No fight

To continue to fight is just too hard

I have spent too much of my life on guard

From my feelings, from my past

I don’t know how much more of this I can last. 

I’m trying, I’m trying hard, I really, really am

Maybe you don’t see it, maybe you don’t give a damn.

The man, this horrible man, must go away

Please, please, please I try and pray

I have no tears, I cannot cry

It’s not any more, but my life was a big fat lie. 

I’m too honest now for my own good

Probably saying far too much than I should.

He haunts me every day with what’s in my head,

The images, the videos fill me with dread. 

They are from a horror film I swear 

Of all the people of whom I care. 

The incidents I have are me losing a bit of the fight

Even if you don’t see them as ‘right.’ 

You’re annoyed, you’re frustrated a lot

I wish you’d just leave me be, to just rot. 

I’m on these stupid 10 minute obs. 

Reminding me of all the freedom that mental illness robs. 

I don’t have leave, but I need to get out.

You’re upset when my distress results in a shout.

I need to harm myself, it might help, I tell you 

But you say “we can’t let you do that, you’ve got to get through.” 

We’re going round in circles, again and again, round and round. 

In this place I guarantee you, no hope is found. 

My heart has been ripped to shreds as I battle this war

I don’t know who I am any more, even down to my very core. 

You think I’m out to physically hurt the team

Even though that’s what it might seem

It’s not the truth. I told you yesterday

But hurting myself, yes, that is the only way. 

You

You

 The fear is big today, 

Too complicated to even say, 

You are in control now,

In my head, me and you have many a row.

You dictate my risky moves,

And 10 percent of the day I lose. 

My want to die to is so strong,

I don’t follow all the rules and everything is wrong. 

I don’t want to listen to you, 

I want to go a day where I just get through.

But you are oh so loud, 

And the things I do don’t make me proud.

You are in control and I don’t like it.

I’m at the bottom of the deep and very dark pit.

Rock bottom has a basement and I didn’t even know.

This is now, for my life, all I have to show. 

A lifetime of anxiety and a bunch of years in and out, risky and done. 

This is not a life to live for, this has been the complete opposite of fun. 

You can go away now please

I’m begging you now, I’m on my very knees. 

You haunt me, abuse me, murder him, murder her. 

I now wait for all these horrible things to occur.

It fills me with dread,

It fills up every inch of my head.

Please, please, please, I need to be gone, it’s my time I swear. 

I need to save them and protect them, there’s only 1 way, I’m sorry it’s going to end this way. I know it’s not fair.

But you win, 

I’m well and truly in the bin. 

Professionals

 Professionals 

The knock at the door, the sound rages through me as I wait for another professional to claim they know my brain better than I do. The entry into the room, the walk into the room having made their decisions and assumptions about you just by reading your notes and not by actually listening. The sitting on the chair, the conversation that has played out in their heads but going off in a completely different direction than they thought it could. The leaning in, the accusations that you don’t really want to die and that every time you reach for help makes you a little less suicidal or your risk a little lower. The conclusion, decisions still not made, people still not being heard, listening but not actively listening, Mental health acts called, crisis teams refused. The end, everyone’s unhappy with the outcome. I want to be dead, they want me to “work with them.” So there is no happy ending to this story because I’m still waiting for what I want and them waiting for what they want. 

32

 I wrote this in July 2023 on my 32nd birthday.

32

Today is my 32nd birthday.

In some ways I don’t know what to say. 

I’m on a section three.

I’m so far from what I’d call free. 

I get a few hours leave tonight.

I have to keep that constantly in sight. 

Saturday is a celebration with my team. 

To the world, all positive, it will seem.

I do know though, that the aftermath with be rough 

The comedown, with the return to the ward will be tough

The want to be alive isn’t within reach right now. 

I honestly don’t know what to do, or even how. 

To survive the next day, week, month, year.

In a life filled to the brim with sadness, darkness and fear. 

But I’m trying to look forward, to hold some hope.

Because in the last years even if it hasn’t seemed it, I’ve just about managed to cope. 

I don’t know when I’ll get out of this place. 

Because it’s then that life in all its scariness I will have to face. 

There will be a day in the future when my mental illness will leave me be and not attack. 

So today as it’s my birthday I’ll be concentrating on looking forward, but first let’s have a little look back. 

Please know 31 hasn’t all been bad.

Though I’m leaving my 31st year pretty sad. 

There’s been friends, a new pet rabbit and a hired hot tub. 

