Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
So the first thing that came to mind, in all honesty, when I encountered this question, was of a brick wall!
What is the meaning of this!?
I can actually explain it, weirdly enough.
It’s got to be a result of recently bumping back into this most fabulously vibrant soul of a fellow woman, never mind where we met, the matter of psychiatric context simultaneously sheds light on both the creativity of minds and why such minds needed to rely upon this kind of creativity, in order to get through life!
So this blonde beaming lass was sat outside a building I happened to come out of to have a cigarette break from the trauma of the building itself, I don’t even have to name names, if you know, you know!
I was originally locked inside the cage of my own mind, and it’s own chaotic experiences, and I was sighing as I looked up to a blue(ish) sky, lighting up my cheap snide Richmond which you buy from the shops you know about. The ones which hide the stash of the untaxed illegal (and that’s why they’re so cheap, and many people of this city know where to buy them, because we’re all so fucking skint, but too stressed to stop smoking so we can afford to top up electric), behind a few bottles of Rubicon on a shelf beside the till.
I digress…
Now this super woman was actually genuinely in distress, and our mutual crisis of mental health, wasn’t even the first thing which pulled us towards each other, spiritually and empathically, during that chance meeting upon a certain smoking bench, outside a building which shall not be named- for legal reasons, and also the sheer mention of the name for it, makes me at least angry enough to find an evil wizard, who can cast a spell over it and cause a ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ type nightmare to emerge within, at the absolute least- yet somehow, cracking through the outer shell of mental turmoil and emotional fatigue, the lass, who I will call ‘Angel C’, still emitted this most powerful ray of light energy, despite the Hell she was actually going through.
She came up to me and her aura itself instantly had me engaged.
When suddenly, there you are, faced with one of life’s finest, rarest, fantastical moments- The type of moment you don’t get just by waiting on a ‘stroke of luck’ to finally announce itself into the wild and the weighty substance which constitutes your life, you can’t possibly place dictatorship upon fate- there are some things in life that find you, not the other way around.
Well, this meeting between this hospitalised clusterfuck of myself, which found itself outside those locked doors, cig in hand, following the beckoning of fresh air with a paradoxical affair with the toxins of tobacco, and the absolutely thaumaturgic (I used a thesaurus because I needed a word for ‘magic’ which surpassed itself language wise- magic alone doesn’t cut the gravity of this… trust me, thaumaturgic is a word it turns out!) chance meeting of Angel C, in her pink pyjamas and her voice which screamed out to me- this person needs listening to and knowing, at once!
Anyway, such is the kind of moment I’m trying to describe.
Suddenly, the shape of circumstance changed, and with it, a brave, new, and powerful narrative arose.
The energy and the vibe of the cool and breezy March air, within which myself, Angel C, a few peers/relations who seemed to be supporting her, as they sat beside her on that bench, protective, friendly, yet unable to mask concern and perhaps even fear- not of Angel C herself, but of the situation, of her situation, and of the vulnerability which they were trying hard to protect, and shield this blonde haired ray of a gleaming soul they were desperate to keep out of harm’s way.
There was a relentless, glittering wind in her sails, and bloody hell, that’s quite a set of sails that can withstand the gale and the crashing chaos of a sea which threatens to consume anything and everything, with the waves of someone’s ‘last resort’, attempting to swallow this ship, with the rage and the rampage of a thousand traumas, the sinking sands of mental illness and living hell, left unheard or aided by any such helping hand capable of lifting such a soldier out of the penultimate scene of their ruthless battlefield.
I don’t know about any other being in the vicinity, but I could fucking see the shine through the storm in her soul.
It didn’t just strike a chord within me, it struck the composition of a whole god damn orchestra.
Thus, momentarily, (and hopefully to be continued beyond one or two encounters alone), relief washed over me.
