Where Were You?

When I needed you, where were you?
Where were you at that time
When the world seemed big and scary
And nothing seemed sublime
And where were you in the moment
When I reached out for a hand
When my heart was sad and lonely
Depressed; in sinking sand

Where were you for those seconds
When your brightness would have brought
The sun back; warm and shiny
When I felt so damned; distraught
And where were you when I called out
So desperate for a word
For a hug or reassurance
For a chance just to be heard

For now as I lay dying
As I loose the will to live
I wonder if you even cared at all
That you failed to stop and give
A minute of your precious time
A second of your day
When desperation came a calling
Yet you chose to turn away

If you are ever in this position and need someone to talk to, the Samaritans are an organisation that will listen in your moment of need.  They say “We offer a safe place for you to talk any time you like, in your own way – about whatever’s getting to you. You don’t have to be suicidal.”   FMI go to https://www.samaritans.org 

 

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Lost

There is a fog, a miasma of mind
Consuming the soul
Burdening the heart
With relentless might
That hails from confusion
A place; a world, an existence
That engulfs any who cross the threshold
A fog obscuring even obscurity
In plumes of despair,
In a nebula of persecution
Relentlessly hijacking truth
And holding hostage hope
In a soup of neural corruption
Where the light is stolen
And the swirls of night sweep
Cell by cell
Synapse by synapse
Into the abyss
Trapped, nay lost, in a living hell
From whence there seems no escape

Pressure

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
To much pressure; too much distrust
Too much fear and anxiety
Too much stress in society
Too much judgement; too much hate
Too much emphasis on being first rate
Too much pushing; too much; too far
Too much weight put on A stars
Ashes to ashes; dust to dust
Too little; too late as the burnout combusts

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11656670/As-in-fear-misery-and-self-harm.html

What Lies Within

I see a house; a pretty house
A garden full of flowers
With painted gate and picket fence
Where sun shines golden showers
Delightful thatch ahead the house
With panes all leaded too
And walls so whitewashed glistening
And hence attractive too

I see the water dance on pond
Where sparkling fountain falls
And blue skies are reflected on
The surface; lilies call
Where fish swim, frogs hop, joy abounds
And laughter emanates
Across the garden; singing songs
Perfection’s way create

Yet wander in the house and all
Is not as it might seem
Behind the windows veiled in cloth
Such glory does not gleam
The rooms chaotic, bare in parts
Opposing that outside
Where darkness dwells and consumes all
No light switch; hurt resides

Desperate gloom; despair; so lost
Such agonies untold
Where sunny rays don’t penetrate
And black replaces gold
Where sounds fall dead; where no-one hears
The cries; the pleas; the needs
The corners of the lodgings pinch
The heart that always bleeds

So when you see a pretty house
A garden full of flowers
And painted gate and picket fence
Where sun shines golden showers
Be kind and tread compassions way
For lying there in wait
Might be a black dog who will not
Select; discriminate

By Stefan Stegemann (Deutsch: selbst erstellt English: self made) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Magnolian Misery

A single bud of purple tint
Alone upon the tree
With tears on leaves in solitude
Magnolian misery

A bud of hope yet stifled by
Lost dreams not now empowered
Non-blooming bud constricted and
Confined powerless to flower

Unhappy, sad in shade of blue
So hopeless and fatigued
In helpless state, resigned, retired
Secluded from the league

Anxious and worried all the time
With panic filled with doom
The bud upon Magnolia
The bud that cannot bloom

And yet beside its sorrow
And vulnerability
With help and aid to cope again
The flower will blossom free

Free from the overwhelming stress
Free from the strangling hold
To burst again in splendidness
And break depression’s mould

 Depression is quite common.  At least one in ten adults are affected by depression and up to 4% of children between the ages of five to sixteen.  However, help is at hand and support available.  If you have been touched by this poem and/or feel you or someone you know might be suffering from depression, please talk to your GP.  More details are available from Depression Alliance, or on NHS Choices

Anxiety

“Come on now! Just get over it!
Where’s your stiffer upper lip!
Just pull yourself together for
It’s just a little blip!”
She said to try and chivvy on
When fear began to bite
When panic set in; got a hold
Constricted and gripped tight

And yet it’s not that simple to
Switch off a brain’s reply
To stimulus that overwhelms
Emotions running high
When tides of life come rushing in
And stay to swill about
Ensconcing thought, and mind and deed
Day in and then day out

