Tag Archives: writing

Weekend Mental Health Writings – It’s Good to Know Me

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weekend writings

Each weekend I am going to post a mental health writing prompt. Feel free to participate by writing your response privately in your own journal at home, or by posting your response in the comments below, or by posting on your own blog and then sharing the link to your post in the comment section. Please visit those who share their links here as well. Here is this weekend’s prompt:

Name two people whose lives have been improved by knowing you and explain why.

You can also follow responses to this prompt on our Facebook page.

Weekend Mental Health Writings – The Healing Has Begun

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weekend writings

Each weekend I am going to post a mental health writing prompt. Feel free to participate by writing your response privately in your own journal at home, or by posting your response in the comments below, or by posting on your own blog and then sharing the link to your post in the comment section. Please visit those who share their writings here as well. Here is this weekend’s prompt:

Write the phrase “The Healing has begun.” and then describe yourself as if you are farther along in a recovery or healing process than you feel you are in the present moment. Imagine how you look, feel, act, talk, and relate to others. What would you be doing that you don’t do now? How would your life be different, if at all? Visualize this future self as a definite possibility for you as you continue along your healing journey. Write as your future self and encourage your present self to keep moving forward and to not to give up because things do get better, as your future self would know.

You can also follow responses to this prompt on our Facebook page.

Disordered Bedtime Thoughts – a poem

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Autumn__s_Decay_by_steamed_pepsi_stock

I imagine a lead pipe boring into my flesh;
poking holes through my forearm, releasing pressure
from a body filled with tightly wound springs.

Boing! Boing!

These notions float from a subconscious stream,
and hover in the haze under black weeping willows where
the Reaper’s whispers chill my neck.

I feel the flick of his iced tongue behind my ear;
his hand on my bare back, sliding around my waist
bringing me closer, into his arms and against his skeletal frame.

The water begins by sipping my feet,
and then slowly swallows my legs before
finally, submerging my torso. And I
sleep ‘til morn.

Weekend Mental Health Writings – Change

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weekend writings

Each weekend I am going to post a mental health writing prompt. Feel free to participate by writing your response privately in your own journal at home or by posting your response on your blog and then sharing the link to your post in the comment section below. Please visit those who share their writings here as well. Here is this weekend’s prompt:

You are not the same person that you were 5 years ago. We all change. Think about in what ways you have changed, as a person, over the past 5 years. How did those changes in you come about? How have they affected your relationships with others? How have they impacted your quality of life? End your writing by focusing on the positive changes you have seen in yourself.

Mental Health Writer’s Block – a poem

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The feeling comes on like words
on the tip of my tongue;
like standing at the edge of a cliff,
toes hanging over, watching the surf
crash into the reef 200 feet down.

Push just a little further.
It is right there.
Something important,
exciting, significant,
just out of reach.

What is it?

I feel the brush of its fingertips
on my out stretched hand
as I fall forward through the air,

descending,
descending;

hoping to wake up
before I hit the rocks below.

Loss of Bipolar Creativity

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bipolar creativity

For several years I wrote poetry every day, feverishly. I felt like I would explode if I didn’t write the words in my brain. It was as if I was taken over by a force outside of myself, and what I ended up writing was as much as a surprise to me as it would have been to a stranger reading it. Exciting and energizing are the best words to describe the experience of writing poetry for me.

I loss the ability to access this side of my creativity about a year ago. It coincided with the time I started a new antipsychotic medication for my anxiety. I don’t know for sure if my creativity block has to do with the medication, but I strongly suspect it does.

I also experienced large amounts of emotional healing during that year, which may have contributed to the end of my drive to write poetry as well, since I wrote mostly when in emotional pain. Either way, I miss the rush of the flow of language spilling forth in a flurry, seemingly without effort on my part.

Below is a poem I wrote this week reflecting these feelings.

Fractured, a mind splintered
like a web-cracked windshield –
rock hit in the brain, dead center
or somewhere.

They never know where.
Will they ever? Neuro-
transmitter here, neuro-
transmitter there. A game

of hide and seek. Medication
roulette. Gambling while
drinking cocktails before bed
in hopes of getting
some fake sleep.

Thoughts that used to flow fluidly
down a single stream now,
split into multiple chasms;
fall into the abyss, trail off
out of creativity’s reach.

Has a psych medication ever caused you to lose your creative edge?

An Open Letter to Those Contemplating Suicide

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TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide

hemingway

An open letter to those contemplating suicide:

I have been where you are, and I know how you feel. Do not shake your head, please. I really do know…the gut-wrenching emptiness, the suffocating weight, the terrifying loneliness, the absolute certainty that you will never feel any better than this moment.

I know the maddening thoughts which peck away at your mind like a vulture picking and pulling rotting meat from a carcass. I know the horrifying realization that you have no control over your feelings; that no one can know the depths of your despair and worse, that no one can save you from the black hole swallowing your mind and soul.

I know the physical aches and pains, the dead-weight of every extremity as you try to simply move from one position to another; the grayness of the world, day in and day out; the tears, the endless stream of tears; the absolute void of anything positive; the loss of all things which use to bring you peace and joy. These things I know.

