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Stevie Nov 2020
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Never saying that I officially have those, to be ficitious,
Cause I am breaking and pushing all borders.
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
In school labelled as the kid who was mischievous,
obeying orders, so ****** disorded.

Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
hating social interaction, dark thoughts, labelled as malicious,
Still loving hobbies and education, still ambitious.
Suffering from Undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Behaviours yet still suspicious,
is it undiagnosed mental illness and disorders, that are tralatitious.

Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
From Depression, Suicide tendencies, Autism spectrum and ADHD,
Taking medication that suppose to help, clearly does and doesn't.
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
From Depression, Suicide Tendencies, Autism spectrum and ADHD,
I don't say am like every other who suffers from mental illness or other disorders.

Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Obesity isn't always a disorder,
A Small part of obesity is generics or health conditions,
A large part of obesity is the choice based upon society.
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Laziness is a mental, gaming is now a mental illness,
Kids that want no job, nothing to achieve, no physician needed,
Kids thinking that they are doctors, internet search and diagnosis,
believing in self taught self hypnosis.

Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Childhood, I was very precocious,
Leaving friends, family and parents, Ferocious.
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
behaviours of mine never when unnotice,
Angry was always explosive,
Never been seen for the symptom shown, never reaching an prognosis.
Stevie Nov 2020
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Never saying that I officially have those, to be ficitious,
Cause I am breaking and pushing all borders.
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
In school labelled as the kid who was mischievous,
obeying orders, so ****** disorded.

Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
hating social interaction, dark thoughts, labelled as malicious,
Still loving hobbies and education, still ambitious.
Suffering from Undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Behaviours yet still suspicious,
is it undiagnosed mental illness and disorders, that are tralatitious.

Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
From Depression, Suicide tendencies, Autism spectrum and ADHD,
Taking medication that suppose to help, clearly does and doesn't.
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
From Depression, Suicide Tendencies, Autism spectrum and ADHD,
I don't say am like every other who suffers from mental illness or other disorders.

Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Obesity isn't always a disorder,
A Small part of obesity is generics or health conditions,
A large part of obesity is the choice based upon society.
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Laziness is a mental, gaming is now a mental illness,
Kids that want no job, nothing to achieve, no physician needed,
Kids thinking that they are doctors, internet search and diagnosis,
believing in self taught self hypnosis.

Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
Childhood, I was very precocious,
Leaving friends, family and parents, Ferocious.
Suffering from undiagnosed mental illness,
Also talks about other undiagnosed disorders,
behaviours of mine never when unnotice,
Angry was always explosive,
Never been seen for the symptom shown, never reaching an prognosis.
Mateuš Conrad Jan 2017
i once loved, and it's a shame to
agree to: better have loved and lost,
than to have not loved at all.
and as i browse the pages of
a saturday newspaper article
i like to think about virology applied
to mental illness...
and how they: life is ****
   story could really be a viral infection...
i don't know, it's not exactly
h.i.v.,
                oh i can contain my own
*******, i'm writing it on the flag
of colour white,
next time you get a brain haemorrhage
and then get diagnoses as schizophrenic:
i'll take you the crucifix on golgotha:
and imbed your head into
the cross... silent anger, contained:
and all the more concern for inhibited
humour... because as Borat said: jak sie mash:
i like. so please, don't tell me
you weren't gagging for the new golgotha...
because i wasn't...
         and i know, most of the time i have
my mouth attached to a head of a struś
gagging himself in a pit of sand...
yes an ostrich, the grand inspiration for
francis bacon attempts to redefine geometry...
oh coming out of communism and into
capitalism, for a kid?, can be a rough ride...
you don't know what ideology to appease
and what ideology to dictate...
         but i'm wondering whether or not
mental illness can have the potency to
        become virus-like...
     and drain,
and i mean: drain the soul out of you...
or whether man as mammal ever did exist...
or whether this new fashion of
feline existentialism can ever take off,
narratives about spending time with your
bonsai tiger... you'd really think japan was
a bit freakish... but it just has a large
ageing population and no one thinks
that euthanasia is a standard of humanism,
unlike ******* ***** into a face of
a woman... because right there, no
one died... if had any of those anemic
tadpoles actually lived...
    which brings this about to concern me:
so... we live for nine months, in, let's
basically say: in an environment without
oxygen, you got gills stashed in there
with that umbilical chord...
how can it ever be a miracle of birth...
that's what a god might say...
a human would look at it and say:
huh? you joking? i'm part of this horror?
     but not until you have a brain
haemorrhage and get diagnosed as schizoid
and then you think: so what was the point
of forgiving your enemies come into this?
      i can't believe it has become so, so personal,
to actually have this nagging, decapitated
doll-head on your shoulder telling you to:
repeat! repeat!
       i could literally be writing this in
Auschwitz and be like: Neddy needs a jumper
and a diaper... cos like that really needs
you to fathom the logic of assembling an
Ikea chair...
                          i mean, talking in the west
is a bit like farting into a hippotamous' nostril
for a ******* jackuzi effect...
  jack! i said ***! what's with this jacuzzi?
English, mein gott... confusion everywhere
you pigeon **** onto a top-hat.
by the way: everyone becomes
dyslexic on the word hippopotamus -
there's a reason why hippos exist...
        you want acronyms, you get shortening...
and yes, since english society has abolished
asylums, the society has become a breeding
ground for asylum instigators,
rich russians, bewildered chienese...
it's en masse, one, massive, cesspit...
   i mean the part where you don't get the brown
steamturd floating about like some
  celebrity you'd love to slap with much
more than mere paparazzi epilepsy...
because violence matters, esp into language games...
i was just asking, because there i was,
working on a roof on some construction site,
and she calls me up and says that
she hears voices...
          that's what i mean certain mental
delinquents and their choice of Samaritan...
  what does a roofer know about "voices"
if it doesn't equate to a bad conscience?
    that's why i'm wondering whether certain mental
illnesses have a virus-like profanity attached to them...
oh yes yes, the unison: bob marley: we're one
type of ******* to boot, like i'm supposed to get
a hardy and a 'ard on about it...
               ******* spoof of a light-bulb moment: PING!
and there... ain't that just dazzling?
phantasmagorical blurp at the feet of
Eros at Piccadilly Circus... my ego is a canon
that just simply shoots out viagras! and questions.
and yes... that's what we call being part
of the clown...
    and if there's a lord of flies...
what's the guy mentioned by beelzebub drunk
doing about the mosquitos?
           ah... boundless at the crucix, once more!
i'm just wondering where
does mental illness become solipsism,
  and when in fact it becomes a sort of virology...
   i can romanticise mental illness as a type
of solipsism, that it has a cage, that it can be contained...
but when mental illness goes outside of the novel,
strolls outside its cage and becomes
something akin to kissing a *****,
     i want to know.... because i swear i have been
affected by someone's mental illness being
hidden in the shadow of taboo...
   look... i'm ******* exfoliating with vocab!
        how can you become normal after someone
exposes you the symptom of "voices"...
that's demeaning given the past history of
having relationships with angels and demons,
that's like a neuter noun.... voices brings up
more concern for a pronoun-****-up than
a clear, noun association... angels, sure,
i could start looking more closely at pigeons...
demons, doubly sure, i could start
chasing bats...
              but i need to know whether mental
illness is worthy of taboo, i.e. it's worth
the category of being physical, in that it can be
contagious... whether it can act like a virus....
whether it can become an epidemic...
    and to be honest, i think it can,
but that seems pointless, since western society
has exchanged asylums for taboo...
                  look at me now,
a once budding roofer, reduced to writing poetry,
i might as well be an ******...
            safe-guarding king Solomon's harem...
oh sure, eunuchs were able to **** his *** slaves...
they were slaves themselves,
what they weren't allowed is to usurp
    the ******* crown of the king passing his
d.n.a., mind the frivolity, never the seriousness
of geneticist, yawning when their genesis was to come...
    i'd love to see hans andersen on the trail of
dolly... the sheep... and dolly really does become
a trinity of animal prior to human in the out-reaches...
what with laika (man's best friend)
and later fiztgerald... oh wait (man's worst enemy,
the money) Baker....
   thanks to de Sade and baron Sacher-Masoch
we could truly begin the orthodox occult of science...
   how the two patron "saints"
interpolate... it really is a dualism worthy of
dangling a crucifix... shame the first monkey in
space wasn't called Brian...
    i don't know, then, perhaps, the Caesars at
the coliseum wouldn't boast so much about
   the: lacking the ambidable thumb
(yes!) googlewhack no. 4 / 5 -
mandible thumb you idiot! d'uh...
but still, a googlewhack at the end of it...
type in: lacking the ambidable thumb
and, yes = 1 result in the google algorithm...
http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Have-Thumb-Deformity/728760,
i call this the alternative version of, or rather,
the digital version of fishing...
     a tail like a thumb, the grip baron...
   but my peacocking the tongue shouldn't
be deemed as: straitjacket panic button prone...
  why would it?
****! he used the colour azure in his blue period,
that picasso did! chain him! gag him!
stash him in a kitchen stove!
i mean the inspection of genuine viriology
dynamic concerning mental illness,
the anti-thesis of solipsism, as the proper counter...
or should i say: membrane / barrier?
    can mental illness make ranks, i.e. spread?
like a virus can?
            well, if you take to explaining a zeitgeist...
ideology akin to communism and ****** can
become virus-akin... so i guess... yes...
it had to become a self-serving question easily
answered... mental illness can be very much
akin to a common cold... it's not really a case of taboo
being the lock-and-key to contain it...
nor the asylum... i suppose the best prescription
is the idea of solipsism...
              but isn't this grand,
i'm actually lethargic, coinciding with
    a tax on robots... and the French slashing
their 35 hour working weeks to 32 hours...
    and the Finns paying their unemployed
    (2K, placebo dosage for the actual
   237,000 unemployed) - a random €560 a month...
such are the times...
           it really has become a sort of
year 0 orientation lesson... because it's just
gagging for a guillotine to snap it awake,
so a decapitated head of Charles I at Whitehall might
say it's final farewell...
              and is mental illness capable of
being akin to a viral infection...
     it probably can... you probe the waters in an
environment of poets... they're good enough
to succumb to a white rabbit experiment...
              question is: do you apply the rule
of solipsism or an actual asylum? in a post-asylum
society, i don't think there's an option
whether solipsism should, or shouldn't be used
to counter the more serious form of the flu...
   but, as ever, it comes down to the age-old
cartesian model of dualism... or as any siamese twin
might attest: i'm not that further away from
my sister as you might think...
  the dualism that served so well for so many years
to appear "peaceful" became a real dichotomy...
  the ergo suddenly failed... when people realised
that the fact "i think" didn't necessarily
precipiate into "i am"... given what the media is
interested in, and how many people become missing
and all that... the numbers were too much
for player uno to simply give up the canvas
of newspapers and t.v. to some poor schmuck
trying to impregnate his canvas on which he worked
his paint-brush (power) and paint (wealth) onto...
   the cartesian ergo simply failed...
    oh sure, the other two facts worked... but they
didn't necessarily congregate universally
in the crux of ergo,
        i was told it would be a monsoon of thought
established on earth... instead i got a light-shower
   and the Gobi desert.
in the same way the subconscious exists
as a fake of the trinity...
           to me it has no need for a chisel...
as a realm... treat the conscious as a realm
akin to Hades, and it becomes wholly
de-personalised... there's not individual in it
that might require it... it's a covert mechanism
of subterfuge... but if we're talking
making rabbit heads with our hands
   in the shadow form... we're talking
nothing but puppeteering...
   or like saying, let's create an evolved
version of the definite (the) and the indefinite (a)
article...
                      well... there must be
a direct and an indirect article...
                well there is...
con                                 and sub-con,
       un-con is an indiscriminate article...
meaning: what are the evolutionary gains
of dreaming, given the cinema?
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2019
.pr.s.: well... if i am deluded? can i claim melancholly to be of equal ontological excuse to a flu... and say: i was infected by a mental illness? and there was never some, "mythical" origin of the illness... as you're sure i'm aware, i do not associate mental illness as having origin in a genesis of solipsism... there's nothing Kantian about it... for me... mental illness is very much an extension of virology... but this be the tempus for the crux of the body contra mind dichotomy... which since the 17th century hasn't been resolved... or has been... by the zombie squadron of the pharma-ingesting spooks of: awaiting a phobia of the white-coats urban myths... of course i fall to sleep thinking about killing someone... why wouldn't it? i end up eating a chicken the next day... what's the difference of a "somebody" for the worth of "something"?

