Different

Different

Well this is different.
Everything feels different this time. 
I don't need to, in fact, I shouldn't 
Pretend that all is absolutely fine.
It feels different, this admission,
it will be less than a week. 
And I know, and I'm really trying to concentrate,
to focus on finding the hope I desperately seek. 
Somewhere I've got to find the want, the desire
to live. So here I am, I must look hard,
I must remember that recovery is out there, 
that I can get better, they aren't just words on a card. 
If I say it to my friends then it applies to me too.
Those words, those encouragements. 
I must listen, they are for me. 
And as I am inpatient yet again,
even where you have this distorted view of reality.
I must know I can be free. 
Everything feels somewhat like a dream, 
like it's a different Steph sobbing and crying my eyes out. 
Well, actually, no, it's not a dream. 
I can pinch myself, and this nightmare, oh, it's so real,
without a shadow of a doubt.
The ward it's different to my previous two, 
I am no longer someone who knows how it works. 
As I try and adjust to new staff, new patients and new routines
I realise being inpatient somewhere different has next to no perks. 
I have to choose my actions and words carefully.
I have to prepare myself to go home from day 1.
I must choose to talk if I need help or I am going to hurt myself.
I must not, ever, run. 
The quiet here is quite unusual.
I'm really not used to quiet. 
I'm not sure I like it. 
I think maybe it gives my mind too long to overthink, 
over analyse and dig myself deeper into the dark pit.
That's whats happened at home, when I made a plan, 
a ridiculous plan that didn't even do anything at all. 
Oh man, I wish I'd planned it better. 
Wish I'd never called 999, 
Why would I do that when I couldn't even give the crisis team a call?
Absolute failure is what I feel, and maybe you'll argue with me, 
pleased I didn't finish the job. 
But me, I just can't even get that right. 
It will just be me, sat there, 
not going through with the thing I most want to do, having a sob.
When I cry get me out here I'm not even sure if my confused brain means it. 
Is this even my brain?
I sit here watching the sun break through the cloud, 
and I'm reminded of the saying 
'It's not about waiting for the storm to pass it's about learning to dance in the rain.'
And that is what I shall try, 
to dance despite the storm. 
To know, even as I sit in this deep, dark, cold pit, 
that there is sun coming, 
there is a way out, 
a way out into the warm.

Written by Steph Corris - 8th June 2019 - whilst inpatient