesn’t make the process go any faster.

“Really.” He raised his eye brows. “Well we need you to get on to the extra sets on today. We have a client who wants some and if they’re not on the system then we’re in trouble.”
I smile, not an unusual occurrence they were always wanting things done like tomorrow. “Yes well I could just skip onto them.”

He shook his head. “No, no, we need them all on there.”

Like I didn’t know that. “Well there’s still, maybe thirty sets to go and if they’re all so badly written it’ll take what… maybe three hours but I have bloods to spin tomorrow and that will take all morning and then enter them, another couple of hours so…” I’d lost him; he was staring straight at my chest. A bad habit at the best of times but right now I could do without it.

“Right well just get them on there will you Durmstrung want their samples in two days.” He walked off.

I lean against the door to push it open and close my eyes.

The floor is cold and I want to cry, there’s no one here, there’s nothing here. I need this to stop I can’t take it anymore. I just want to die. Tears start to roll; I just want to not be here anymore.

Eyes flash open; no I don’t need that now. I look round and see Dave walking away from me and remember.

Yes sir, of course sir and when exactly am I supposed to do that….this evening maybe. Now I know why I don’t come in early, they’d be far too much room to ask me to stay late. At least this way I have to leave when the building shuts and I’ll have done my hours and no more.

 

Think of good mental health

It strikes me as odd that usually it is a period of poor health that makes me think about what it's like to have good health. It's not something many people actually think about either but occasionally it might be a good idea if people did as it might highlight to them how little they consider how to help those who don't. Anyway this is another look at what's it like to come from poor mental health and recover, it's called my world within. The idea was to express emotions as something that could be seen and understood by all as generally people don't.

My World within

Today the world within has temperate days, with warming sun and calming rain.
And down below there’s growth in plains where once,
great swaths of land were burnt by fires, fanned
by nervous fearful winds, that spread too far too fast,


Forests were felled by cyclone winds of change
and left to rot in disappointed wretchedness.
There were glaciers of painful ice so deep they numbed the core,
where life expired in tortured silence, as ice consumed it whole
and the thaw brought only desolate, barren land.


This world was troubled by its weather, once extreme and changeable.
Frustrated mega storms charged around in jealous rage, feeding upon themselves
until finally they had dissipated, discharged and blown out,
leaving the land demolished with little time between to rest and rebuild.
This world; it never stood a chance to grow.


But now it seems the angry storms have passed.
The depressive ice ages are at an end
and the scorching disaffected summers have gone.
A time of balance now resounds, where winter meets the summer,
and seasons last for months, not years, and storms blow out in days.


This world now swells and grows in contented cheerfulness
As springs draw forth enthusiastic change that lift the clouds of doubt
From land now ready to regrow, to start what once it couldn’t.
And once again people come to be a part of what’s there.


This world now shines as it was meant to do with sun kissed happiness.
There is harmony where lightning was so fierce,
and soothing rain where once great storms erupted.
And though the winds still whip and sting they blow away the clouds of damp despair
that life will not improve, and then leave the land to thrive.


And though the winter and the storms still come, this world is full of hope.
The growing season is much greater, the weather is less extreme.
There’s time to grow and reap and store it all away.
Shielded from the weather’s destructive forces, life survives on this
until spring returns once more.