whiskey,
           KMFDM...
very much akin
to ready to blow...

   nine inch nails...

the kids and the punk
and what
was industrial rigid...

and "being" white...
well...
if we're all going
to geneology
the whole "concern"
for history:

originating from
a people
with not tabloid
literature
having succumbed
to colonialization...

"save" the white women...
what?!
with not asian fetish?!
who, are, you?
teenage suicides
engaging in social
media...

             well...
Freddy Mercury was
just revived via:
another bites the dust...

what's agitating?
the inactive presence
of a screen,
that, i somehow need
to make tattoo of...

scripted rhapsody of
the believable people...
like:
people who arm their
psychology with
the orientation
of... "petting" tarantulas
or boa snakes...
touch all you want:
but try a second time
to extract character
and behavioural nuance
from these... "things"...

me?
voluntary celibate...
cenobite *** a
lost leash of leather straps...
every time i ****
off: the hand
becomes the ****...
grip and no soft pouch
of a cuddle of
****** in,
either lip, or...
no... i don't know
what a "missing"
******* feels like...

punk bores me...
punk always bored me...
esp.when championed
by commentators
alligned to...

do you know what
the entry criterion
for the proud boys
was?
   being punched...
no... not on the face...
and having to remember
a recital
of the pleb's favorite
cereal brands...

how about a new
limbo for the "worth"
of entry...

punching yourself
in the face
20+ times...
and then remaining silent...
while the history
of your mother's
****** exploits is
revealed to you
by your grandmother...

how's that?
i pet a cat, i *******,
shape of the water
(females *******),
i take a ****,
i take a ****:
yeah... sorry..
no scented candles,
no internet cameras...
did i coincide with
jordan b. peterson:
yes...
i will never **** these
women...
given they're
**** actresses from
the 1970s...

i, like: vintage...
quirky hair
with the...
gob's worth of *******'s
worth of scrap...
and a bullion
of throbbing quirk
looping lips...
  
i have assimilated
over 20 years in england,
3 years in scotland...
being asked: where are you
from?
like some ******* tourist...
****** me off...

was i going anywhere?
or... point being:
am i, "anywhere"?
ah...
so i am nowhere:
so reading Heidegger makes
a lot of sence, then?
given that
                    no
is no sein
          and that...
as much of where
                    is "there"...

but this sort of pedantic
address for the use of language,
does translate into
the habitual, and the "readily" given
use, concerning the "idle"
hands of a plumber...

a lay-job contra
the pedantic interest...
well... sure...
              we can succumb
to investigating contrasts
that are not worth the while
for being 2 x 2 rubric
statements...
having lost purpose
as 2 x 3...

thus, at times...
i almost forget...
      time...
                 that precedence
hierarchy...
  the precedence membrane
of who are allocated
the purpose of being
contemporary...

   i... somehow...
forget to dismember
the cradle mimic sound
of insect
(entombed in the cracking
wood),
with the rattling sound
of a lizard limbo...
to the R of the trill...
like... what gives off the same
found of creaking
footsteps,
or the burning of wood...
close approximate...

yet there are some people
who i know are not
deserving of a precedence
whether in hierarchy or...
but these people will
congest themselves
to a bite-luck quest
of argument in reproductive-recreation...
so?
failure escapes them
now...
   failure?
           will not escape them...

greeks might have
"invented"
1 + 1 = 2...
no argument, loose association...
but the hindu theologial
rubric, stating:

evil deed + apathy = good eventuality
                                       for all...
  is necessarily false,
is worth being negated...
i like the Hindu algebra
of time being both:
expansive, & constrictive...

    "my" world?
has already disappeared...
   by coincidence...
i've watched how...
            
    no... i'm not here to make sense,
to invest in a non-empirican
standard of a (0, 0) vortex
of beginning:
clinging to being perpetually
cleaned...
  amnesia-ridden...

         and even if i let my
ailment be known "to" or
"in", "public"...
                              the life of
a baker, or a butcher...
can't become overtly,
  "complicated"...
unless it's a genetic anomaly...
because a flu...
is a type of virsus...
poly-morph...
that is never...
    translated from person
to person...
mental illnesses are
never deemed worthy
of the strict scrutiny of
virology...
like...
all of thinking is safe...
and is not ridden with
       pathology...
  like... mental illness
is a hubris of medicine...
   like: all of medicine is
only physical,
and no metaphysics is handy...
how...
      
     like... mental illness is
such a pathology,
such a fetish,
that... it cannot be correlated
to something,
aking to the phenomenon
of propaganda...
  sure...
           the common flu...
i know where my mental "illness"
stems from...
a russian girlfriend...
who told me...
she was abducted as a child,
and *****,
and what not...
trying to excavate
an ******* from me...

mental illness?
   well... bilingual is the new ******...
and any personal
interaction is: worthy of
the... very understanding public...
you know what song
i have, to rely to lodged
in my mind?

   rob zombie's - michael...

me?
     yeah, i know:
a beard doesn't make a man...
then again...
i rather be subject to
something being itchy,
than itch for something...

proud boys:
you sure you joined the right club?
what... entry level of:
get punched by the "sharks"
having to cite breakfast cereals?!
wha......?
    it's like i'm tied with
this chick from Siberia...
    and i can't get be rid of her!
it's like:
we married...
   upon the cranium ring
of death being part of
our ceremony of fingers...
she ****** around,
i went to the *******...
   it's like: that ******* giggle of her's?
that **** is haunting...
russian milk skin...
some new variant of aristocracy...

so... proud boys...
get punched giving names of breakfast
cereals?!
right...

ever punch yourself in the face
to the point of giving 'erself
a plum-shadow?
****! better rewrite than in
"english":

          pflaumeschatten;

oh i'm married...
i'm ******* certain of it...
but the priest
wasn't a closet pedohpile...
it was whoever
the it that strangulates
my he to she and
her she to my she
of a St. Mort... or death...
yeah...
i'm married: post-scriptum...

punch yourself in the head
20 times for a black-eye,
and then tell me:
there is not an element
of virology
worth being investigated
in the realm
of mental illness...
common flue...
and...
being a girl who says prior
to wanting to *******:
i was abused as a child,
i was molested...

better death being the *******
priest
than some *******
dog-wishing leash of a:
scuttle for words & worms...

she can be as *******
randy as hell...
while i can have the "pleasure"
of having kissed several
prostitutes...
   marriage, inverted...
because i just can't stop
myself from seeing similarities
in...
   the public realm...
of...

the foul breath of the other's
ego...
  ****** for biling.
   psychotic for by 'er ego
  'ur ego too...
         it's like a marriage
of the anti-materialists,
the wedding ring of paupers...

mentall illness is so funny...
when having to compensate
its difficulty,
with the "difficulty"
of having to attire oneself
with the role of
being a supermarket cashier...

it's like:
this is medicine, yes?
so... what isn't metaphysics,
isn't exactly mental illness,
but a meta-illness...
  so... the orthodoxy of the scalpel...
heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
******* fairground!
let's do circles and zigzags!

and that one *****
that told herself:
                   i have to get away....
my love has a grave
and i ****** well hope
there's only her name
on the crux of the marble...
and her ghost
******* my dead body
to boot.
cr Jul 2015
i am mentally ill.

i have been since i was born,
or at least, that’s what i’ve been told.
although perhaps
i never knew it, perhaps
the symptoms
were triggered by trauma, perhaps
it was something that never really seemed
like an illness to me until i knew
what was considered normal. but
i am mentally ill, or mentally disordered, or mentally whatever.

and i ******* hate it.

i hate it
because i cannot think logically most of the time.
i hate it
because whatever chemical imbalances
are inside of me
make me want to scream
and bleed
and punch the walls of my home
until there are more holes than stable ground. i hate it
because me having to speak in front of
my ******* friends is cause enough to
cry for three days, because
my friends don’t understand why
i am ecstatic
around them one day when sadness
crushes my skull the next, because
my friends don’t see logic in a matter of feeling
that doesn’t make sense to them let alone me.

i hate it because
i cannot give a logical reason for this.
i hate it because
i don’t understand why i am the way i am
or what i did to deserve this.
i hate it because
i don’t understand my illness,
i don’t understand how people can
just go out into the world and be happy,
i don’t understand what it’s like to
have something go wrong in life
and react in a way considered to be “healthy”.

