Tag: mental health

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July 9, 2020

Poem: The Punishment – 06/07/20

Author's note: This poem details a point in my mental health journey where I was hospitalised for extreme mania, grand delusions and psychosis. These could not be controlled with time and much medication, hence I was subjected to the often-controversial practice of electro-convulsive therapy. The poet whom I speak of in my poem is extremely well-known, and those who can ascertain who I am discussing will understand certain references I make.

My pills were the colours of the rainbow
oh, this was how I celebrated them,
the nurses delivered me my
morn and nacht medications,
the colours, the shades,
white, pink, purple, yellow,
so bright,
so visually pleasing were they.
When they needed to add another pill,
I did not anger, I did not dismay,
for they were simply
increasing my brightness,
this concept assisted me
to cope throughout my manic days.
I would bounce around,
here and there,
up and down,
in the ward where I was
the starring show,
or at least this was how
I thought of myself,
I was probably to most
an irritating bother.
I’d sing and sing,
for the joy of singing aloud,
there was little to do
within the ward,
we had to entertain ourselves
with personal endeavours somehow,
or simply jump and jump from
one person to another,
conversation flitting about.
There were different types
of white pills,
a mood stabiliser,
an anti-psychotic,
another anti-psychotic,
how I was being loaded,
but my clever over-active mind
would not be dulled,
until they administered the
foreign electrodes.
I thought they were hoping to
kill the magic
inside of me,
my creative streak,
the inspired side of me,
that they were aiming to
punish me
for trying to be like her,
my idol,
for emulating her style,
was this a
warranted punishment
in itself?
To rid me of my toxic bite,
my ability to snipe and snarl
within my writes,

was I worthy of being punished
when all I did was admire,
and allowed myself to be
swayed, swayed, swayed
by her words?
I am guilty only of that crime,
is inspiration and idolising a curse?
And this doctor, with his
trimmed Hitler-like mustache,
an obvious portrayal by the hospital,
an inside 'joke',
that a significant part of little me,
was maybe
bound for the hearse,
helpless at his cruel,
well-trained hands
as a crowd of medical students
stood curiously around me,
without my prior consent,
I hysterically, hopelessly
wept, and wept, and wept.
Students' eyes signalled pity,
perhaps I was like a
caged animal to be seen,
no escape, yet no
true reason for being here,
this was what I firmly believed.
Here goes my skill,
I thought,
all because I fell ill.
It wasn’t my fault,
but it might have been,
somehow, inadvertently.
Where is the comfort
of my rainbow now?
I wondered to myself.

There was no escape,
my eyelids hung themselves
as the cool anesthetic
entered my vein.

I need not worry now
whether I would wake up,
stripped of her influence,
only myself,
or if I'd ever wake up again.

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July 6, 2020

Reflective Piece: ‘Inane Thoughts’ and Combating Low Self-Esteem

When I was younger, I used to worry about the most inane of things.

Why didn't I have enough Facebook friends, why didn't that boy call me back? Was there something wrong with me? Was I too overwhelming with my contact?

Then, how many calories in a thin slice of Cracker Barrel cheese? Because if I was going to eat heavy dairy, it be better taste-worthy. How much mass could I lose in one day? If the scales said 300 grams I'd be disappointed but at least it was something, right?

So, if I stopped drinking as much fluid to fill my stomach up, then surely the numbers would drop more?
Because I felt beautiful when I was skin and bone, did that make me otherwise when I was not?

Why were other people more confident than me? Why wasn't I progressing in life as easily?
Why did I get sick? Depressed, obsessed, manic? Why did I have these mental illnesses?

I guess some of the questions weren't so inane, after all.

A lonely girl on a broken path, wondering where she fit, trying to locate the scattered pieces of herself.

And then I started to realise:

It wasn't about how I looked. It was about my personal outlook. How I viewed the world determined my emotions. And the way I treated others had a reactive effect on the way I then felt about myself. My self esteem slowly stopped plummeting when I stopped obsessing about appearances. Why had I focused so intensely on how I was viewed and perceived? A body is just a shell.

When I thought less of myself and more about the world around me, such as passions and interests, my friends, my family, suddenly, things started to be less scary.

I became... happy. Then, happier, then satisfied in myself. I began to again chase my dreams, my passions, fervently. Weight became a non-issue. In fact, I became the opposite of what I long strove for, but it didn't matter to me, not anymore, because I accepted an image is an image, and a personal truth and belief can be but a mirage.

Why am I writing all this? Why am I sharing these thoughts, you might wonder?