There’s been theatres, restaurants and the pub. 

There’s been family, flamingos, love and care. 

There’s been cocktails, hotels, pink and blonde hair. 

There’s been play parks and nieces, nephews and sisters. 

There’s been cuddles, reunions, drinks, new shoes and blisters. 

There’s been Christmas, dungarees, shopping and gifts. 

There’s been taxi rides, and a lot of people giving me lifts.

There’s been work, there’s been play.

There’s been so much to say. 

There’s been hugs, books and mess. 

In a flat I like to call my best. 

There’s been nightmares and dreams.

And plenty of ice creams.

There’s been naps, TV and films, girlie nights.

Takeaways and postponed flights. 

There’s been trampolining, dancing and a party.

There’s been creativity, a sprinkle of poetry and opportunities to be arty.

There’s been smiles and laughter, giggles and jokes. 

There’s been me supported by the most loving folks. 

There’s been games, selfies and fun. 

And that’s my 31st year done. 

It hasn’t all been bad, I know this for sure. 

I’m just ending this 31st year in a situation that’s quite poor. 

But I’ll get up and look at the mess, 

Smile through the sadness 

And think to myself bring it on, here comes 32.

Forget the negative parts of 31, it’s this next bit I need to get through. 

And so I’ll try. 

I won’t cry.

I’ll get through today

Surely? I’ll find a way. 

No hope around

 No Hope around

There’s this atmosphere around
One where no hope is found
One where anxiety and fear surround.
There’s this mood that’s stuck
One where I don’t give a fuck
One where I can be found in this rut.
The fear is so so strong
Where everything feels wrong
Which makes things last so long
The negative overpowers everything 
Where the bad news gives me a sting
Where the fear of the future knows to me it needs to cling 
This feels like the opposite of heaven, this feels like hell
That the things I have bottled up inside I need someone to tell
That on the experiences I’ve experienced do I dwell. 
There is nothing changing, nothing improving, nothing getting better
There is this Monster that is out to get her
There is news that arrives that is bound to upset her. 
I don’t feel able to do this any more. 
I’ve had enough of feeling bad to the very core
I’m done with this all making my brain so sore.
I don’t understand this world, this life
Where so many people are living in strife
And where mental illness is so rife

When your heads a mess

 When your heads a mess

When your heads a mess

And you don’t know how to detangle the chaos inside

When your brains a blur

And you question everything and anything

When your bodies tired

And you want to give up and give in

When the urges are strong 

And you use all your fight to resist 

When your mind wants you dead

And you wish away every waking minute

This is when you need your army, 

Surrounding and protecting you, fighting with and for you

This is the sound you need to hear

This is the vision you need to imagine

Because one day, 

Your head won’t be a mess

Your brain won’t be a blur

Your body won’t be tired

Your urges won’t be so strong 

Your mind won’t want you dead 

Arms wrapped around me

Arms wrapped around me

I’m crippled by my diagnoses, GAD, OCD, BPD

They wrap their arms around me

depression, anxiety, fear

meaning I cannot move from here. 

I’m suffocating under the weight. 

Maybe this is just my fate?

But then I think maybe life introduced me to pain 

so I could know the power of God, even in the torrential rain. 

His power made perfect in my weakness, I pray

The holy book, the gift from God, the Bible does say

Life taught me a lesson whilst in the valley of the dark

That God, the one in control, even if I do, never loses His spark. 

The days go slowly by and I’m oh so aware that the struggle is real.

That the combination of emotions I’m facing are something not that many feel. 

They’re tearing me down, I’m crumbling under the pressure I swear. 

This whole thing, this disaster of a 2 years has been anything but fair. 

I’m stuck, I’m stuck in almost the same position fighting with all I’ve got.

Baby steps of progress, but no leaps, no bounds, am I even in the same spot?

There’s something stirring in my soul, a poem to be written, a song to be sung.

Little did I know this would be my future when I was young.

But there is one who did know, and has stuck by me throughout it all

God doesn’t step over me or leave me when I fall

He picks me up, dusts me off and kisses me on the head.

Through this desert, even when I didn’t realise, I was being led. 

The paranoia is getting at me, attacking me from every angle

The what ifs, the questions, the assumptions are wrapped around my neck, in a strangle. 

The feelings of abandonment, of rejection, of loneliness consume me

But none of this, on the outside, anyone can see.

I’m helpless & hopeless, all entwined into a big fat ball of mess. 