i hate it
because my younger brother sits
in class and suffers from his own depression
but refuses to speak up
because he believes his depression
is absolutely nothing
compared to mine,
when to me
it is everything.
i hate it because
he might be cutting himself open
every night
or at least wanting to

and

i hate it because
when i texted all of my friends
as i sat sobbing on my front porch
at ten pm
on a school night
with a bottle of pills
nestled safely in my jacket pocket,
several of them thought it was a suicide note
but none of them cared enough to push further
in my answer of “i’m fine don’t worry about me goodnight”.
i hate it because
the only person who noticed it thoroughly enough
was my ex-boyfriend,
who i scared half to death
when i told him “i’m sorry”
and “i loved you a lot before we broke up”
and “you’ll understand”
and he replied with “oh my god
please don’t
please don’t
please don’t”.

i hate it because
i ignored him.
i hate it because
i wanted out.

i hate it because
the sky fell through the earth’s floor
like shattered glass and the blood-orange
sunset bled towards the grass; i hate it because
i lay softly on the earth of my front yard
and allowed the blades of grass to soothe me
towards the afterlife; i hate it because
the world spun and spun and spun and
my vision blurred and
my heart threatened to beat so far out of my chest
and i could not stop my breathing
but i kept on taking more pills like a child eating candy.

i hate it because
when i realised i wasn’t dead,
i cried.
i hate it because
i had thirty two new notifications
from my ex and the people he had contacted
to see if i was dead
but most of them were from him,
all missed calls and texts and
heavy breathing on the other side of the phone
once he saw me calling. i hate it because
his hands were shaking
and i was talking
and sobbing
with an ex love
on my front porch as the sun and moon switched places
with half a bottle of pills in my system
and the taste of blood in my mouth
instead of talking to my friends
and family
and people
who were supposed to care about me.

i hate it because
the next day i had a pulsing headache
and a suicidal mindset
and all of my friends were cracking jokes
about how they believed i was going to **** myself
when they had no idea
how hard i’d been attempting to do so.
i hate it because
i smiled and lied through gritted teeth
and cried in the bathrooms
when a teacher pulled me aside to say -
he thought something was
“off” with me. i hate it because
i still wanted to die.

i hate it because
i can’t think straight most days.
i hate it because
sometimes everything is okay
and fine
and i can breathe without the alien invasion of
“panic attacks from the planet post-traumatic stress disorder”
and cinnamon doesn’t trigger memories
i would like to forget.
i hate it because
people don’t take mental health seriously
enough to understand why
i leave classrooms in the middle of the day
or why some kids miss school for
two weeks without explanation or why sometimes teachers
with dead eyes are more dead inside
than the human skeletons dancing in the science classrooms.
i hate it because
teenagers make suicide jokes
near people who are dying.
i hate it because
i don’t know if i got out of bed
last tuesday or how long it’s been since i last showered
or if i still love writing as much as
i used to
or if it’s just habit now.

i hate it
because my illness makes me hate myself.

i hate it because
my illness
does not define me
but it sure feels like it does.
i hate it because i cannot explain my illness myself.
i hate it because i hate my illness
and every part of it that creates me, shapes me, moves me
like a ******* puppet.

but ******* it all
if i am going to let it ****** who
i am supposed to be any longer.
"i hate it because -"
"i hate it because-"
"i hate it because-"
Johnny Zhivago Aug 2013
Spanish influenza
walking pneumonia
icepick headache
common cold
whooping cough
Diabetes
anorexia
getting old

flat foot
bad back
heel spur
heart attack
spasticus
autisticus
tongue tied
amb(i)dextrous

my weakness
is my forte
my sickness is  my skill
my illness
is my realness
it makes my life a thrill


Trying to fight this
bronchitis
gangrene
runny nose
frostbite
tooth decay
hat hair
broken bones

bed bound
shell-shocked
flea ridden
sinusitis
cholera
dropsy
eliphantitis
out-all-nightis

wom­b fever
winter fever
black water fever
remitting fever
ship fever
jail fever
camp fever
or schizophrenia

scarlet fever
tuberculosis
American plague
rock n roll
Wheezing
Paralysed
Got gas
In both holes

rabies
scabies
rickets
and SARS
man flu
bird flu
swine flew
from Mars

multiple sclerosis
tennis elbow-sis
stomach ulcers
and leukaemia
night blindness
hypothermia
lung cancer
sickle-cell anaemia

French pox
Lockjaw
Polio
Gout
Nostalgia
Dropsy
Knocked right
Out

Stuttering
Bellyacher
Anti-social
Leprosy
Sleep walker
Sleep talker
Absent minded
OCD

Tourettes, ****
Pyromania
tonsillitis
Conjunctivitis
Food poisoned!
Warted over
My Psoriasis
(Will I survive this?)

Measles
Malaria
Meningitis
Migraine
Scrum-pox
Worm fit
Water on
the brain

apparitions
seeing things
rattly chest
bad breath
la duzi
tormentation
inflammation
black death

measles
malaria
migrane
mumps
leprosy
lice and
leg bone
lumps

kleptomania
bubonic plague
black *****
feeling ****
bone shave
falling sickness
wanna stop
just cant quit

Huntington's and
Parkingson's and
Hare-lipped
Hay fever
Typhoid fever
Glandular fever
Night fever
And Hysteria

intellectual
dyslexia
dysfunctional
family
cancer crab
stillborn twin
bad blood
epilepsy

Parking spot
disabilities
all the wounds in
all the militaries
pity thee with
lost agility
lost babes or
infertility

ear infection
starvation
Hepatitis
E to A
smallpox
chicken pox
cow pox
what a day

tuberculosis
stuttering
panic stricken
star struck
scurvy
shingles
headless chicken
bad luck


paranoid
in the void
premature
*******
stomach ulcers
feeble pulses
chronicled
*******

autistic
gallstones
double-jointe­d
wrists and knees
consumption
bad digestion
quinsy palsy
ticks and fleas

amnesia
typhus
amnesia
heart failure
radiation
cholera
amnesia
bad behaviour

Hypochondriac?
By gosh, no!
Poorly are ye?
‘Fraid so.


nostalgia
        suffer me
wanderlust
suffer me
insomnia
suffer me
loneliness
let me be



god
complex
mother
complex
father
complex
ego
complex

­

its complicated
im superior
its complicated
im inferior
its complicated
im a short man
got ingrown hairs
got a bad tan



im suffering
ocd
im suffering
obesity
im suffering
jealousy
xenophobia
and nosebleeds



stokholm
syndrome
toxic shock
syndrome
got it down
syndrome
irritable bowel
syndrome

yellow nail
syndrome
stevens-johnson
syndrome
restless leg
syndrome
shoulder-hand
syndrome

lambert-eaton
syndrome
mi­ddle-lobe
syndrome
mobius
syndrome
pickwickian
syndrome

post rubella
syndrome
riley day
syndrome
straight back
syndrome
ulysess
syndrome



alcoholics
we are prone
drug addicts
we are prone
mind benders
we are prone
fortune spenders
we are prone



My illness, my illness
My illness is my realness

*Pick it up
Tide it over
Fight it off or
Cave in

Save it
Suffer it
Pass it on
When its Raining

bleed him
restrain him
shave his
head

he went from being
quite well
to being quite
dead.
unfinished but did you bother to the end?
Alyanne Cooper May 2014
"I lost her to mental illness."
It just doesn't produce
Quite the same sympathy as
"I lost her to cancer." Or
"I lost her to a car accident."

People look at you strangely
As if you don't understand
What it means to be alive,
That you don't know a person
Is alive and well if they're breathing
And talking and living.
They try to correct you and say
That you're just not in contact
With her anymore,
Not that you've actually lost her.

People think mental illness:
"Can't be that bad, right?"
"At least she's still alive."
"You could still talk to her,
If you wanted."
They think being sad about it,
Being broken hearted over it,
Being depressed because of it,
Is just exaggerated hysterics.

But I lost her to mental illness.
I lost her to mental illness!

It IS that bad!
It means she is gone from me
As much as if she physically died!
I CAN'T talk to her
Even though I do want to!

There is no going back
To the way it used to be.
Every day of the rest of my life
Will be missing a key person
Whom I can never get back.

She abandoned me,
Chose to walk out of my life.

But it was the mental illness
That stole any hope I had
Of seeing her walk back in.
It was the mental illness
That orphaned me.
It was the mental illness
That "killed" my mom.

So please don't trivialize my loss.
Don't depreciate my pain.
It's just as valid and just as real.

I lost her to mental illness.
nabi 나비 Dec 2016
There is so much more to this than you know
There is more to anorexia than starving
There is more to depression than sadness
There is more to anxiety than stress
There is more to bulimia than purging
There is more to bipolar disorder than mood changes
There is more to a mental illness than one thing
A mental illness effects every part of someones life
As well as everyone you love
It's an illness and it hurts
But a mental illness can never be cured
But you can help your loved one with it
But first you have to know what you're helping
Anorexia is a disorder characterized by a desire to lose weight by refusing to eat
Depression is a disorder characterized by persistently depressed mood or loss of interest in activities
Anxiety is a disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear
Bulimia is a disorder marked by binging, followed by methods to avoid weight gain
Bipolar disorder is associated with episodes of mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs
You need to know about this because people have this
And more awareness needs to be made
Because mental illness effects everyone
A lot of people I know and am very close with deal with mental illnesses, I do too.  I don't see much awareness being made for it, and I think that there should be.  i wrote this and I was going to present it but decided not to, but I still thought that people should see it
Cee Jun 2016
I look back on my life
I reflect on my past.
I saw how I just stood still
Never quite followed any clear path.
How could people respect me
If I didn't make any positive moves?
I live in self-hate
With a bad attitude.
I lost my woman, my children
My home, my family.
My life is a dark cloud I live in misery.
I even tried to **** myself
Just the other day.
But God wouldn't let it happen
He kept me anyway.
I called my pastor
He was busy at the time.
I was having a mental meltdown
I was losing my mind.
I took a handful of pills
That only made me sick.
I can't even end my own life
Ain't that a b*tch.
If I ever succeed with suicide
Don't give Leesah the blame.
I'm just tired of this life
I'm not mentally sane.
The only thing that matters
Is my children that I love so.
They are gone from me
My life has no meaning, I think it's my time to go.
My family has turned their backs on me
I ran them all away.
I have mental issues I'm ignoring
Getting more ill everyday.
I hear voices in my head
They talk to me all the time
They torment me
These voices mess with my mind.
My inner voices are my only friends
I know that sounds quite odd.
The only thing I have to hold onto
Are these voices & God.
Nothing else is there for me
No one else is there.
I live a life of pure loneliness
I think no one else cares.
My-Ex says I'm unstable
She says I'm mentally unwell.
She tried to help me, I refused
Now I live in my own personal Hell.
I saw the pain in her eyes
She looks at me with pure disgust.
I allowed my mental illness
To betray her trust.
I can't believe how my life
Has turned for the worst.
I feel like my life is a joke
I feel like I'm cursed.
The mistakes I made in life
Were caused by my own hands.
I went through living my life
Without any clear cut plans.
I've tried talking to God
To him I constantly pray.
It seems as he's forsaken me
Because he doesn't hear me anyway.
I know that's my illness talking
Those voices wanting my faith to waiver.
I'll never let that happen
Because one day I know
I'll receive God's favor.
My mind is everywhere
Mental illness has a hold on my life.
My-Ex tried to warn me.
Why didn't I listen to my wife?
I thought losing my family
Caused my downward spiral.
But truth be told
It was happening for a while.
My mental illness has ruined me
It's left me mentally & physically depleted.
I messed up my life
Because my illness went untreated.
Is it too late to get help?
Why? My family's gone.
I lost my wife, my children
Do I want to go on?
If I never write again
If this poem is my last write.
I know I was the blame
I finally saw the light.
My pride didn't allow me to admit
I'm mentally unstable, mentally unwell.
Because I didn't listen to Leesah
I live in my own lonely private hell.
Patrick Austin Sep 2018
Our Backgrounds before we met...