I want to share there's a silver lining to every cloud, no matter whether one's suffering, internally aching, unable to speak up about what is paining them. Please know you're stronger than you think.

July 5, 2020

Poem: Paper-Thin – 02/07/20

Some may view me as mechanically sound,
for I smile quite naturally 
and talk with a 
lilting, confident tone.

My words are 
humorous, relaxed, and 'well',
they don’t know what’s 
hiding inside,
the astringent sadness, she overwhelms.
 
Internally, I feel stretched, 
as though a
punishing thin layer
has been made out of me,

a conglomeration of 
bones, tendons, sinew
enters the picture,

a rolled flat image 
from my pieces,
made from my core,
I am thin, thin, thin;
you can almost see through me.
 
I am not ticking timepieces and 
cogs well oiled,
I am bits of paper-thin 
skin and bone
attended to with the most 
callous of ease,

the beings who made me 
into this sheet
of paper-thin madness,
is the prior mentioned 
Mistress of Sadness,
and her partner, 
Despicable Depression.
 
These two are entwined with the
same cruel feelings, 
they feed off one another,
take victims cold and easily,
they mean harm, I promise,
when I explain, when I say,
that Mistress and Despicable 
aim at pulverising,
they’ve already done me, 
haven’t they?
 
I have been made into a 
sheet of nothingness,
my structure broken and melted and flattened,
I do not know how I’m meant to feel
or be
or understand,
that my existence is but a sham,
 
I wear that smile,
I wear this wellness,
so people won’t misunderstand.
 
The thinness is a curse.
I am truly damned.  
 
© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by PIRO4D from Pixabay

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https://soundcloud.com/user-894707136/depression-a-realisation-spoken-word-poetry-by-lauren-m-hancock

July 2, 2020

Poem: Depression, A Realisation – Spoken Word and Text – 01/07/20

I’ll admit it.
Depression must be settling in.
The sadness has quietly 
crept into my clothing and then into my bones,
until I’ve become used to his company.
 
I snipe at little things,
take offense, 
wallow with despair,
I want to reject this feeling,
but I am too languid,
I need some form of interjection.
 
But my mouth, my tongue seems far too fat
and lazy
to conjure itself into the words,
Leave me alone;
I don’t want your company,
because his is the only partnership I can envisage
that’s making me feel so utterly lonely
even when surrounded by those who care for
and love me.
 
He’s like that tight, oppressive, unwelcome sweater
that you try on from years earlier,
to see whether the style still fits,
still suits you,
and you realise that his sizing is just not right for you.
 
And you can’t throw him off,
emotional you become,
engulfed in the face by years-old musty scent,
from the attic my depression now becomes,
he suffocates,
I panic,
I try to escape.
 
It seems too hard though,
to throw this sinister, insipid being off.  

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay

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https://soundcloud.com/user-894707136/a-bipolars-addled-mind-spoken-word-poetry

July 1, 2020

Poem: A Bipolar’s Addled Mind – Spoken Word and Text – 26/06/20

I shriek,
my body flushed
and covered with welts,
my very first memory,
my very first malady.
 
Illness will follow me wherever I go. 

My violin's bow hairs 
tightly hug the strings,
as left-hand dexterity is a-flurry,
the fruits born of my first psychosis,
the magic of a mind wholly
scattered and broken,
possessed pieces flying in the wind.
 
My stomach is expanding!
The result of repetitive
gorging after many months
of vain, restrictive, self-imposed starvation,
 
I call him,
alerting him to fatherhood,
he rushes, so fearful,
to confirm my grand delusion of a
twin pregnancy is not real.
 
I climb these hospital walls,
but I have the ability to
meld souls and create complex magic,
 
then suddenly I am a “witch in training”,
because of my ability to improvise protective rhyme
on the spot,
I name myself the Walking Spell Book.
 
The girl who has the room
next door,
her room smells like Death,
she is always hanging about outside,
with the door ajar,
fragrance wafting through the gap.
 
She stands by her door,
menacingly, pseudo-curious,
and wanting to encounter me,
to interact,
but for what reason?
Which hard-earned skills does she
want to thieve from me?
 
At this point,
it is always about what others want
to take from me,
to misappropriate as their own.
My suspicion of others and their ill intentions
consume my being whole.
 
That scent of Death is so overpowering
that I learn to hold my breath as I pass her room,
she asks for some help with something one day,
I was not quick enough to return to my haven,
where I could be free of the patients
and keep their questions and wants away.
 