Even when I get a good sleep, or have a nap I’m nowhere near having a successful rest. 

There is a war, but the war it’s already been won

by the Messiah, Jesus, the resurrected one. 

He taught me how to fly, He taught me how to soar.

But now I need a reminder as I’m a crumpled heap on the floor. 

The battle wages on; but the war it’s been won. I’m sat here in the midst of a fight

where nothing, not even the constants in life, feel right.

I’m so close to breaking, in fact I’m already there.

For these burdens I carry I’ve never been able to share. 

Here I stand with support all around me but with little progress to show

In this game of life it’s all about what you do with what you know

I’ve been picked up and spat back out onto the ground.

With this large group of people, standing back, watching, all around. 

He’s the hope that can be found within the shadows when everything is dark.

I feel like I’ve been given so much to carry, but it wasn’t a blessing like with Noah and his ark. 

This can’t be from God I cry as I’m begging on my knees, make it stop. 

I promise I’m looking for the rainbow I say as the rain drops drop

But now I’m no longer crippled by my diagnoses, GAD, OCD, BPD

As I now know the God who wraps His arms around me

It hurts

It hurts 

My soul is tired from the constant wearing of a mask,
It hurts
The brokenness of my mind so obvious to me,
It hurts
This broken mind is so fragile, yet you can’t see that
It hurts
My heart is heavy from the inner screams that can’t escape,
It hurts
The momentary strength fades away as the pain takes over and
It hurts
The laughter from my friends, I decide is about me, and they can’t see that
It hurts
I’ve lost myself in the fear and the chaos, I can’t find myself again and
It hurts 
I’m overwhelmed and I’ve forgotten who I am,
It hurts 
I’m beaten down, with shame, with fear, with despair 
It hurts
This heart is beating, but I don’t want it to be and each time it beats 
It hurts 
When everything is out of control, nothing is going right
It hurts 
The pride I once had in who I am has disappeared and
It hurts
The shadow in which the monsters lurking and is all too familiar to me
It hurts 
When even giving up causes pain to you and those around
It hurts
But I must hold out hope for the day when no longer does 
It hurt

Reasons to Recover #2

10 more Reasons to Recover
Inspired by a Reasons to Recover workshop

1. To be able to look in the mirror and not hate myself
2. To go out with friends and be anxiety free
3. To feel happy
4. To have a loving relationship
5. To have the confidence to date
6. To realise I am more than my diagnosis's
7. To be there for Esther and Logan, my God Children 
8. To trust my relationships and not have paranoia surrounding them
9. To go back fully to the job I love
10. To be spontaneous without worry.

The Reality of a Psych Ward

The Reality of a Psych Ward

I asked some friends to share their experiences of the reality of an NHS psych ward. Maybe you've never been to a psychiatric ward, I hadn't done before April 2019, or maybe you want to read the differing experiences and views of 4 friends and myself. I hope this gives you a glimpse into the reality of a psych ward. 

Maddie - "I knew if I didn’t go into hospital, I wouldn’t be here at all."

I felt at my safest on the ward and met the most interesting and strongest people I know. Everyone stigmatises mental health and think it would be most scariest horrible place but during my crisis, it was my safety. However, I didn’t get what I needed from my admission- Therapy and plan of continuing recovery care. I did make a friend who can understand totally how I feel and she inspired me to start writing and I found my voice. Despite what anyone says or thinks, I know if I didn’t spend 2 weeks in hospital during my crisis, I wouldn’t of been safe and I definitely wouldn’t be here today- continuing to fight and making first steps to recovery. I finally saw the ward consultant psychiatrist, who took time to listen to me. The consultant was first person to put it altogether and make referral to a neurologist. She also put together my whole history and symptoms and diagnosed me with EUPD as well as PTSD. 

Overall to sum it up, my 2 weeks in hospital was best decision I made during my crisis episode, it wasn’t perfect but I learnt a lot about medication, care, stigma and ultimately myself. It helped to keep me safe and I found my courage, fight, voice and understanding, which together has brought me to where I am now. Recovering. I will not be made to feel ashamed that I went to a psychiatric hospital for 2 weeks to enable me to survive a mental health crisis. I have learnt that it was right and safest thing for me at the time and it has enabled me to take the first steps towards my recovery and has been a huge learning experience, which I am grateful. I got the protection I needed to enable me be where I am today. 

