Monday, November 26, 2012

Memories of trauma are surfacing as symptoms


The things that are

Called surfacing symptoms

Are on my tongue to say again

And I am making peace

With them, this time.

I am recognising that

Yes it did occur and yes

It was bad enough to

Harm me, but now I’m healed.

The wounds in my psyche

Have had recognition enough

To realise they don’t need

To worry about the worry

That existed in the past.

I am past that danger zone…

I drop those thoughts in

To the part of my mind

That is on remote control,

Drop those thoughts in…

Like a person with stomach

Ulcers trying to relax

The stomach that dissolves

The food in it automatically,

I drop those thoughts in…

Like an asthmatic meditating

And singing to get the automatic

Breath back to where

It is most comfortable.

I drop those thoughts in…

I am making the memory

Muscle of my mind relax

And stop being a problem,

Because it isn’t really,

It’s just a memory of trauma

That needed more conscious

Recognition that those things

That happened over years

And years, then happened

Again in other ways

With different people,

Weren’t okay and I won’t

Allow myself to be

Controlled that way again.

I know that love isn’t

An ambivalent thing,

It never should be

Extracted via fear, and if it is,

Then that is not okay

And should be acknowledged

For the wrong that it is.

2 comments:

  1. So beautiful making peace NO, so good to feel strong; so good so have the power of deep love. You are healed with all the power now in your heart, there is nothing as deep as absolute love
    Glenn

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  2. Hi again NO, good to see you tackling these important things on so many fronts. Your contribution into highlighting massive faults in 'enforced inappropriate' treatments rings so true and you remind me so much of the similar hard journey of Janet Meagher AM. Janet is a current high-profile Mental Health Commissioner who has been living with schizophrenia for over four decades herself and was institutionalised for 10 years and is now living with the effects of being restrained and put into seclusion. A horrific enforced institutionalised crime in my view that is so tragically common.

    Janet Meagher has been a Mental Health Consumer activist and advocate for over 25 years. She has lived with schizophrenia since early 1970’s.

    She is

    * Currently Secretary of the World Federation for Mental Health.
    * Founding member & patron of AMHCN (Aust. Mental Health Consumer Network)
    * Founding member of NSW Consumer Advisory Group (NSW CAG), & at various times, office bearer, member & later, Coordinator/CEO. (1992-2001)
    * Vice President, Aust. Mental Health Suicide Consumer Alliance, Trans-Cultural M.H. Editorial Board, member.
    * Churchill Fellow 1994 investigating “Consumer empowerment & self-advocacy…in Great Britain, USA & Canada”
    * Speaker, Educator, Trainer, Consultant, Lecturer and Author. Originator of many training programs, articles, papers, incl. A handbook on participation & partnership entitled “Partnership or Pretence”. (Published in several languages)
    * Currently Director of Employment for ‘Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association’
    * Representative of Consumers’ Health Forum of Australia
    * Recipient of TheMHS Gold Award “for Exceptional Contribution to Mental Health Services in Australia” 2000, and the honour of being made a Member of the “ Order of Australia” (AM) in 1996 for “work as an advocate on behalf of people with mental illnesses & psychiatric disabilities”.

    I can easily see by your driving awaremness campaigns you will also make such substantial contributions
    Best
    Glenn Floyd

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