I'm an only child born in Montana in 1983, from a divided home. Parents divorced at seven, Mom was unstable and unfaithful. Dad obtained custody of me and we moved to Oregon Coast to live with my Grandma. I had unhealthy visits and relationship with Mom thereafter. My Grandma died at 12 and at 13 my Dad remarried an alcoholic woman, I had a strained relationship with them until adulthood when she stopped drinking. I had exposure to trauma; alcoholism, mental illness, verbal abuse and juvenile troubles. I rebelled by using drugs in my late teens and early twenties, I lived on my own for a few years after high school but had little direction.

My bride is the eldest with two little brothers, parents stayed in same area of Portland during childhood with lots of family support and her parents stayed married. They had Christian values but some anger and anxiety issues at home. She was sexually assaulted at 17 and never had good closure with this. She told me her parents didn't provide her enough help with things like this growing up. Status quo was the backbone of the family dynamic, challenging emotions were discouraged. She rebelled by being reckless with herself, financially and sexually. She decided to join the Navy at 19. She lived alone briefly, but mostly with Grandparents & Parents before our marriage.

I loved how we both grew up reading Archie comics. No other girl I had ever met had that in common with me. I think we wanted a surreal life like the one in Riverdale.

2002

She and I were 19 when we first met in my home town on the coast at an arcade. We became friends and secretly liked each other. I was too nervous to ever make a move on her. We traveled together, she stayed with me, we used drugs together and drank at times. One night she drank too much and had *** with a guy I knew at a party. I was devastated by this. She was Navy bound and I didn't see a real future for us. The next morning she left and I didn't talk to her again for two years. I figured she would be gone with the Navy soon and that she must not have been interested in a relationship with me despite the time we spent together.

2003

I was depressed about this rejection. I dated an older woman who was interested in me but was no substitute. I eventually moved to the Portland area to work and live. I still had few plans and was lonely, in or out of the few brief relationships I attempted. I never found someone that I felt safe with or had a true connection, let alone true love. She ended up not following through with the Navy and continued working her way up in her job at the call center. She attended community college and dated a few guys. She dated one guy for a couple of years who was not a good match for her but stayed with him off and on despite issues. His family was wealthy and treated her well. He slept around on her as did she. At one point he gave her an STD. She also had an ongoing affair with a married man in the military that she went to high school with. He had a child and a wife with mental health issues. She was still hurting a lot at times and not always doing well.

2004

She reached out to me via email after two years of no contact. We emailed back and forth a couple times over the next few months. We talked about meeting up. We spoke on the phone and eventually met up in Portland. We had an amazing night getting to know each other again and work past the confusion of our earlier days of friendship. I realized that she did in fact like me before but since I was timid and trying to be proper and take things slowly she didn't understand my motives. She apologized for her actions at the party as well. She claimed she was in a really messed up place and was making bad choices at that time. Getting our feelings out in the open was good and she appreciated my attitude towards being slow to make moves on her when we first met. I was worried about falling for her based on our history but eventually I was determined to give it a shot. We soon after starting dating and being intimate. Our love was extremely powerful and beyond all others we had both experienced. She broke ties with other suitors and shortly after we talked about marriage and started planning a wedding for the next year.

I remember when we first held hands. We were so shakey and she was quivering on my couch as I had my arm around her. We felt so safe with each other. We could finally be ourselves and do what our hearts desired. We knew we were on to something new and so amazing. We were so patient with each other as we navigated our new love and emotional thresholds.

I remember when we saw Matisyahu in concert together. That was a once in a lifetime experience and a life-changing moment for us. I feel it set the tone for things to come in our future.

I remember how creative my proposal to her was, in the Arcade where we first met. I hid the ring in a prize container from one of those claw machines. Pretending I got the ring from inside by reaching into the machine on one knee I was so nervous and wasn't sure if I could pull it off before she caught on. She looked so shocked and surprised. I was so excited she said yes! We took pictures in the photo machine and had burgers afterwards, I'd do all of it all over again just to see her face in that moment.

2005

We found an apartment for us in Portland. I moved in while she was still living back with her parents until the wedding. She had to change her number because the married man she was previously involved with kept calling her about changing her mind about marriage and continuing their relationship. She was offered a job in Denver and we decided to move away together after our sandy wedding in Cannon Beach. I still had a very hard time and was embarrassed with my past history with her. Many of my friends knew what had happened at 19 and how much it hurt me but I was so crazy about her I think I tried to pretend it didn't happen or that it was not a big deal because we were younger. We got married and moved to Colorado soon after. We made friends at a church, I became more active as a Christian and really loved being married. We were very involved in keeping spirituality in our marriage. I began to notice her poor financial decisions and practices more. This caused conflict but we always tried to communicate and work on things.

I remember when we went down to my folks for New Year's in 2005. We sipped tea in my Datsun as we drove to the coast over the snowy mountain pass. We told them of our engagement. We were all so blissful and excited. We never knew what was to come. We didn't even know about the opportunity in Denver yet. Our story is amazing!

I remember when I wanted to go see her in Portland and the roads were iced over. I left my car at a park and ride before I caused a wreck. I took the light rail across town then rode a bus to the Eastside shopping mall. The bus to her house was not running because it wasn't safe so I walked the rest of the 4 Miles sometimes having to crawl on my hands and knees to make it up hills in the ice and then I finally made it only to just spend a couple hours with her and fall asleep on her parents couch. Her Dad drove us back the next morning to my car so I could get to work. It was all worth it just to see her for that little extra time. I would have done anything for her.

I remember when she was interviewing for the new position in Denver? I drove all over Portland trying to find little toy cars to help with her illustration about how a team is like a car having all four wheels and how they work together to accomplish a goal. I was so proud of her for giving it her all and succeeding at earning that position. Now that I think of it, that car analogy applies to our family and us. We all need each other to be better and keep on track and be a team. I am so motivated by that and our boys. I lose my way without that and I want to be her reflection and motivation as she has been that for me. I truly thought we brought out the best in each other when we were together.

I remember when we were given tickets to see Fiona Apple. That was so spontaneous and a great way to kick off our time in Denver together. We always used to watch our same movies over and over again. Like the Friends DVDs and White Christmas every winter break and The Wedding Singer. We walked everywhere and lived simply. "I wanna be the guy, who grows old with you"

I remember in our first Denver apartment when we took baths together in our claw foot tub in the big bathroom. We put a board over the top and played cards. I liked playing Uno with her in bed too. She was so funny being slightly color blind and in the dark, mixing up the greens and blues. We played Uno in Breckenridge too at that cool bed and breakfast in the fall.

2006

We had continued fun and adventure in our new home of Denver. She was doing well as a trainer for the bank and I started working in health foods. We went camping in New Mexico a couple times with friends and we both took individual trips to Oregon as well as one together for her uncle's wedding. We had marital spats on occasion but always bounced back. The issues we had seemed like part of a normal marriage and were far better than what I had grown up around. I realized that marriage was a lot of work but I was up for the task. She occasionally became aggressive throwing things at me or breaking things during conflict.  I believed I was the problem and tried to change for her in many ways. With two incomes we still had trouble making our bills at times. She had debts that I never knew about that started to catch up with us but I took care of getting them settled and we paid off her car and traded it for an older Volvo Wagon that we both loved, I even had it repainted her favorite color for a birthday gift. Overall things seemed like they were progressing in a positive way.

I remember when we saw Midnight in concert in Boulder. That was the peak of our hippy days. We were alive with pleasure in our healthy vegetarian diets and practices living in a time and place like no other. I want to be like that again. Reggae was our music. We had much in common.

2007

We really fell into our roles in our marriage and the community; church and culture, friends etc. Things seemed very balanced and appropriate for us at that time and that age (24-25). We had separate bank accounts and jobs. I had money in savings. We started the process of buying a house so we could invest in something. She became pregnant shortly after. I embraced the challenge with positive energy but we were both in for a big change. We started having more fights. I didn't have many friends and would write to old friends via social media just so I could to catch up and tell them things were going great with being married to make myself feel better than I actually did. She hated the dawn of social media and also felt isolated I'm sure. She felt I should be doing more for her and I didn't know how to do what she needed but I failed to ask a lot of the time. After one argument, she left the house. My instinct told me to look at ******* and ******* as a retaliation. I had not done this much once we were married because she always met my needs but when things were difficult between us I felt more emotionally isolated. She walked in and realized what I had been doing. She was very upset, and because she was pregnant, thought I was not attracted to her. The truth is I found her even more beautiful and in fact when I looked at ******* I tried to look at women I found less attractive than her so that I feel good about what I have. I mostly fantasized about how these women were more submissive and loving than her. That is the part I needed to feel good about and feel better about myself with because I felt very dominated and controlled. She has never forgiven me for this and I will never stop feeling sorry to her for my brokenness. During one particular argument that year she was getting close to being violent towards me again and I pushed her away on the chest with my fingertips. She got very mad and said I hurt her. I immediately felt terrible and apologized. I never let something like that happen again. I have always avoided violence towards others especially women and of course her. I was defenseless against physical and emotional abuse.

