AN ODD COLLECTION - Mag # 137

AN ODD COLLECTION

Mag # 137



( It Must Be Time For Lunch Now, 1979, by Francesca Woodman)

A frightened child

She cowers down

Partially covering her face

She shy's away

From the world outside

Hiding in this isolated space

She keeps an odd collection

Within the walls of this cold room

She has a strange compulsion

Of hoarding silver forks and spoons

She lays them out like trophies

A perculiar collection most would say

She lines them up on the window sill

In a very strange display

Inspired by photo prompt @ Magpie Tales

Take a Moment & Think!

Come put on my shoes

Spend a while in my head

Come see what's inside me

Learn of things that I've not said

You don't know my story

You don't know why I cry

You don't why I can't sleep

Why I struggle to try

You've not walked in my footsteps

You've not experienced my pain

You've not had forced hands upon you

Damaging your brain

You stand there and stare at me

With your judegmental eyes

You see what you want to

But what you see is lies

In truth I'm a person

I'm a person like you

Who's innocence was stolen

By someone I knew

They were meant to have loved me

They should have taught me right & wrong

They were meant to protect me

Instead I was abused my childhood long

Now I hear voices

They reside in my head

They tell me I'm nothing

That I'd be better off dead

I am working so hard

To get the life I deserve

But the journeys a rough one

There's just so many curves

So next time when you see me

Please don't judge what you see

Just pause for a moment

Ponder what my story may be!

By KMF

I wrote this to encourage people to alter or at least question how they think. I ask them to make a concious efffort not to make assumptions & judge others.

Please take a moment to remember that every living person has a story and sometimes those storied are filled with darkness and gloom. It is something that a majority of us would struggle even to imagine.

So next time:

When you see that man walking down the street with shabby clothes & a dirty face please don't laugh. (He may have been abused by a family member since he was 3, his parents may have belted him everyday of his childhood, he may never have had good role modelling to learn life skills from)

Please don't laugh at the lady sitting in the park who is nursing a doll & talking to herself. (She may have lost a baby and suffered a reactive psychosis, she may be enacting the sort of love she never had, she may be role playing the motherhood role that she will never experience)

Or the manic man pacing up & down the mall yelling at someone who isn't there. (He may have been abused by his own father from the age of 12, he may have been repeatedly told he was worthless & would amount to nothing)

There are many reasons why people act they way they do. I've worked with the adults whom were the victims of ongoing sexual abuse and often these alter personalities are the only reason they still exist. They are the survivors of a cruelty that many of us will ever know.

This doesn't just apply to children of abuse but to anyone that may appear different in this world because they all have a unique story.

Sisterly Love

SISTERLY LOVE

I was sitting on the timber bench

At a respite centre for the ill

A young lady came out to sit with me

And her troubles she started to spill

When I heard her story

My heart began to melt

My arms they wanted to hold her

I couldn't imagine the pain she'd felt

She was staying in the centre

As her mind was sick from grief

She had just lost her only sister

And cancer was the thief

The story she told was tragic

Of a life cut way too short

She was the mother of 2 small children

But this enemy she couldn't thwart

She told me she nursed her sister

Right to the very end

I told her this was the greatest gift

That this kind of love transends

This love goes beyond the living

To the soul & far beyond

The love you showed your sister

Will forever hold it's bond

Your sister will remember

Just what you did for her

She will watch you from the heavens

And be your life's chauffer

You have your very own angel

And now she can care for you

From the heavens she'll be watching

Helping you and her babies too!

By KMF

Today whilst I was awaiting my client to join me to go on a social outing I met a lovely young lady whom was on a short stay at the respite home.

She chatted to me for a while about the weather and such things then started to tell me why she was in the home. She told me that her older sister went to hospital to give birth to her 2nd child. She said that while in labour her sister was experiencing excruciating pain in her lower back which they later discovered was due to having broken her back during labour. Further medical investigations reveiled she had bone cancer riddled throughout her body but this was secondary to renal cancer. Her baby was born healthy but her life after diagnosis was painful & very short and she told how her sister although in terrible pain never complained. All I could do was listen & offer what little comfort I could in words. Putting my feet in her shoes, knowing the love that my sister and I share, I can't even begin to imagine the terrible hurt she is experiencing.

