Teetering on Tuesday 26.6.12

A warm hello to readers new and newish...welcome to my page....

Mental Illness is very much in the media at present and still it remains unworthy of acceptance and clings with sticky stale connotations on the tongues of some who feel at ease with clearing their throats of and delivering their thoughts out loud, shouting them freely.  Why do they think this is acceptable when 1 in 4 of us will at some point experience mental ill health....?

If we were to have any other form of illness we would seek treatment, talk to our gp and take on board willingly the cure that will hopefully allow us another shot at precious life.  Yet with mental illness we dither for fear of what others might think about us, what we think about ourselves, what our gp might think.....thoughts dipping in and out...I can't take antidepressants, I can't tell anyone that...I should be able to cope, be ok, get on with it....pull myself together!!!  Sadly and truthfully not always possible and in the meantime wasting precious moments of life.  All these things add up to one small word....

stigma

....preventing us from being true to ourselves and what we need, rubbing out the mere idea of seeking out whatever may help us toward mental wellbeing.

Stop the world, calm the traffic

I am unwell and no one sees
I have no broken bones
You would see those
Yet my mind feels disloged, incapable
Of cohereance, of putting one thought
In front of another
In other words it needs fixing

I dare not let in those eyes that meet mine

Would I be lees than them

Classed as bonkers, fruit cake, nutter,

Best place for me...locked up

The key to my sanity thrown haywire to the wind

I grapple with reality, dare not

Take the step to let the world know my sorrow

My sickening, deepening anxiety and pain

Rotting me to the bottom of the well of life

Lost, without a helping hand to pull me out

It is all consuming and knocks me to the floor

Shifting tectonic mood plates
Close me off to my surroundings
Engulfing me between the uneven surface
Dropping me into the deep dark fathoms of the unknown
Choice feels non existant to me
Stigma begone
So that I may reach out for the light of human kind

So very bereft and alone it feels, should we find ourselves in the midst of the '1 in 4'.... locked into our silence without a way out of the myriad maze of twists and turns lengthening our stay in the labyrinth of continuance without recourse.

Faced by those that taunt and mock us, is it any wonder some find it too difficult to seek support?  Yet support there is, if we could just free outselves for one moment and dare to ask.  It can be so very hard to take the step of reaching for help and clutching hold of the response that follows, yet often once we have tackled this step the world tilts so we can see beyond the undergrowth of barbed brambles, letting in a little daylight enough for us to begin to prune back the deadwood.

Sing softly to the beat in your heart

Tread the sharp shale that's underfoot

Until the songbird of your beating heart

Knows no boundary to your wellbeing

And sets you on white sandy beaches

Warm and silken soft

Doze in the splendour of who you are

Running your fingers through the fine virginal grains

A new mindset introduced....to be travelled

A new life yet to be lived

Take hold of your olympic torch and travel down the blindside as it will become clearer once the light filters those dark places.  Shadows may gang up and corner you at times but your torchlight will lead the way and expose their true identity for what it is as they crumble at your feet.

Once our innermost deeply held truths are revealed to someone in a trusting and confidential setting, this in itself tears the cloth tha has shrouded and kept us smothered in a dark place; bringing a release we were not sure existed.  To know another person has taken time to listen and not judge, who will share our truth and honesty without the shoulds, oughts, whys and wherefores, yet still accepts us for who we are, is something to be cherished.  It brings a new sense of clarity, a different way of looking at things brought about by a changed mindset unseen before we reached out for help and sustenance.

I urge anyone who is suffering from mental ill health right now or in the future, to seek help, do not wait as there is a different life out there for you to live and one that does not have to be where you find yourself right now.

Have the best day you can possibly achieve.

Till nex time.....


LAURA