Slipping Through The Cracks

I'm not going to lie and say I'm a happy person all the time.

There are days I don't want to be around anyone, literally.  My illnesses affect me in a vastly complex ways. I have a wonderful GP who I wouldn't be here if I hadn't met over fifteen years ago.

He and a few others over the years have said I should write down what I feel and maybe get it off my chest. This more important than ever now there are such high demands for mental health support and limited one-on-one sessions. So here is a snippet.

Slipping through the cracks of what used to be a life.

People turning away from me because my dark thoughts aren't so nice.

I've been feeling down for quite some time now: four years, maybe five.

Memories of better times and now my daughter are what keep me ticking by.

Week in week out at night I'm sat alone.

I can't watch the TV and abject misery it brings.

I've heard so many tell me, "You're young. Things will change..."

With two chronic illnesses, a little girl, no prospects 

and no support, no confidant to engage.

I wonder how people can pass on by when I am one of millions more, 

shuffled to the side-lines abandoned and ignored.

They say I'm angry , bitter and mean, no wonder I am alone....

But once I had support and was standing tall, all on my own.

I've had that support taken from me; there's no one left to hear my cries.

I can't take much more of these cuts;

I can see why others have already died.

I am angry that alone I have to fight:

for my dignity and fair treatment just to stay alive.

I didn't choose to live this way. It's not a choice anyone makes

but I slipped between the pavers of the rules governments make.

I couldn't toe the line enough; my minds not built that way.

I’m creative and loving and whimsical;

but that's nowhere near enough these days.

Society's become so crippled with wise cracking and a vicious streak,

with everyone's inadequacies barely hidden underneath.

To point at others and mock them and deflect the heat from you:

it's a game of poker faces, laughing – until the fingers point at you.

So who is next to feel this despair then, who's next to be singled out?

Because these cuts are only just starting of that I have no doubt.

If you think that your life's perfect and people like me bring it on ourselves,

remember I wasn't always like this. I used to be someone else.

I had a job, I worked hard; and played hard too, just like you.

Then an illness took me over and that could so easily happen to you too.

Circumstances balance on a razors edge. We never realise

what we  were truly blessed with till we are left with nothing.

.....

Where is the exit? I'm off!

Anyone else who feels like this sometimes, I hope this helps you see you are not alone xx

June, 2015, A Contributor

Some of Us Think

When it was Mental Health Awareness Week
the media embraced it, springing into action:
everywhere there were posters emblazoned with images
designed to make us stop and think;
on Facebook pages memes were being shared
and people were tweeting words of wisdom;
appeals were made and, on morning TV chat shows
where interviews were hosted and given,
statistics were quoted that would help us to see
just how easily it could have been us.
With a bit of bad luck or a life event or two,
we could have been drowning, not waving;
adrift in a sea of too many starless nights,
our starved hearts stifled by depression,
a flat black ocean ahead and behind us
as we floundered in the current of despair.

Some of us, however, already knew that;
some of us have been there;
some of us remember how steep the cliff face
and how wide-eyed and deep the abyss;
and some of us worked on, and some of us didn't;
and some of us soon gave up the struggle;
while some, the lucky ones,were able,
in the end, to find the long and winding way back.

But time moved on and Mental Health Awareness
somehow has slipped down the agenda.
Now is the time for new radical approaches
that will 'help get the nation back to work'.
Some of us, though, know how the system
works and some of us are angry and suspicious;
some of think this is just another heartless,
fraudulent, Tory Austerity trick.

And some of us believe this is just another stick
for beating those who already struggle.
a way of getting them 'off the sick'
by ticking boxes and 'treating' them with CBT.
Once the sick are not sick but 'seeking' a job
how much easier to get them all on sanctions.
Some of think there's a war going on
and the lines are being drawn for all to see.

Abigail Ottley Wyatt, June, 2015

http://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/protesters-to-march-on-jobcentre-over-mental-health-therapy-links/

From the Budget Document

1.236 Budget 2015 also announces a package of measures to improve employment outcomes for people with mental health conditions. Starting from early 2016, the government will provide online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to 40,000 Employment and Support Allowance and Jobseeker’s Allowance claimants and individuals being supported by Fit for Work. From summer 2015, the government will also begin toco-locate Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) therapists in over 350 Job centres, to provide integrate employment and mental health support to claimants with common mental health conditions.

Staring at Austerity

I switch on my phone.

Youtube.

'The Black Triangle List',

a film by disabled

artist-campaigner,

Vince Laws,

and film-maker

Andrew Day,

comes up and I select.

On a black screen,

white words

begin to scroll down.

The film is silent.

A memorial,

that, I am warned,

may upset me.

I begin to read.

People who have died

within 6 weeks

of losing benefits:

10,200 . . .

I concentrate in horror.

Black Triangle’s

ongoing list

from media reports:

100 and rising . . .

Then the list.

Details of austerity-

related deaths.

A man, 53.

Blind and agoraphobic.

Atos found him

Fit for Work.

He took his own life.

A woman, 51.

Breast cancer.

Atos found her

Fit for Work.

She died a few weeks later.

The stories mount.

I feel anger rise.

Where the hell

was duty of care?

In my ears, each

life speaks in the deep

silence of the film.

I watch to the end.

The website addresses

for Black Triangle,

(the Disability

Anti-Defamation

Campaign)

and the Samaritans,

are the final frames.

Then a last paragraph,

beginning,

‘It doesn’t have to be like this . . .’

I repeat the words.

The whisper feels

like it’s gone

around the world;

when it comes back,

somebody has

challenged Austerity.

Cath Davies, May, 2015

Cath Davies lives and writes in North Wales. She has worked in social care for many years. Currently, she is currently studying creative writing at degree level at the Open College of the Arts where she has been a student since 2008. 

Poor Tom’s A-cold

Where do you sleep at night?I asked him.

He looked so tired. With his

Blond beard, blue eyes (good teeth),

He could have been a young crusader

In his stony niche,

Huddled in a sleeping bag cloak.

His boots were in good shape.

In the Roodee car park mostly, he said

It’s drier under the cars.

What happened to you, Tom?

He talks of a break-up with his girlfriend,

Loss of his job and flat.

I had a car once, he tells me.

Four months sanction means

He will be living rough through the bitter winter months.

“Regrettably there are reduced places for the homeless due to cuts.”

I fetch him a pastry from the Tesco Express.

Come Christmas though, the Hospice will give me a hot meal,

And a shower; I do want my dignity.

I told him, I’ll come back.

But he was gone, moved on

By the police with new instructions:

“No homeless to be seen in the city centre.”

We are proud of our historical city, and

Its many tourist attractions:

Our wonderful heritage.

Lisa Rossetti

May 2015

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