I think we as human beings need to be aware that we shouldn't judge others based on what we think we can see. Everyone has a story and not everyones story is the same. Some people have crosses to bare & a carry a pain with them that literally cuts them to the core.

My prayers tonight will be with that young woman I met today. I pray that she will be able to once again find happiness in her life.

In a Dark Place! (raising awareness for Mental Illness)

He struggled hard to escape to the land of sleep.
Pacing the floors as he had done so many times before.
He had worn the carpet thin, so much so that the fibers below the pile could now be seen.
His nights were lonely & treacherous , much worse than the days.
During the day he had the reassuring kind voice of his mother to calm his nerves & quieten the relentless voice of doom that resided in his head.
The night brought the whispers...the constant, relentless, nagging voices from that dark, cold place within his head.
That place that he hated so, so much & could never escape from.
If only he could find release from this existence he was living.

He had purchased another leather jacket, this one was a light tan brown, a little different from the others in his growing collection. Along with it he purchased 4 crystal glasses, also different from what he would normally purchase.

The next few days, the voices got louder & much more persistent. He fought fervently to stop them, pacing the floor harder than ever , hitting his head but nothing would shut them up! They kept telling him that he was going to die. That the jacket & the glasses had brought himself were bringing him bad luck. They told him that he needed to get rid of them before it was too late.
He finally gave into the voices & got the jacket (which had cost him a pretty penny) & the glasses and threw them in the wheely bin.
That night he finally got some much needed sleep. His mother told me about the terrible week he had endured & about the things he had thrown in the bin. She asked me if she put them in a box could I take them to St Vinnies when I left, as she didn't want to see them go to waste.

To many this story would sound bizarre & ridiculous. How could anyone believe that inanimate objects could bring bad luck? Just imagine what that must be like! Not only for him but for his mother whom loves him so very much.

It is sad but this is the reality of a person living with a Psychiatric illness.

The Voice Within!

Visibly shaken!

Trapped & uncomfortable within his own skin
A stranger to himself, an unwanted squatter inhabits his mind
Eyes turned downward towards the pavement in search of an escape,
Scared that he may disappear into oblivion if his glance were to meet the glance of another.
Judgmental eyes, look on, amused & bewildered by behaviors that their minds only perceive as strange, disgusting or scary.
He taps three times, a brief pause & three again before entering the shop.
There's a visible discomfort & extreme apprehension as he forces himself over & past the doorstep.
This process occurs every time he walks through a doorway...coming & going.
A preoccupied look has taken ownership of his face, he's rattled by the loud & unreasonable voice that screams within his head .
Filling his mind with thoughts of dread, it tells him lies.
Mean, cruel lies about what is going to happen to him or to his loved ones if he does a certain thing or doesn't do a certain thing.
Hís mind & body are a prime example of a person engulfed with a very real fear.
A fear that I suspect would mirror the fear of a person faced with a most certain, unavoidable imminent death.
'Fear' is the mother of all cruelty
My heart goes out to this poor man & to others that are inflicted with this cursed illness
I would love to have the means to take his fear away
To take these obtrusive, unwanted thoughts & encapsulate them in a tamper proof box.
Never, ever to be opened again.
Why?
Why is it that this happens to some people?
I want to wrap my arms around them in a safe warm embrace.
I wish I could give them peace
So that they can enjoy the very simplest pleasures of life.
Things that us 'normal' people take for granted

I would love for the community to understand that mental illness (all kinds of mental illness) are just that, illnesses. People whom suffer from these illnesses cannot just snap out of it or pull it together as they would have heard from many a people in their lives.
We need to show compassion to the sufferers of such illnesses ...not ridicule them. They are already living in their very own hell on earth!