Hi.

It’s been a while since I posted. I had a bad Bipolar mixed episode followed by Covid followed by some cPTSD trauma related issues. My therapist is also leaving. If that were not enough, now that my mind has been restored to a (relative for me), calm. I have been attacked with my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and wiped out in my body. I am always a person who holds onto hope, the one everyone calls resilient, the one who fights. But this culmination of events silenced my mental hope. The hope I have just to be able to attain a relatively regular life where I can take good care of myself, get out to exercise and experience nature and receive light, write, do hobbies, connect.

I know my limitations. I had a successful Professional NHS career for 17 years that was ultimately destroyed by my disabilities. I quietly conceded that I could not carry on. So my hopes are small and realistic and I’m ok with that. But a few days ago, I lost that connection to a better future, to the time when life was going to be less gruelling and more satisfactory than now. Suddenly I had nothing and would never get to my goal, it was all in vain. I could fight these conditions no more as they go one from the other to sap life from me. This poem represents the interplay of physical and mental illness that I experience with my mental illness diagnoses and ME/CFS.

Check out some of my other posts on cPTSD, Bipolar Disorder, Domestic Abuse, Rape, CSA, Dysfunctional Families, Grief and many more. I am finally submitting to agents and publishers to get my book out there. Follow me and watch this space! Thanks for visiting 🙂 love Alice x

The Death Of Alice

Nothing can penetrate the all powerful silence that colonises my home.

It assaults my brain noiselessly, as it drives effortlessly, thickly, through my twisting ear canal.

I wonder if I may escape it by leaving the house but it trails me down the high street like a persistent, unwanted admirer.

The silence of death isolates me.

It marks me out, making me hard to reach through the might of its disabling stench.

This death forces my eyes deeper into their sockets and thwarts my ability to connect with others.

It drains all energy from every pore of my body and leaves me crying to be home, to rest, to be alone.

This death drags a fear of life.

My mind cries out in desperation, frustration, at being immobilised and left to stagnate.

This death dances; alternately dragging my mind and body through dirt,

Underground, where I can’t be found.

And nobody wants to visit anyway.

This death is a loss of hope.

And a loss of hope is this death.