Brooke - A psych ward isn’t all about lovely nurses and doctors with mind stopping medicines. It’s not about painting to your hearts content or spending hours in therapy. The reality of a psych ward is seeing people you class as your friends cry in extreme mental pain. It's witnessing the unimaginable, self harm, suicide attempts, violent fights - with no chance to escape. Its constantly being on edge, just waiting for the emergency alarms to go on, again. It’s being told what to do, what medication to take, what to eat, how much to drink. A psych ward, is not a therapeutic place to be- it’s traumatising.

A -  Being a psychiatric inpatient is hell. It’s not the cushy place you might imagine, with inspirational quotes all over, miracle pills and access to 24 hour airy fairy therapy. When I spent time here last year I was lucky to see a therapist once a week (and that was only on one of my admissions). I was also circulated through a heck of a lot of different medication to reach the right mix - which is largely the same as today. The consultants all had varied views about my diagnoses and seemed to ignore all others when they landed on EUPD. There were patients screaming, shouting and swearing, alarms going off and sadly patients who would wander around not even knowing where they were.

But being a psychiatric inpatient is also safety. It was walls that held me until I was strong enough to build my own. I made a few of my closest friends there - not so I could ‘speak mental health talk’, ‘get ideas’ or ‘compare notes’ as my family seem to think but because they understood me and I knew I could turn to them when things were bad. 

Amidst the storm of the ward, there were certainly moments of calm (and even sunshine occasionally!) and the best care came from certain lovely nurses, HCAs and even the cooks and cleaners. I wouldn’t wish being an inpatient on anyone, but I also wouldn’t take it away from me as it has made me who I am today.

Ciara -  Some people think a psych ward is about medication and therapies. Actually it’s a lot more than that, it’s about having an attachment to certain people and then having agency nurses come in every night. Its watching the people you have grown close to, cry out in pain and distress, it’s feeling the pain everyone around you is feeling, it’s having medication thrown at you if your distressed. It’s seeing things you cannot forget, hearing alarms because someone has done something to harm themselves. It’s being told how you can and can’t go about your day, what you can and can’t do, when you can and can’t go out. People think psych wards are somewhere therapeutic to go, trust me they are not. They are traumatising and distressing.

Steph - I've been on 4 different wards of 2 different hospitals and each one has many similarities. The thing that sticks out most to me is the emergency alarms that go off throughout the ward when there is an incident of self harm, suicide attempt, violence, absconding or something different. If you've been on the ward for a while these alarms have an extra layer of worry as you consider could it be someone you know the staff are running and attending to? Theres been many occasions I've watched as staff from throughout the hospital run towards the room of someone I know and I wonder if that person is ever going to be alright again. 

If you spend a while on a ward you grow close to staff, make attachments only for them to be cut abruptly short when you get no notice of your imminent discharge. You don't get to say goodbye, or if you do it's the hardest goodbye because those members of staff have literally picked you up off the floor on your darkest of days. How can a simple goodbye be a good enough thank you for those members of staff? 

Psych wards pump you full of meds, your dose increases or your meds change and you spent so much of the day recovering from the drastic side effects that so many meds give you. It's about being distress and the first response being give you meds to calm you down instead of a chat because most of the time they're short staffed or busy. It's having to ask permission to leave, to have what your wearing written down each time you leave site, it's about locked doors and doors with windows so they can check on you regularly. It's the no privacy, even in the bathroom, and it's the lack of dignity as you experience incidents of your own. It's about befriending people who you don't know if you'll ever see again, it's about the waiting round doing nothing day after day after day. It's the small snippets of time where the Occupational therapy team or the activities co-ordinator manage to plan something you feel well enough to engage in. Its about weekly ward rounds with a doctor that barely knows you that could mean anything, discharge, a longer stay, who knows? 

I saw a (lovely) psychologist twice on my longer stays on ward, but often on a shorter stay I didn't get to chat to many staff at all to help me process what was going on in my head. You witness the unimaginable on a psych ward and you hear screams and cries you never want to hear again. It's full of nights you can't sleep but you can't chat to staff because most of them are agency and you don't trust them yet, and full of nights you sleep too long and miss meals or activities.  Inpatient life is not therapeutic, it's somewhere you're kept reasonably safe during a crisis.

However, psych wards have kept me alive when I couldn't do that any more, and I've met some of the kindest most inspiring nurses and HCA's who when they can take time out to chat to you, play a game with you or help you get out of a panic attack.