Finally…
There was another soul who had the passion and the pain of a life capable of changing the world, if only she could see it, and if only we joined forces, so long as the ‘system’ didn’t finish us off, so long as we remembered who we were, what we were put on this Earth for, why we were so fiercely determined, so shamelessly unique, yet so disgracefully fucked over by trauma both prior, during, and absolutely caused- not only by the pain and suffering of living in a world where the perpetrators, the utterly corrupt, cruel, unqualified, incompetent, somehow ‘professionally employed’ twats, such as a certain team we shall refer to as ‘agents of calamity’, and consultant Psychiatrists who ought to be locked up, and sentenced (at least) to a week in the life of the unwell people who, begging for help, are turned away and told ‘if you’re going to kill yourself, then I might as well take back that medication I prescribed, because of the pharmaceutical waste’
*That above quote is 100% real- these words were actually precisely what a particular ‘Doctor’ said to me, after discharging me from hospital, after I’d begged for one week as an inpatient to save myself from further self harm and worse*
Clue- think of female names beginning with the letter ‘M’, then add ‘House’ at the end of it, as if it were a surname. There we go- I’ve not actually said anything to justify a severe bollocking… but I’ve instead presented to you, a fun puzzle… 😂😚
Nevertheless, she, and WE, persevere.
Fuck the crisis, fuck the mutual despair we were currently going through, Angel C had the spiritual energy of a second Sun, and my word, does our modern day world have a haunting chill about it which cries out for such a blazing, life sustaining star to assist.
Understandably, upon our psych hospital grounds setting, where we met, Angel C was presenting pretty much exactly as manic I was, and some of those people we know to be boring as fuck, might have run a mile from the pair of us.
Marvellous…
Especially since this new connection had been forged, and if anyone found just one of us too much to compute, then ohhhhhh deary me, wait for what’s coming now there are two!
Not a temporary, superficial one either. Spiritually solid. Fated to be.
Run as far as your legs can carry you, ‘normal people’, for it is great exercise, and you will subsequently receive lovely endorphins, before realising that actually, you are running into a dead end, so might need to turn back and listen to what the ‘loonies’ have to say.
So…
Absolutely outstandingly have I managed to digress once AGAIN, back to this brick wall.
The first thing Angel C said to me, was:
‘What do you think of when you think of a brick wall?’
Now, as the stubborn, defiant and contrary little fucker that I am, I was instantly delighted to have been presented with this opportunity to challenge the image of a brick wall which started to merge into my mental headspace, whilst also hearing the music of Pink Floyd’s ‘Another brick in the wall’ emerge into my mental realm of rebellious madness.
My initial responses were along the lines of:
‘I’m jumping over the fucker, I won’t be stopped by no by any such brick wall!’
Patiently, she had to ask me the question again…
Me being me, I had to defy the reality of the brick wall’s ‘nothingness’ once again, and my memory seems to tell me that I was inventing further new answers which defied the brick wall, such as how I could knock it down or graffiti all over it.
It turned out that the answer to this question, was supposed to be: ‘nothing’.
It’s a question to ask yourself which literally serves as a trick to push out negative traumatic imagery from your mind, because, after asking yourself the ‘brick wall’ question, that’s suddenly what you think of, and it feels like ‘nothing’.
Your PTSD hits a brick wall, because your thoughts are interrupted by this visual imagery, which tackles the snowballing catastrophe of traumatic memories, which invade your present day reality, forcing your very surroundings to melt and merge into the present day reality which surrounds you, right then and there, but which your flashbacks won’t have any of, in terms of what it believes is going on.
It was when Angel C explained this to me in more detail, that I actually let down my defiant guard, and began to listen properly to what she was saying, and accept there was a large element of truth in it.
‘Where the fuck has she learned this from!?’
Is exactly what I pondered.
After all, it isn’t really your typical ‘thinking inside the box’ solution or idea to emerge from another human being.
Many human beings are- unfortunately- plagued by the ‘inner box’ thinking, due to life, apparent ‘lessons’ and acquisition of ‘knowledge’, stripping imagination, originality and ‘external box’ thinking.
(It’s a right shame, to state it in a Yorkshire accent way, which I am perfectly entitled to do, as a Yorkshire lass, writing this post.)
Was Angel C hindered or stopped by this level of ‘normative attitude’ which has spread its tendrils across societies within the human race?
Was she fuck.