I have also been where they are, and I know how they feel. Please do not doubt me. I really do know… the feel of the hard floor hitting their knees after hearing the news of your death; the anguishing pit in their stomach as bile rises in response to the action you took; the constant and nagging nightmares of what your last thoughts were before you swallowed the pills, pulled the trigger, fell from the chair, jumped, or cut through your vein.

I know their flashes of imagery at how you must have looked while you died and right after; their regrets of things said or things not said, and never having the opportunity to tell you that you don’t have to do this; that you don’t have to choose a path that will cause so much horrific pain and devastation to those you leave behind.

I know the clutching of their hearts and their screams of “No, no, no!” I know how they’ll have to live the rest of their days wishing they could see you smile one more time; give you one more hug; share one more laugh, cry, argument or anything with you. I know that they will never stop thinking of you, or truly be able to fill the spot you tore from their being.

I know depression is a disease of perception, and it wants nothing more than to kill you. It is a disease of the body, attacking mercilessly. But it is also a disease that can be treated. No matter how many times treatment has failed, if there is breath then there is still hope.

Please do not take away the ever-present possibility of help. Breathe for one more day. Tell someone you are thinking of suicide, and then breathe again for another day. Tell someone else you are thinking of suicide, and breathe yet for one more day. Keep breathing and keep telling someone how you feel.

Be honest with those who can and will help you – family, friends, and professionals. If you don’t have those options, find another professional and another until someone can help you. Call a stranger, a hotline, go to a support group and ask for help; keep reaching out to someone; keep asking for help. Find people who will care. They are out there; keep searching and don’t stop until you find them.

And most importantly, keep breathing. As long as there is breath, there is hope.

New Issue of Turtle Way – a journal for those with Mental Illness

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Happy Friday, everyone! A new issue of Turtle Way was just published. Read it here, and have a beautiful weekend.

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Mental Illness and the Power of Now

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TPON_Cover_LG

I’ve been reading the book, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, for about ten months. I can only read a few pages at a time before it becomes too intense in its truths and suggestions for my brain to handle. It’s a fascinating book that gives me a lot to think about and meditate on.

Today, I wanted to share a quote from the book that particularly related to my mental illness symptoms, and maybe to yours as well. It has to do with surrender, which Tolle explains is an inside job, meaning that while you can take action to try to change the overall situation if you want to, you still need to accept the tiny segment of Now that is occurring.

If I equate this with my mental health symptoms, I may need to accept, for example, that I am feeling sad and agitated at the present moment. Overall, I have been feeling this way for the past week, which I can work towards changing by reporting these symptoms to my doctor, praying, writing, and focusing on what tasks I have in front of me – in the Now.

It is when I do not accept or surrender to my current feelings that I become even more depressed and agitated to the point of wanted to harm myself in some way. (Some people may cut, abuse drugs or alcohol, overeat, engage in risky behavior, or attempt suicide.)

So, here is the quote:

“Non-surrender hardens your psychological form, the shell of the ego, and so creates a strong sense of separateness. The world around you and people in particular come to be perceived as threatening. The unconscious compulsion to destroy others through judgment arises, as does the need to compete and dominate. Even nature becomes your enemy and your perceptions and interpretations are governed by fear. The mental disease that we call paranoia is only a slightly more acute form of this normal but dysfunctional state of consciousness.

Not only your psychological form but also your physical form – your body – becomes hard and rigid through resistance. Tension arises in different parts of the body, and the body as a whole contracts. The free flow of life energy through the body, which is essential for its healthy functioning, is greatly restricted. Bodywork and certain forms of physical therapy can be helpful in restoring this flow, but unless you practice surrender in your every day life, those things can only give temporary symptom relief since the cause – the resistance pattern – has not been dissolved.”

Aren’t these ideas amazing to ponder? I can relate to all of them. I have a fear of people hurting me; feel like I am in competition with everyone; filled with fear of natural disasters, or some harm coming to one of my children. Fear rules my life, and I don’t want it to.

Physically I am usually in pain – tension headaches, muscle cramps, migraines, neck stiffness, clenched jaw, exhaustion, etc. I exercise, go to the chiropractor, and get massages to try to relieve my physical pain. The results are always temporary, lasting a day or two at the most.

I must work on surrendering to what is in the Now. I must work on dissolving the “resistance pattern.” But, how? I will keep reading and let you know what I find.

What are your thoughts on this? How do you work on surrendering in your daily life?

Submissions Now Open

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Turtle Way™ is Write into the Light‘s online literary art magazine. Our primary purpose is to deliver hope to those with mental illness through original works of literature and art that we create as we cope with and heal from our own mental illnesses.

We are currently accepting submissions in the following areas for our fall 2013 issue:
•poetry
•prose
•short-story fiction and non-fiction
•essays, opinion pieces
•meditations, inspirations
•photography
•artwork
•jokes, cartoons, humor (PG or G ratings only)
•facts about mental illness (with link to source)

DEADLINE for next issue’s submissions is August 31, 2013.

To be a part of our mission, please submit your original work for consideration in our next issue scheduled for publication in the fall of 2013 by closely following the submission guidelines posted at http://turtleway.wordpress.com/about-2/submission-guidelines/