2008

Our eldest son was born at the beginning of the year, it was a traumatic birth for everyone. We wanted a natural birth with a midwife but we were transferred to a hospital and she ended up having an emergency C-section, nothing went as planned. We had a really hard time coping with the emotions of this experience. A lot of buried feelings and trauma from both of us started coming out. We moved a month later into our new home outside of town. No more walking or biking to places, we had to drive everywhere. This house was next to our friends from church. We thought this would make us feel less isolated but we didn’t really have the community with them that we had hoped for. They were upset that they didn't have a child of their own yet and being around us might have been hard for them. My wife stopped working and stayed home with our son. All these changes made for a very difficult time. I did my best to support them but this was the first time we shared a bank account and needed to follow a budget more than ever before. We had no debt at the beginning of the year with money in savings but then the hospital bills put us down about $7,000 and rising with new home and moving expenses and baby needs. My job could barely keep up. She and I had a hard time adjusting. We could not afford to travel home to Oregon and visit family as much and we felt more and more isolated. She started showing me more signs of instability, locking herself in the bathroom with kitchen knives and scraping her legs which continued off and on for years to come. Talks of divorce and suicide threats seemed to happen more than before. I felt responsible and tried to fix her ever changing issues with me.

I remember when herr ******* were full and swollen with milk. It is so beautiful the way she could feed our babies. I wanted her in every way, our bodies belonged to each other. I was there for her and our shared pleasure. I loved it when she told me that she was mine in the heat of passion. This spark could only be a bandage for so long but I didn't know that yet.

2009

I tried to promote within my company but was not selected, they were cutting budgets and employment all around me. I felt worried about our future. I had always thought the military might be a good opportunity and could move us closer to family back home. My father-in-law encouraged me to look into the Coast Guard. I felt this would be a good way to get moved closer to Oregon.  I ended up joining the Navy because we found out we were pregnant again with our second son and that was the only way I could join a military branch. She worked off and on as a nanny and later in the year at a coffee house working nights. We barely spent time together and when we did it was a lot of hard conversations or arguments about finances with making up intimately in the middle of the night between times of caring for the baby. She once scratched my neck with her fingernails during an argument. People I worked with noticed. It was a hard time and we knew change was on the horizon with jobs and moving. We did visit Oregon that summer though and had a great vacation at the beach with a borrowed 4x4 and staying at a hotel and picnicking out of a cooler as well as going to her brothers wedding. I was 26 and about to join the Navy to provide better for my family at all costs sacrificing myself for their benefit because I would have rather died than look like I didn't try my best for them.

I remember when our babies would kick and move around inside her belly. I loved laying by her and feeling her tummy. I would hum to the baby and hear them move and squirm. I loved giving our boys baths when they were babies too. We had our little bundles of our love, wrapped in a towel in our hands, so tiny and vulnerable. I miss those days and want to remember them with her, aside from this state of melancholy.

2010

The Navy recruiters would only take me if we rented out our home and had her stay with family during boot camp and training. We moved to a furnished apartment in Denver and put our things in storage. She was 5 months pregnant and our eldest was two. I shortly after was let go from my job. Our second son was born in April. I got a contract with the Navy at the last minute but didn't leave until August. We sold our beloved vehicles and lived off retirement funds for six months and moved down to Florida where her parents had just moved out of the blue for work, to stay with them until I left for boot camp. I applied for temporary work in Florida at a dozen places but had no luck in my three months there. I took care of our eldest a lot while she took care of the new baby. Being in Florida was a culture shock for us but we had our moments of romance and made the best of it. Eventually I left for boot camp in August. It was really hard and sad to be gone. She stayed in Florida and came to visit me with the baby at boot camp graduation in October. I then went to Connecticut for five months of training. It was also hard but at least I could call home every day and be in the same time zone. I visited Florida during the winter break and saw my boys and her. We went to Disney world and had a great time on her parents. We also made a romantic home movie I could enjoy while away from her. I flew back to Connecticut and tried to make the best of things. My roommate was very abusive of substances and I resisted the temptation for a long time but the threat of being submarine service bound and missing my family pushed me to drinking every weekend and getting messed up to escape before I left.

I remember when we drove to Key Largo, Florida and stopped at a crazy bird wildlife center. I remember our oldest was so amazed hearing a bird say hello back to us. It was so foreign and fun there. I am glad we all shared that experience together.

I remember our trip to the citrus grove in Florida. That was such a great day for our family. I always look back on that with really fond sentiment. I felt like I was in a beautiful family music video with them.

2011

I finished Submarine Training and got orders back to the Northwest. The plan was all coming together. I arrived first and bought a car and got our items moved from storage in Denver to our townhouse rental in Washington. She and the boys joined me a month later. I didn't report to my Sub for another month as they were at sea. She became pregnant again with our third son right after arriving. We had just bought a small car and were not planning on another child. Towards the end of the year I was working a lot and having a really hard time, being bullied and treated poorly at work plus our financial situation was still very difficult. Adjusting to the military was hard among younger men being 28. I dreaded each day in that environment but I tried to endure it for my family. I went to sea for a couple months at the end of the year stopping in Hawaii and California. During this time She reached out to her ex married affair partner after six years of no contact. She didn't tell me until later. She said she needed closure with him, we were not in counseling yet but she decided this was appropriate. I flew home early from sea and wanted to surprise her. The stress and trauma of this quick transition home after being to sea for the first time (which was also traumatic) made me want to drink and get messed up before flying. I arrived home and surprised her but I seemed off to her which I was but didn’t explain why, I have never done that since. I got to be home for two months almost work free while we celebrated the holidays and prepared for the new baby to be born. She started getting more involved with a church and building a community for us which was great. Our financial struggles almost led us to foreclosure of our home back in Colorado but by the grace of God we got it sold with a short sale just in time.

I remember when I came back from Hawaii and brought her a beaded necklace and she wore it naked with her big beautiful pregnant goddess belly and we made passionate hippy love together. I want to grow out my beard again and spend my life making hippy love and feeling free again.

2012

Our third son was born in January. It was a very positive birth experience and much less stressful than the other two. Shortly after I flew out to finish the other half of the deployment I had missed. I really focused on being positive and spiritually connected by reading my Bible at sea which was helpful. I called her when I arrived in Japan halfway through being gone. She was upset because she tested positive for an STD while trying to get on birth control. I became suspicious of her yet she was suspicious of me. We both got tested again and I was clean, she told me she had a false positive after all. This put a big strain on our trust, especially being so far away. This forced us to be honest with each other about some things such as her contact with her ex lover and my drinking to cope. We were both very upset until I returned home and we could start some counseling to work through things. Forgiveness seemed to be difficult for us. It brought up hurts of the past when we were 19. She also had severe postpartum depression that became worse after each birth. I was still having a hard time with work and the submarine environment. Our church friends tried to counsel us but it was not the most helpful. My submarine was scheduled for extended repairs and not going to sea for three years, I would be transferred before the end of that period. I used this time to bond with her and my boys. I wanted to get better involved in our community and do volunteer work and side jobs to earn extra money. Our boys were all given diagnosis's for autism which begun to fill our lives with appointments and challenges for years to come but we were a good team in dealing with all of it. It gave us something to work together on but took our focus away from working on our own personal issues and relationship with each other as much as we should have.

2013

We had new years with both sides of our family in a snowy mountain setting in Oregon. It looked like it was going to be a great year until her Grandpa passed away suddenly. It ripped our entire family apart but especially her. He kept the family grounded and she was very close to him, he really loved all of us. She and I started going on dates again because we had Navy sponsored child care. It was the beginning of a really good thing for us. Tragically one night after a date we were dancing with the boys on the patio and I tried to pick her up and I lost my balance and fell on her, breaking her collar bone severely. She needed surgery and was very mad at me for years to come. She has a scar, a metal plate and numbness in her chest. We worked through it with our community from church but she still is very mad at me. I feel more terrible about this incident than she could ever know. I would lose a finger in place of that incident if I could. I continued having a really hard time in the Navy and I didn't want to stay in but She insisted our boys needed care only the Navy could offer. She also said she would divorce me if I ever left the Navy. I took this threat seriously even though she assured me later that she would never actually do that. Against my own convictions I reenlisted because I wanted to do the best thing for my family. We moved into base housing at the end of summer and didn’t go out to do things as much anymore. The house was nice but it ****** us in, we also had less community with people around our home. I started volunteering at church more and doing work with special needs people. I felt like I was doing good things and that I had purpose all around. I think she appreciated this about me.

2014

We started seeing a professional counselor together and individually. It became a regular event. I worked on myself and she worked on herself. I had a lot of issues with my Mom and eventually broke off communication with her for my own well-being and the betterment of my family. I got past a lot of the bad feelings I had. She worked on her traumatic experiences and our relationship dynamics. Just when things were going well I got a new boss who made things hard for me and others at work and I started messing up more. I got in trouble for messing up a job at work and was given strike one on my record. She lost respect for me as a provider but I tried to stay strong showing her that I would continue to do my best.

I remember when we had an appointment in Tacoma and we had a brunch date together afterwards. She looked so beautiful that day, I took her picture and was so proud to enjoy  huevos rancheros and momosas with her. I remember going to the Tacoma Art Museum seeing the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit, we have a great time together doing new things and feeding each other's interests. I loved laughing with her too, sometimes we just bust up like nobody's around. I loved the sound of her laughter. I loved watching Portlandia with her, it is so funny to remember the funny place where we became close and be able to relate together.

2015

I kept working hard and being involved with family and appointments for my boys and her. I still maintained my volunteer work and part time side jobs. I got strike two with the Navy for messing up again... I had just gained orders to leave the sub for local shore duty. I could not get out of the extended repair situation soon enough. She was very disappointed in me and not so understanding. I worked through this situation with our counselor as did she. He always told her I am a good man and that I do a lot for her and the boys. It's true, I care more than anything about them, I made mistakes and I feel bad especially when I cause my family stress. I left for shore duty in April. It was a hard time adjusting to the new routine but eventually we seemed to make it work. That summer we took a trip to visit Texas where her parents had just moved from Florida. We spent a great night together for our 10th anniversary in a hotel in Texas and went dancing. We had a lot more time together as my work schedule was less. The more people we had in our home working with our kids on issues the less useful my input seemed. I was not included as much in making family decisions because they all seemed to happen while I was at work, despite my objections. We tried to get our budget under control but she still had anxiety discussing spending. She continued to struggle with depression and was put on medication because she had still been harming herself. She was put on Prozac daily and anti anxiety medication as needed. He family members were not very supportive of medication which upset her but I always tried to be supportive in seeking help and continued care for both of us.