I realised, not only due to this introductory ‘brick wall’ question, that I’d met someone very special and rare indeed.
Think beautiful empath, broken, but only to the extent that her external warrior’s armour was scratched and damaged… the soul and the person behind the shield and sword were more in tact, radiant and undefeated than I think she even realised/realises herself.
I am desperate for her to realise this fact about herself, and believe in it, too.
During subsequent encounters with each other, Angel C and my ‘mad self’ (of which I am proud to be), this original insight into her personal and spiritual magic has only grown in magnitude and in evidence. she has spurred me on alright, and basically saved my life.
I’ve found a comrade as determined, passionate, shattered by, but not at all lost to trauma and mental illness, and she wants to change this shit that is going on, and threading tightly together, the stitches which bind together the fragmented textiles of the entire UK mental health crisis in itself.
Now, the ashes which had befallen the pit of my stomach, soul and seemingly relentless energy, had made themselves very clear, that my flame for ‘trying’, fighting and caring had now gone out, but not now that I’d met this Angel C.
Oh no. The fight was not over at all!
The inner fire returned with a mighty roar, and from it, rose the legendary Phoenix, wings flapping, soaring, elevating and fanning freshly ignited flames, with their residual energy, as my ember winged bird took flight, out of the pit of the sooty, fragile ashen ‘remains’.
You are obviously allowed to finish reading this post whenever you want, but ideally, I hope you have at least made it to this point.
I do realise how much I’ve written, and how hard you, as a reader, must have worked to get to this point.
I can only applaud you, yet I must insist that the reason this post is practically a book now, is because this encounter, this person, and the issue at heart is so deeply important and significant, not just to myself, but for others too.
If you brave reading past the line below, then you must celebrate your own perseverance and dedication.
At least, go and have yourself a damn fine brew (I can’t say alcoholic drink because I’m nearly 6 months sober, and can’t in all good conscience promote drinking as a coping mechanism for the exhausting mental energy required for this post)…
Otherwise, I would.
You could try…(never mind I’ve realised I must shut up talking at once, but I’m sure you catch my drift)
If you have officially crossed the above line, and soldiered on regardless, then you are a trooper, hats off to thee, thank you, and WOW!
Final point(s)
I was originally about to give up.
I’ve always cared, immensely. I’ve always argued the toss with anyone or thing who tried telling me otherwise, about my conviction to make a massive difference in the world, and to not only help and campaign for every human being who- whether or not they think mental health has a role to play in their lives, be it a fluctuating factor which has its dips and lifts in exactly the same way as physical health, or whether people have gone through the experiences of mental illness-which tends to come with a label or three, slapped upon a person a bandaid plaster, often without any accompanying treatment/help/support/therapeutic input/advice or constructive ‘plan forwards’.
‘The system is fucked (mental health), and they (the local official NHS mental health services, and their utter disgrace of a mental health unit, for a means of ‘safety’, ‘healing’, promotion of ‘recovery’, ‘empathy of quite a few-not all, but enough- staff, in particular the sheer abomination that is an assessment unit’s Consultant Psychiatrist), and since they can’t and won’t help us- in fact, only traumatise and invalidate us more than before- we must stand together, as the REAL professionals…
It must be averted, it must be saved, WE- all of us- must be saved.
The ones with the lived experience, plus the right level of passion, tendency towards unconventional means of getting shit done, rebellion against oppressive systems, and capacity to actually help, rather than hurt, each other.’
Imagine if we all managed to stand together and not only protest, but outright overthrow the hierarchy of label loving, dismissive and downright dangerous psychiatrists/ ‘crisis teams’, and then all come together, and mutually salvage our own souls, as a ‘mentally labelled’ group of survivors… We genuinely would be about 90% more likely to recover and thrive once more!
After about ten minutes and a couple of cigarettes worth of conversation with her, I knew I bloody loved her (in a friendship and non creepy way), and would like to have her in my life for the rest of whatever is left of it.
Sweet line above… thank you.
For I have literally surpassed my own tendency and capacity to say anything more.
I have out written my own self.
Now THAT, my friends, is a testament to how brilliant Angel C is.
Mind-in-motion 