Rainy day, rainy day,
my ailing mind, please cure,
rainy day,
thunderous day,
make me right,
I need the freedom,
of this I am so sure.
 
I recall another visit:
 
Racing thoughts, grand delusions, paranoia,
I run and rush from one patient to another,
this visit I am relishing the conversations,
I have so much I want and need to say!
 
I must be a bother with my manic motormouth,
my clanging word associations,
my shameless self-promotion of
my prose and poetry,
I know I can be wholly annoying,
but goddamnit, these things are important to me!
 
I am the Queen Bee here,
I am the socialite of the day and night, 
I can warble and charm and buzz and intellectually,
flirtatiously please,
 
charismatic is what I become during the height of my disease.
 
I am purging some of my weaknesses,
my history to be seen,
but for what purpose?
To inform, to cause a reaction,
perhaps to create an empathic response,
or arouse curiosity?
 
No matter my intent,
I will have you know,
I’m doing this with an open heart,
I tap, tap, tap, my revealing words,
so you can feel closer and achieve more understanding,
 
for the more we talk about mental illness,
the more acceptance will take place,
the more open the channels of
communication will be to read and know.
 
Discussing mental health is what we must do,
where we need to start,
there are no facts or behaviours too odd or peculiar
that must be withheld with shame 
or carried by a heavy heart.
 
Allow the conversations to begin,
let us commence these,
with wide-armed embraces,
words of understanding building towards
our truths 
which we allow to be shared and perused.
 
© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Background music: "Frenetic", composed by myself.
Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter from Pixabay

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June 26, 2020

Poem: The Farce – 20/06/20

There are days
when I feel incredibly down,
I can’t turn the corners and curves
of my mind
back up and around,
 
my stage presence is moot,
I’d like to crawl back in the pages
of my life’s former books,
and relive the wonderful stages.
 
But I cannot control myself,
my miserable entity
seems intent on being
desperately distraught and utterly contrary.
 
These pages upon which I stand,
I used to dance, flip, make cartwheels
of fun,
the best I’d ever had.
 
But now I am temperamental,
grouchy,
a modern-day grump,
have I reached a plateau?
I’ve simply had enough.
 
What is the use
in whimpering and wallowing,
so depressive these pages
surely are to read?
 
I cannot fathom
why the sudden mood change?
From a joyous high
to catastrophic dips.
 
I’d like to be happier,
cheerful like during
the days, weeks, months prior,
 
but my soul seems intent on
allowing itself to have something, unseen,
dragging it down.
 
I force my eyes to brighten,
to beam a vivid, gleaming smile,
perhaps I can seduce the crowd
into believing this farce for a while.
 
Then the mask slips,
they quickly realise who and what I am,
a woman in costume,
bearing herself,
revealing, with little success,
the best side that she can.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved. 
Image by 5598375 from Pixabay

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June 20, 2020

Poem: When She Comes Undone – Spoken Word and Text – 18/06/20

She’s had enough.
Life, with its cruel measures, 
she’s defeated,
broken,
dare say surpassed
feeling rough, 

her thoughts may not terrify,
but they will reveal
salted, open wounds.

What is the point
in detailing mediocre thoughts,
some things which,
in the moment,
seemed thoughtful,
and loving,
caring, or clever,

but of these qualities,
her thoughts are apparently not.

Instead she’s left
with a soupy rendition
of a mirroring of
words that seem to
fail to impress,
 
for herself, she cannot bear to even
re-read them,
unworthy they are to share.

Just a joke,
self-doubt overwhelms,
such a malignant disease
it is,

she wallows,
bitter in the circumstances,
she solemnly nurses her hot cup of tea.

The sponge,
its creative cells within her,
that assisted her cushioned absorption
of her many internal tunes
is now blackened
with thick sludge,
her ideas stagnant,
left to rot while they remain disused.

Who is she
to pull herself out
from this torture,
this slow drowning in
grudge, sludge and grime,
of phrases and turns which
really aren’t that bold?

Will she return to her true self 
with time?

She once believed herself
to be an enigma,
misterioso, a chameleon,
alter herself at will,

now she is just herself,
hollowed and despairing,
thoughts no longer
flitting amongst the trees,

rather she’s dragging herself
by her hands,
crawling painfully on
chaffed knees.

She guesses this is what
living means today,
on this day,
at least for her,

salted wounds,
depression,
its lingering gloom,
has long ago set in.    

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by Jerzy Górecki from Pixabay 
Audio: Myself.