2016

We had a busy routine of kids in school now and home school and preschool and appointments for all of us. She wanted to go to church less and less. I started drinking a couple beers at night almost every day. I tried to mask my stress from her mood swings. She decided not to go to church at all anymore and focused teaching the boys about Jewish traditions exclusively which was hard for me to adjust to and confusing for the boys. I loved her and wanted to be supportive. As usual I was submissive and removed myself from the Christian church and some friendships. I feel like we lost our community at that point. We searched for a good place to have a new community with Jewish people but it was like starting over. I felt like I converted to Christianity for her when we got together and now I had to convert again, either way I would have done it for her because I loved her that much. The kids were confused by this change. After trying and failing at many synagogues we finally found one that seemed right for us.

2017

We finally had some money in savings because I kept it a secret and ended up planning a trip to visit her parents in Texas but it fell through due to lack of military flights. Instead we spent three nights away in a nice hotel resort as a family in February. We had three days of pure family time. Playing Battleship and other games in our room as a family, watching movies and eating at all the different restaurants and getting room service. Going swimming everyday in the foggy pool. I love our family and how we can have a great time together doing nothing but at the same time so much. That was so peaceful and relaxing. I wanted to keep doing things like that together as a family before our boys got too old. Shortly after this vacation she wanted to go back to school, then we bought a third vehicle so she could. Shortly after this she changed her mind about school and wanted to buy another house instead. I went along with it to please her and we practically killed ourselves trying to get the move accomplished with not much help or money. We had a good year over all. We got away for a romantic anniversary together in the summer. Just before the boys were going to start public school in the fall, her parents moved back to the area. She had anxiety with this and cut off contact with her parents and brothers for a while. Her Dad called me very upset and I tried to keep the peace until they reconciled. I was doing better with work and made up for lost progress as well as making arrangements to change jobs in the Navy to something more fitting. Since the boys started public school, I planned on leaving for Navy training in my new position after the beginning of the new year when they would be at a more settled place in their routine.

I remember when we went to the Olympic Club for our anniversary and we stayed there for a night away. We drove the long way through the countryside talking about new music that she wanted to share with me and she made notes of it on my phone notepad. We brought our own cooler and picnic that included Session Lagers and chocolate. We checked in to our room and made noisy bohemian love on the edge of the creaky bed in our small European room inches from the door. Then we went to the theater downstairs and watched the late showing of a really interesting Sci-fi movie "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets". We took showers and slept sweetly together. We made love again in the morning before we had a delicious brunch outside on the patio. We took the long way home and drove around on new roads and found our way out of cell phone reception. We figured out the road less traveled to get back to our home. We loved being alone and away together, just one night can make such a difference and mean so much.

I remember going to the Forest Theater to see Tarzan with our boys. That was such a great time. I would love to get our boys into theater and go see them someday. I wanted to keep our dreams and goals together alive and not lose opportunity and fall short by losing our partnership.

I loved going camping in Seabeck. Loading the truck with all our gear and getting away. Archer got sick from the cowboy caviar and I had to clean him and the tent up in the night. I was glad we had each other to be a team in our marriage in that situation as with all the other times. These sorts of things are what escape a person's mind when they are determined to get a divorce.

2018

We had a lot less money than the year before, again buying a house took its toll on finances as did the boys school and after school activities. I stayed very involved taking the boys to appointments and sporting practices. We stopped going to synagogue but tried to practice Judaism at home as much as possible, which I was very supportive of and involved with. She was still depressed and talking about suicide at times. I encouraged her to get help as I always had. Eventually she was diagnosed as Bipolar 2 and manic depressive by a new provider. She started taking new medicine for this and was worried I would want to leave her. I assured her I would never leave her and that I always wanted to work on things with her and help her. I left for training in Mississippi February 8th. It was going to be hard but I thought it might be good to have some time apart from each other to miss one another and reflect on things as well as prepare for times when I would be away at sea. I got in trouble in Mississippi for giving junior personnel a ride and being negligent of people who might be underage and possibly drinking, this became strike three. I never thought this could happen. I became recommend for separation from the Navy shortly after and was stuck in Mississippi for six months instead of six weeks. She was supportive through most of it but seemed to fall into hopelessness. Money was spent by her that we didn't have without discussion. She quietly leased appliances and tires and purchased a vehicle as well as having a secret bank account and email address. I discovered through our insurance company that she wanted to leave our policy for divorce. I didn't know this and she had even told the boys she wanted a divorce before I even knew. I was caught off guard and confused. I kept trying to communicate and reason with her but she didn't want to talk. I refused to give up and wrote emails and a letter but it only seemed to push her away further. By the time I left Mississippi she had filed for divorce and a restraining order against me saying I was unstable and a threat. I couldn't return to my home. My whole life fell apart in just a couple months. I found out she had been talking to other men in the Navy and keeping more secrets. I assumed this was her way of taking control during a difficult situation. I really needed her support during this hard time of transition out of the military. I became homeless, jobless and without my family in a month. I prayed to God that given time things might change between us but it was of no use. Bipolar had consumed whatever was left of my bride and there was no turning back.

I felt that our love was not one to be cast away. Other people might not understand or agree but what we had was truly special. We may have surely needed some time and space to get counseling as well as reconfigure and repair our marriage but I didn't feel like our relationship was irretrievably broken. She was so important to me and I thought she was the love of my life and would always have my heart. I wanted to be her partner in love and life, watching our boys grow up and being there to support each other. Being that she is Bipolar I knew she will need a lot of help and I was more than willing to assist her in making sure she was taking care of herself and not throwing herself into harm's way, ensuring she sticks with a plan we agree to for consistency. I cared about her deeply and had much compassion for her. I didn't believe she was thinking this through or thinking about the future. I really wanted to look at the long and short game with her, neither seemed appealing to me if we progressed but here we are. Things are not going to be easier. She will still have to face her problems and deal with me on a regular basis for the rest of our lives no matter what happens. She can believe her lawyer when they promise she'll get the moon and stars out of this in the end but they only see half of the story. Above all they want our money. It would have been good for her to face me in person and tell me she wanted to divorce and we could have started talking about it with a counselor to figure out how that could even work. Instead she chose to avoid as much responsibility for her actions as possible by doing everything in my absence as if I am not a real person. I had to find out about it from our insurance company and was last to know.

Immediately after I hear the word divorce I looked into her cell usage history and find she has a new military boyfriend that she talks to 20-30 times a day. She felt she owed me no explanation for this and it was none of my business. A mature person would have let me know about this months before and I would have seen it coming but there was no sign until it was seemingly too late. She strayed down a dark path and never turned back.

Her proposed parenting plan was cruel and had no thought put into it. Two hours a week with supervision, no holidays but father's day? She said she’s not trying to keep me from the kids but this is the exact opposite of what she’s saying with the paperwork she filed. She seems very mixed up and still you continues to make rash and sudden choices. Like a completely bogus restraining order against me that contradicts so many facts she has stated herself on record during my Navy retention process. She was so bold as to want to change her identity and even put it in ink on the divorce paperwork as well to a whole new name. That is not the actions of a stable person. She has since changed her mind again on that just as quickly as everything else in her recent life choices. I can't trust that any decisions she is making right now are for the right reasons or that she is of sound mind. I have never seen her so conflicted and confused, grasping at straws and running scared from herself.

Using the legal system so carelessly and going back and forth makes me feel like she is not ready to be making big choices and changes for her and our family. It is very unfair that she can’t consider my feelings on things and what I wish for the boys as well. Very reckless behavior. She can’t anticipate that the day would come where she has to face me and talk to me like an adult. She wants to hide behind the legal system which only leaves much to be unresolved. Ghosting me is not really an option in a marriage of 13 years with children.

Having relationship conversations is too difficult for her at this time and she would rather avoid it and skip to divorce because she thinks that will somehow be easier. I suspect she knows she is making poor choices, possibly out of fear and lust for something new and less painful than the reality of things right now. Our marriage was nowhere close to divorce when I left. She was sad to see me leave and woke with me at 3:30 am to say goodbye, making me coffee and cookies for me to take with.

Our community and accountability seems to be gone due to the continued trend of isolation that she is drawn to. The God fearing loving committed wife I thought I had is gone or trapped inside a terrified shell of herself. She cut me off from her family members and I can't discuss my concerns about her with them either. She only seems to have community with those who are not going to discourage her from these destructive choices.

I understand we have had issues and struggles but we are no worse off than other couples during challenging times. I think that because we loved each other so much it just hurt more when things got hard. I can't accept or believe this is justified or the right choice based on the positive trend we were on before I left. This was the longest break we have ever had from each other and I think she just needed someone to be there more for her, no matter who it was. Time can heal all wounds and I hope that is true for our relationship as co-parents.

She still refuses to tell me about why she wanted a divorce or talk about anything beyond caring for the kids. I have fought the restraining and I can see my boys again but I am still not allowed to my home without her permission.

I have risen from the ashes in just a couple months. I rent a room from a nice couple from our old church and obtained a good paying job while I continue paying the household bills.

