TRYING TO DEAL WITH A PROBLEM

Trying to deal with a problem   1976

‘Not responding to treatment’ is what he actually said. How can pills be treatment? All they do is make my mind heavy and grey like wet cement churning in a mixer. I told him that, but he just gave me some different ones to take as well. They don’t work though.
Slippers, I suppose I need them.
Nothing works, there’s just this dark giant black something inside me and it eats me up.
If I was cut open there would just be black there, no matter where you cut, just black nothing. Or something, that something, what is it, why does it do this to me, take me over? I want it to be different, but the pills, they just give it more power.
Will I need a flannel?
Half past two I’ve got to be there. Tom is taking me. Just for a rest the doctor said. I don’t want to go, I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to go to sleep and I don’t want to wake up anymore.
‘Tell me how you feel today Claire’ the doctor said earlier. But I don’t know, so how can I say. That’s the whole point, I want to know but don’t know, and no-one will accept that.


The previous year
Is that what you really believe? Then you are just the same as the rest of them. You have no idea, none of you have any idea what my life is like. I go to that stupid man every week and listen to him talk about how I am like my mum, that this is an inherited condition. More convenient, I would say, easy for everyone to just give me a damn label and then file me away.
So every problem in the world can be sorted by pills can it? No, it can’t. I am telling you that it can’t, because I know it can’t.
And to think I told you because I actually thought you would understand, be willing to stand besides me and help me fight this. I really thought that you of all people would believe me. You’re supposed to be my closest friend. How much more stupid can I get. I finally start to share just a fragment of what is happening to me, and you, my best friend, ask ‘Are you sure it’s like that? The mind can play strange tricks, you know’.
Then you tell me that the doctors they have years of experience. You tell me to give them a chance, that they want me to get well and know what is best for me. Not for me, they don’t. They have no experience of me at all. They don’t even listen when I do try and talk to them. They just want me to surrender to their decision and their treatment. So, they won’t help me if I don’t take the pills, they say there is nothing else they can do if I don’t co-operate. And you don’t believe me, and I’ve only told you one tiny thing; just one tiny thing. So I guess that just leaves me where I started then.

Activity 7.4

SONNET 1

Through all my life I thought that I would be
Someone who always struggled with their past
And all my hopes of ever being free
Were just a pile of dreams that couldn’t last
With aching heart and shattered soul I tried
To rise above the dirt that dragged me down
In every grain a little of me died
And smiling was much harder than to frown
But being down is such a waste of time
We only get one chance to live today
And not to grasp it would be such a crime
Decades too late I’m learning how to play
The past is past I’ve laid it all to rest
So glad that I have got it of my chest

Inheritance

Just look at you,
do it this way,
do it that way.
What you need to do is this ... or that.

Like you know everything and your life is all in order and up for scrutinising. Nice house, all neat and tidy, two cars on the drive, no debt. Like you said so many times, your children will never behave like mine have. You would not stand for it. Just like you wouldn’t have MDF, only stripped pine, no cheap stuff for you. And so you went on, and on, and on.

Just like he did all my life, just like a dripping tap … torture.
So proper,
so sorted,
so structured.

The voice too,
the ‘Gooood Arfternooon’,
you know the one that goes with the china cups and saucers and the tea tray and squares of Madeira cake followed by linen serviettes to wipe the pinkies.

Nothing wrong with that,
except you deliver it with a spoonful of ‘See, this is how it should be done, therefore you fail’
instead of lump sugar and sugar tongs.

He was the same,
Hold your knife properly or else eat in the kitchen,
remove yourself from the table,
you disgust me.

I probably did,
disgust him,
that is.
After all I got it wrong from the start,
I was a girl, not the son and heir he wanted.
And what was all that ‘Breathe quietly, you are disturbing me or go to your room’
You want to try it sometimes, listen to how loud you are breathing and then work out if it too noisy.
Actually, don’t bother, I’ll tell you what it’s like, because you stop, breathing …
you stop and try and catch silent seconds of air,
just enough to keep you going until it is acceptable to leave the room.
Then you inhale like your life depends on it.
And it’s a tone of voice thing,
you both have it,
you and him,
makes sense since you are his daughter.
Authoritative verbal power.
My skin fails me,
lets me down,
because the words seep through my skin,
filter into my veins and use my body like it’s the worlds longest rollercoaster ride.
Spinning,
twisting,
running in and out of my brain,
up,
over
and through my heart
draining me,
weakening me so I cannot fight back.

OUT TO LUNCH

My psycho’s
are
in therapy

My counsel’s
being
counselled
and
I
am
free

if
you
fancy
joining me

JUST WANDERING

So where are we going then mind
what journey shall we take
what shall we look at
those fish in the river that no-one else could see
I swear they were there
but Dad said that I was imagining things
and that was lying so I must be careful
Lying is bad
but when it is real to me is that I lie
Say what you mean
tell the truth
but what is the truth
what you want to hear or what I saw
which one is a lie
I’m older now
try and tell it how it is
not get too near to drowning
by holding on to the rocks
slipping but just saving my sanity
so that you are saved
by not hearing what you do not want to hear
What a mess this truth lie business
Thoughts racing around in my head
memories, real things
real times, real moments
with nowhere to go
I lose either way
tell you and you get angry
don’t tell you and you get angry
Strange world
but I am hanging in there
wet, bruised and catching a glimpse
of the most beautiful sunset that your back is turned to ...

WHAT I GOT

I ain’t got a dad like you
Mine don’t tell me what to do
Let’s me do just what I like
So I stay out on my bike

And me mum is different too
Don’t give me no jobs to do
Let’s me eat pizza every day
Don’t make me put me stuff away

Me brother he don’t have a clue
What the ‘ell I get up to
Truth is even he don’t care
Too busy spiking up his hair

So you want to be me, do you
Doing anything you want to do
You don’t know nothing, idiot
I’ve got nothing, you’ve got the lot



MarieAntoinette
25.01.2009

BE SAFE

So your childhood has caused all this
And you blame it all on your parents
Just children themselves who got screwed up
And then blamed it all on their parents
Who had tried to do the best they could
But then they blamed it on their parents
Who’d tried to provide a better life
From the one they’d had from their parents

You have chosen to feed off all that shite
And blame the things that they didn’t get right

Well if you don’t want kids with stuffed up lives
And then blaming it on their parents

Use a condom






MarieAntoinette
21.01.2009

after reading the words in a newspaper ‘Who’s to blame’