The sense of feeling so worried
Depressed and rather tired
Lacking focus, feeling tetchy
And somehow all unwired
With rapid heartbeat; sweaty palms
Dry mouth and so dizzy
It’s not that simple to combat
This plight; anxiety

For like a broken leg or arm
A headache or migraine
A bruise or bash that scars the skin
Or other sort of strain
Anxiety and mental strife
Affect us and need hope
With compassionate understanding
And ways to help us cope

So

“Come on now! Let me give a hand!
Let’s work it out; relax!
Let’s sit back and just take the time!
To get life back on track”
For with support and empathy
We’ll reach out and be there
Bar judgement nor shame we will be
Anxiety aware

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week 2014  which is all about raising awareness of anxiety.  Please spread the word to help reach as many people as possible to help them to understand, manage and overcome the anxiety which can impact on our daily lives.  For more information go to mentalhealth.org.uk/mhaw

The Black Dog

A black dog on cliff’s precipice
Where rocks will fall below
The crumbling tide of raging mind
In oceans tidal flow
That washes almost as to drown
To swamp, to sink; obscure
The joy that calmer water brings
The sea of insecure

The worry and anxiety
Panic’s impending doom
Where light has hid behind a cloud
So dingy; full of gloom
Where energy abates and falls
Where appetite is lost
As vigour flags and languishes
So veiled ; emotions crossed

Where life cannot lie in sun
Or run on beach so free
And leash appears so very tight
Constricting liberty
Where depths despair knows oh so well
The darkness and the plight
The black dog of depression there
The blackness; always night

The Weather Man’s Depression

It appears that the weather man’s downcast
All dejected, distraught and done in
For today there’s been so much weird weather
I just don’t know where to begin!

There’s been sun and then rain in the morning
With hail, snow and wind after noon
Then thunder and lightning by tea time!
With torrents of rain far too soon!

And tomorrow who knows what will happen
With gales due to lash and to blow
For the weather man’s caught in a depression
With a cold front that just will not go!

weather symbol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From Lost to Life

She lost it all; it fell apart
From hearth to home to health she lost
Her life just seemed to count the cost
In loneliness with broken heart

And in the depths of all despair
She wailed and cried and wept a flood
Drained of all life sucked from her blood
For what was left for her out there?

But in the corner burning bright
Dim first it seemed a distant hue
A pinprick vestibule anew
Shining a ray of hopeful light

For hope was all she needed see
A path of hope – a ray of light
A promise of an end in sight
That there could be tranquillity

And up from ashes came a bird
A phoenix that could thus inspire
Arising from the dust and fire
To resurrect; a new life stirred

And from that point she ventured out
With n’out to have and n’out to hold
For life extends past riches gold
To pastures new that sing and shout

To pastures that have thus renewed
To meadows where the song bird sings
To cornfields full of better things
Where new life now has been imbued.

That Feeling

That feeling
That pains in its descriptive value
That constricts the vessels supporting life.
The heart wrench and the agony
The cataclysmic degradation of inner peace
The suffocation of the senses
The engulfing blackness

That emotion
That defies definition
Playing on the heart chords
And breaking living strings
The loneliness and fear
Devastation and melancholy
Evading escape

That mood
Harnessing calamity
Of helplessness and hopelessness
That does not see the sunrise
Yet craves for it to set
Implicit in its power
That it has and holds

That despondency
Where freedom is captive
And liberty imprisoned
Where greener pastures dwain
And become tinged in black and grey
And where tomorrow is a distant dream
That prevails no more

That perception
Borne of persecution
Enslaved and trapped
And where the storm of yesterday
Rages, wild and untamed
And is the storm that never ends
And the rains that never cease

That conviction
That drains life
Wilting in the searing sun
Destroying everything in its path
Held hostage by synaptic failings
Draining colour from the world
Where the rainbow is no more

And yet ever seeking
Spectral rays of meaning and comfort
Imbuing warmth and sustenance
Yearning for the brighter meadows
The fresher oceans and higher mountains
Where that plateau and panorama
Restores sensorial relief

Where the crystal fountain
Replenishes and revives
With glistening water beckoning
And light gestures,
Warms and seeps
Through the crevices of despair
To the open fields of peace