This is a really hard time, this difficult spell could have been a tool to better our relationship. I wanted to experience more beautiful memories with her. We had so many more beautiful memories and dreams left to create. This is what marriage looks like to me now as I lower the casket.
This is a timeline of the major events during my 13 year marriage. Amidst the reality, I injected all the lovely memories that refuse to leave my mind.
Willow Branche Aug 2014
“Robin Williams didn’t die from suicide. I only just heard the sad, sad news of Robin Williams’s death. My wife sent me a message to tell me he had died, and, when I asked her what he died from, she told me something that nobody in the news seems to be talking about.
When people die from cancer, their cause of death can be various horrible things – seizure, stroke, pneumonia – and when someone dies after battling cancer, and people ask “How did they die?”, you never hear anyone say “pulmonary embolism”, the answer is always “cancer”. A Pulmonary Embolism can be the final cause of death with some cancers, but when a friend of mine died from cancer, he died from cancer. That was it. And when I asked my wife what Robin Williams died from, she, very wisely, replied “Depression”.
The word “suicide” gives many people the impression that “it was his own decision,” or “he chose to die, whereas most people with cancer fight to live.” And, because Depression is still such a misunderstood condition, you can hardly blame people for not really understanding. Just a quick search on Twitter will show how many people have little sympathy for those who commit suicide…

But, just as a Pulmonary Embolism is a fatal symptom of cancer, suicide is a fatal symptom of Depression. Depression is an illness, not a choice of lifestyle. You can’t just “cheer up” with depression, just as you can’t choose not to have cancer. When someone commits suicide as a result of Depression, they die from Depression – an illness that kills millions each year. It is hard to know exactly how many people actually die from Depression each year because the figures and statistics only seem to show how many people die from “suicide” each year (and you don’t necessarily have to suffer Depression to commit suicide, it’s usually just implied). But considering that one person commits suicide every 14 minutes in the US alone, we clearly need to do more to battle this illness, and the stigmas that continue to surround it. Perhaps Depression might lose some its “it was his own fault” stigma, if we start focussing on the illness, rather than the symptom. Robin Williams didn’t die from suicide. He died from Depression*. It wasn’t his choice to suffer that.”
Tamzin Stanford Jun 2015
It's been a month since the illness started,
catching like wildfire,
the world's departed
it started off with the vast mutation
of a microbe that struck the nation
the pain it's caused, the lives it's destroyed
people tried to hide, they just cant avoid
that cloud that hovers over,
thats the illness
not completely finished yet.
Elizabeth Burns Sep 2018
A tribute for those I've loved and lost to this sick battle...

Mental illness isn't a joke
It's a reality
It stares you in the eyes
Until you pay attention to her gaze
Her perfect
Crystal clear gaze

She gnaws at your existence
She begs and
pleads for your attention
Listen to your anxiety
Why are you like this
What is wrong with you
Your skin
Your body

Theres something wrong with you
Yes I know ******!!
Can't you see it in my eyes I know
I'm filled with fear
And tension
And this inability to love again
Because fear gnaws at my every whim

Desire to speak out
Is hushed
By illness

Mental illness is real
Mental illness is breaking down
Quietly
Without even a whisper
And nobody knows the pain inside

Mental illness is seeing something ugly
Mental illness is hating every inch of yourself
Mental illness is giving up
Mental illness is a reality
Gold May 2014
It's an illness, and what a wicked one. It lasts five stages. Through four stages it tortures you the best it can. It tortures you with nostalgia and melancholia. I will tell you about these four stages, until you finally reach the fifth and last stage, the stage that will feel like redemption to you. Brace yourself, this illness can **** before you reach the final stage.

Stage 1, denial / delusion
In this stage, you will deny what happened, and will live in a fantasy your poor mind created for you to keep you alive.
You know exactly what has happened, you know the truth. However, this hideous creature, this torturous illness won't let you "get over" the truth that easily. It will torture you with false hopes, wrecking your mind because each and every night, you will wonder if what has happened was real or just a bad nightmare of yours.

If you made it, be lucky for a second. Stage 2 is awaiting you.

Stage 2, wrath
In this stage, you will feel an ager, a rage you never felt before. You will have the urge to destroy and to burn, not only things, but also you, the memories, and just everything and everyone surrounding you.
The illness wants to destroy you, and it gives you ire so you can "prepare" yourself for what will come for you. Destruction in the finest, most painful ways, you can't even imagine.

You survived Stage 2, now let's take a look on how desperate you can become in Stage 3.

Stage 3, negotiating
In this stage, your desperateness to wipe the slate clean will show. The illness makes you parley with the wildest, most unreal people you may meet in your life, only to undo what has happened.
You would sell your sould to the devil.
You would give your life to the Grim Reaper.
You would… You might even want to make a deal with me.

I think we should stop about what you would, it might get to horrendous for you. So we reach Stage 4, the stage that has the highest verisimilitude to **** you.

Stage 4, depression
You will cry waterfalls of tears, so be careful that you don't drown in the sea of hot, salty water your ever so beautiful eyes created.
This stage of torture is where the illness got quite creative. I'm sure you heard a lot about depression, but in reality it is even worse than the worst you expected. It might feel unreal from time to time, but I tell you, it is real – savagely real.
It might **** you, so try your best to survive this stage. That's the only admonition I can give you.

You survived? Congratulations! Hereby we reach

Stage 5, acceptance
In this stage, the final stage, you finally reach the redemption you craved for so long. You will finally be able to leave behind what has downed you so much. You will be able to fly again, your wings are back.
However, be careful. This stage is the shortest of them all.

Many people before you have failed before reaching this salvific stage.
I hope you won't underestimate the illness. You might have reached redemption, but it only waits to strike again and to devour you.

Be careful, even for I will watch over you.
Nigel Beckett Jun 2014
For those who are faced with an illness,
That they know they will never beat,
It’s not then that they give up hope; they stand up on their feet.

They put in all their effort to live life to the extreme,
They won’t give in just because of the words of a medical team.

Its then that they fight harder to carry on with life,
They know they won’t be round for long to have children or a wife.

But yet this doesn’t stop them, their effort or their might,
They know that they will pass away but not without a fight.

What’s keeps them always going is the ones they love so dear,
They will never ever let them see the sadness or the fear.

The person with the illness must be strongest of them all,
Show their loved ones how to live and how to stand up tall.

So take advantage of the time we have with one and all,
We never know which one of us could potentially fall.

For when they die its then we say about them being kind,
How they loved their family dear, the ones they left behind.

We praise them for the strength they had and the fight that they put in,
But no matter how hard they fought, they knew they couldn’t win.

But still they carried on and always had a smile,
No matter how much longer they got, every minute was worthwhile.

They wouldn’t just give up and give in then and there,
Their life was oh so precious, and their love they wanted to share.

We think we have a plan for how our lives might go, unfortunately we can never truly know.
So quit the stupid arguments, the fighting and the jest.
It’s not something to annoy you; it’s your love being put to the test.

Let the minor details just pass without a thought and think of those who lost their loved ones and wished they had never fought.
Alex Berthelot Feb 2017
to my family that doesn’t believe mental illness is real:

i sincerely hope you never get woken up in the dead of night
by a phone call from one of your precious girls, hundreds of
miles away from home, calling to tell you with a heart full
of pain yet a voice void of emotion, that she is so sorry
but she has to take all of her pills.

i hope you never find her so dissociated and confused,
walking in dangerous parts of town without a coat on,
in the snow, hoping someone would **** her or at the
very least she would freeze to death.

i hope you never have to plead with one of your girls
to not press the cold blade against her skin, or not
to put her neck through that noose she spent so much
time researching how to tie all while you’re desperately
trying to call an ambulance to her house, praying it will
get there in time.

i hope you never have to watch your child be escorted by
two cops from her room at the general hospital that she
was stuck in for nearly a week because her blood was so
poisoned from the lithium and her risk of seizure and
blood clots were so high, to be safely taken to a psych unit.

i hope you never have to watch your child be taken back
to a psych assessment room while you have to sit there
in the waiting room, pretending everything is okay all while
your heart is silently breaking into a million pieces because
your girl has been broken by abuse at another persons hand
and you couldn’t have stopped it from happening.

i hope you never have to see one of your girls get admitted
to a psych unit. one minute you walk in with your suicidal
child and 2 two hours later you walk out, but this time alone,
knowing that there is nothing you can do to ‘fix’ your hurting baby.

no mother or father wants this for their child.
and no person chooses to have mental illness.

do you really think i wanted to spend my high school years
in and out of the hospital?

i don’t think you understand the loneliness that comes
from being stuck there while your ‘friends’ are only
worrying about the next big test that was coming up.

i would have loved to only be worrying about that next test
but instead i was preoccupied with death, wanting nothing
more than to finally feel the pain draining from my body.

do you really think i enjoyed having to strip down naked,
no underwear or no bra, every day so the hospital staff
could make sure i wasn’t still hurting myself?
i felt like i was being violated all over again.

do you really think i enjoyed having to sleep on a mattress
on the floor with the lights on so hospital staff could watch
me to make sure i didn’t **** myself?

i hated being in the hospital.
and i was terrified knowing that when i got out i had to
find the strength to walk back into school with a smile
on my face despite knowing that i would have to see
my abuser walking the same hallways everyday.

you don’t know my story. it’s none of your business.
but since you have felt the need to pass judgment
on my family and i, i thought i would let you know
that your ignorance is a death sentence to some,
not me, i’m learning to deal with my dark thoughts,
but to others who aren’t fortunate enough to have the
support and resources that i do,
it sends them straight to their graves.

mental illness is real,
and the stigma that ignorance creates, kills.

and i hope that if one of your children is
ever plagued by an illness similar to mine,
that they feel comfortable enough coming to you.
and if not, i hope they feel comfortable coming to
me. i will lend a non judgmental, compassionate ear.
because the only thing that ever talked me off the edge
all of those dark, cold and lonely nights was just that:
compassion.
Kaith Karishma Dec 2017
It’s not a surprise.
It’s terrible but
it’s not a surprise.
Shooting, screaming, scattering, shattering,
it’s not a surprise.
I imagine but don’t understand.
White person mental illness,
illness…
Illness,
it’s called.
He was a poor, lonely, old man whose dog just died,
so he decided
to shoot up a crowd,
and **** and hurt hundreds of people.
Because of his illness.
But just listen.
Listen.
Listen:
you’re calling him ill but he’s really just mad.
There is no kindness in him if he can go **** all those people
and not even blink.
He may have offered you a handkerchief
when you were crying,
but then he goes off and kills,
and kills,
and kills,
and the kindness in him is warped, destroyed -
lost
the second he decides to
shoot,
shoot,
shoot.
Terrorists we fear -
walking down the street with a burqa draped over.
Terrorists we fear -
flying as second class citizens because of our terror.
Terrorists we fear -
speaking in a language we don’t understand.
They’re not the terrorists we should fear.
If the white terrorist is ill, then the US is plagued.
One
after another,
after another
**** us, and we still do nothing.
Nothing.
NOTHING.
We go around the world “fixing” and “helping”,
ruining lives and terrorizing,
because that’s what we are: terrorists.
Terrorists.
Terrorists.
We want to fix the world? We can’t even help ourselves.
We the people are broken.
Who’s gonna fix us?
jake aller Aug 2019
I don't get it
I don’t Get It 
Mr. Speaker
I admit I don’t get it

How does prayer
Stop gun violence?
Prayer did not work in Texas.

