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

One Year On

One Year On 

One year on, 
Since my freedom was thieved from me, 
I was sectioned and taken away. 

One year on, 
Since I was picked up from the hospital floor,
Screaming and Crying 'make it stop.'

One year on, 
Since the voices in my head got too loud, 
haunting me and scaring me. 

One year on, 
Since I first screamed someone please help me, 
admitting to my struggles and revealing it to everyone. 

One year on, 
Since death seemed the only option to get me out,
where living was only going to hurt me. 

One year on, 
Since suicide seemed attractive to me, 
my only escape and way out

One year on, 
Since I was hospitalised in a psych ward & checked up on,
every hour through a small window in the door.

One year on.
Since the voices were loud enough to be called torture, 
the harming myself considered fatal.

One year on, 
Since the counting, the rituals, the compulsions, 
reached out of control. 

One year on,
Since all of this and more, 
my life changed, flipped, was turned upside down. 

One year on,
Since so much has changed again, 
Finally everything, the intensity is less
And I keep living instead of dying.