This is my first video rant and is on the topic of managing mental health and how much diagnosis can help in understanding and managing mental illness. I did start to write this as an article but I decided to try something new, so ignore the anxious hand waving and bad angle – I’ll … More Diagnosis and managing mental health
Overwhelmed and unable to do anything about it, I flounder around for relief and comfort that my torn and tormented brain won’t accept. Rest is needed but cannot be achieved until duties are fulfilled, work is needed but cannot be completed until there is rest. Balancing acts of precarious necessities as I try to get … More In Search of Still Waters
The sky is too blue and goes on forever, further than the human mind can imagine. The birds sound wrong. The buildings loom and cage. The air is tasteless. My feet are numb against the ground as I walk, the impact is too soft. Not there. Not real. I scrape at my skin, grip at … More Walking
I am a mother. Telling people this still makes me nervous, and my son is six years old now. I had him at nineteen. He lives with my mum. He stays with me one night a week. I’m not with his dad anymore, and have no input on his seeing or not seeing his dad. … More Good Enough
With each passing perfection Each faded, withered beauty I am more myself. The monster made flesh. Crumbling from the inside out. See me now? See what I am? Or not quite yet? Give it time For sweetness to sour The rot to spread.
I’m sitting here contemplating another night without sleep. Self-flagellation or pain avoidance I can’t tell. I tell myself if I stay up it’s longer until I have to go to work. If I go to bed now I blink and it’s time to walk in the cold and dark to another 14 hour shift. I … More The All Nighter
Noise. Blaring, repetitive strains of ‘It’s a Kind of Magic’ punctuated with the loud screams and shrieks of exhilaration or laughter. People push in on every side, moving masses of colours and sounds coming far too close and towering tall. Flashing lights in cold darkness, lighting up misted breath and steam from the food trucks. … More The Fair
Why do my thoughts not Fit, to rhyme and Pentameter and verse? Why must they drag blunt and Too long for subtle sounding wording Or graceful metaphors? My thoughts are not flighty Not hard to pin down But hard to make pretty And musical Always an irregular beat too long.
“It wasn’t that bad.” I tell myself, looking at the girl who ended her life when I didn’t. “He never hit me.” I tell myself, watching the woman talk about how she feared for her life when he raised his fist. “Sometimes he was good to me.” I remember as I justify the times that … More Comparable
That fluorescent pink tinged feeling, The way people look from the corner of your eye. The sounds of laughter and whispering you aren’t included in. Hot and shivery and prickly. A drop in the stomach that twists at the end. Unpleasant, queasy, unsteady, wrong. Lonely.
Spitfire Words 