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.

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.

Performance Anxiety

I think most poeple worry a little bit about whether they will be able to do what they are seeting out to, for some it's much worse and their fears can become so overwhelming that they don't even try; convinced that it won't matter they will always fail. This poem was trying to capture what might promote this from the inside.

The laughter ringing in my ears
the jeers and insults flowing
Oh come on, that’s awful, you didn’t even try
why ever did you think that good?

My heart explodes with pain
I’m embarrassed, disappointed and ashamed
no matter how hard I’ve tried
the hope that spurred me on now dashed
battered and obliterated
the pieces, shards of glass,
unseen and yet embedded, a rash of painful splinters
why ever did I think I’d been good?

So desolate and lost, there’s nothing to be done
no sitting still accepted, I’m not allowed to stop
yet all the while I fail
why ever do I bother?

So to the next what shall I do, however shall I choose
my head it rants and rages so and all before I’ve started
a torrent of past anguish, resentment and despair
life without fulfilment where I’m never any good
why ever do I care?