26 people were murdered
 while praying.

God if he exists
Obviously does not care
About the poor people
Who died in his church
Because a mad man

Got a gun
And no they were not praying
To be delivered from death
No one deserves to die like this

So my prayer to you
Is simply this

Get off your rear end
Rally the country
And do something

About gun violence

That’s a prayer
I hope works

Dear Speaker Ryan
I want to tell you something

The dead don’t want your prayers
The dead don’t care that you pray for them
They are dead after all

And you and your so-called Christians
Are to blame
You refuse to do anything
Anything at all

to stop the carnage
In our streets

The U.S. is flooded with guns
And more are sold every day
Millions of people don’t have health coverage
Millions are barely surviving

And your answer
Our dear great compassionate Speaker
Your answer 
Is Prayer works
Government action does not
You act as if the gun violence
Plaguing our country

Was like the weather
Beyond our control
So here’s my prayer for you

And your colleagues
When you die
I pray that God
Will send you

And your friends
Straight to hell
Where Satan and his demons
Will use you for target practice

That’s my prayer to you
And as you know
Prayer works
 
Mr. President
You are wrong once again

You said that the tragic events 
in Texas
And Las Vegas were not “gun situations”

But rather were mental health problems
And that in Texas
if there had been no gun controls
Perhaps fewer people would have died

Mr. President

I know you a smart man

The smartest man in the world


According to you
So please contemplate this fact

According to the latest findings

It is a gun situation

In fact, the reason the U.S.

Has so many gun deaths 

Is because we have so many guns

45% of the worlds guns in fact
And 33 percent of the world’s shooters

Are Americans killing other Americans
And most of them 

the majority of them

Are White men killing other people
Not Islamic terrorists


Most are in fact

Self-proclaimed Christians
So Mr. President

When will you come to your senses
And do what 90 percent of the public wants


Enact nation wide effective gun controls?
And tell the NRA
 
they can take their blood money elsewhere

When Mr. President

When will you act

When will you take charge
And become a President of the people
Instead of the President of the NRA?
 Like (0)  0   


← Previous1 2 345…75Next →
Virginia Beach Massacre Never Again
Virgina Beach 

In a night of horrific scumbagery violence

Rarely seen in this jaded age of ours

Gone in one hour
In a spasm of horrific scumbagery violence
I
In just a few short minutes


Nothing more than that
 
In just a few moments

All 12 victims were murdered
By a disgruntled employee


Every one he knew was shot

And killed for no reason
Caused by the demons

His soul was so infected

Murderous demonic voices

All in his head

Screaming **** them all 
**** them all


Screaming none stop violence in his head

All the time
Causing him to start shooting 
everyone he saw


Regardless of who they were 
or where they were

Everyone must die 
screamed the demonic voices in his head
No one can be left alive


Everyone must die

Virtually all must die 
in his internal video game

Everyone must die


Regardless of who they were 
or where they were
Again just another day

Gone horribly wrong


All across America
In
every town

No where is safe anymore
Virgina Beach massacre

Virgina Beach massacre

Just another
Average night in America

An Active Shooter
scumbagery violence

Rarely seen

in this jaded wild world
Gone in one hour
In a spasm of horrific
scumbagery
In just a less than 30 short minutes

Nothing more than
In just a few short 30 moments

All the victims
were murdered while at their daily 
work
wrong place wrong time

act of a demotic deranged madman
voices screaming ****
The voices scream
death to all humans


All must be killed
The voices scream over and over
All must die now

Just another night in America
Land of the Brave
Home of the free
More Guns for Everyone in the World

The NRA has decided

That the best solution to global problem

Of rampant violence and crime everywhere
Is for the rest of the world


To become like the U.S.

Where anyone can buy a gun

As an armed society is a polite society’

And so the President i
s about to announce

A global campaign against gun control restrictions


As these restrictions
are an undue burden

On the rights of the US arms manufactures
To sell their guns 
everywhere in the world


As everyone wants what we have to sell

The best weapons in the world
Instead of trying to limit the damage


That unrestricted gun sales

Have done to the U.S.
Our President, our great leader

Wants to sell more guns

Everywhere in the world

And there are eager buyers

Lining up around the world

Eager to buy the best guns

The world has ever seen

We want to export

The gun madness

That has infected our society


Leaving behind so many dead bodies
The dead were not consulted

For they remain dead


They do not vote
They have no voice
For the guns silenced them

For good
 just as the guns intended

Just doing their gun thing after all

Humanity has evolved
From stones to arrows
To guns
T o nuclear, biological weapons

And the U.S.
 While proclaiming itself
A champion of Human Rights

Remains nothing 
but a country 
Of gun runners
 Merchants of death
And destruction
NRA Please Stop Talking

Another day
Another mass shooting

Another incident
of domestic terrorism


another gun man
killing people
because just because
 he can
and he wants to **** people

The NRA 
And their stooges

Come out

Flood the airways
With their noxious
Poisonous weasel words


The NRA says
Mass shootings

Are like the weather

You can’t control them
You can’t predict them

And you can’t prevent them

Just have to accept

It is all god’s will

Guns don’t **** people
IF guns were outlawed

Only outlaws
 would have guns

Only solution 
Is more guns

For everyone

An armed society
they say 
Is a polite society


Support for gun control
I is
socialist/communist/fascist/anti-Am  erican/anti-Christian nonsense
The beginning of tyranny


If only the Jews had guns

The holocaust would not have happened

Jesus would want us all
 
to be armed 
with machine guns
To protect us against the evil doers

It is the Christian thing to do


To blow away evil doers
With heavy arms


In America
Land of the free

Home of the brave
We can’t do anything


At all
About the mass carnage

Unleashed by madmen with guns

Who walk among us

Searching for their next victims
Any restriction of the right


To bear arms

Is tyranny at its worst
The nanny state run amuck

Talking about gun control

After a tragic event
Is

just not the appropriate time

We only need prayers

and meaningless thoughts

Universal background checks

Too onerous
Registering guns

Too burdensome

Researching gun violence

waste of tax payer money
banning military style assault weapons
r

Restricts my right 
to blow 
away

Bambi the deer
with a M16

the NRA will keep talking

talking and talking

preventing anything

from being done

and we will have another

Mass shooting event

Before the day is out

So my plead

This day
To the NRA
A
and their stoogies

Talk is cheap

Your comments
Are not helping

If you can’t

Be a part of the solution
Just stop talking

Please stop talking


And let the rest
Of us  figure out

How to stop

The madness in the streets
And stop the carnage


So NRA

Please
 just
 stop
 talking
 Now

military assault weapons 
are locked up

yet in America

the land of the free

home of the brave
 
everyone and his cousin

must have their gun

guns for everyone

cries the NRA

that’s the solution

The president
a 
and his supporters

deny the obvious
guns **** people
That’s all they do


it is a gun thing

you would not understand
Guns just do
what guns gonna do
**** people

Mr. President

You can take your words

your empty platitudes
Your empty promises
Your prayers 

straight to hell

and back

where with any luck

Satan will use you

as target practice
Chief of Staff You are Absurd

the President’s chief of staff
said the other day

it was absurd

to suggest that the president’s words

had anything to do

with recent mass shootings

yet is it absurd

to see the lengths

to which the President’s supporters
will twist and turn

spinning awa
y
the inconvenient truth
President Trump 
is a racist bigot con man

who some how
 conned his way

to become President
he call immigrants criminals, vermin, animals

invaders infesting the country
the El Paseo shooter 

said that he went to the border

to shoot the invaders

and said
 that he was a big Trump fan
it is not absurd
 to connect these two huge dots
The President’s words
 
have real world consequences

Yes Mr. Trump is a racist pig
a
and his supporters
 are being absurd

to suggest otherwise

 
36
 Jake Aller


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[ edit ]
Jake Aller
239 followers     893 following     333 
Message   Follow
https://theworldaccordingtocosmos.com

John (Jake) Cosmos Aller

Novelist, Poet, Foreign Service Officer 

Tel: 703-436-1402
Email: authorjakecosmosaller@gmail.com

John (“Jake” ) Cosmos Aller is a novelist, poet and former Foreign Service officer having served 27 years with the U.S. State Department in ten countries - Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada,  Korea, India, St Kitts, St Lucia,  St Vincent, Spain and Thailand. and traveled to 45 countries during his career.  Jake has been an aspiring novelist for several years and has completed two novels, (Giant **** Spiders, and the Great Divorce) and is pursuing publication.  He has been writing poetry all his life and has published his poetry in electronic poetry forums, including All Poetry, Moon Café and Duane’s Poetree. (under the name Jake Lee).  He is looking forward to transitioning to his third career – full-time novelist and poet after completing his second career as a Foreign Service officer, and his first career as an educator overseas for six years upon completion of his Peace Corps service in South Korea. 



He served in a wide variety of positions running from Consular management, Fraud investigation and managing the consular overseas computer support desk, to economic and political reporting positions, international labor diplomacy, commercial diplomacy - promoting American business overseas- international organization diplomacy serving as the deputy permanent representative to the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, to management positions including program management, evaluation and contracting management, and environmental and science diplomacy including promoting renewable energy solutions.  He taught courses at the Foreign Service Institute and overseas in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Kathmandu on consular fraud and consular Systems issues.

Senior program evaluator overseeing the implementation of the Department's evaluation program enabling the Department to develop a robust program evaluation system.
Coordinated training program training over 200 people in three years
Launched community of practice (CoP) web page (word press) with over 300 participants, greatly expanding the ability of State program evaluators to conduct program evaluations.  
Conducted meta-evaluation of completed foreign assistance evaluations insuring that the Department’s evaluations provided critical program improvement data.

Deputy Political Economic chief, - Bridgetown, Barbados 

Served as the deputy political economic chief covering political, economic, labor , environment and science and commercial diplomacy efforts in the Eastern Caribbean. 
Received labor officer of the year award for work in setting up regional training programs in occupational safety issues, and meeting with labor leaders in all seven countries greatly expanding our labor diplomacy outreach; 
Initiated two American Chambers of Commerce organizations, 
Conducted fund raising in support of  Embassy’s July fourth celebrations, the first time held in multiple countries, raising $100,000 over a three year period; 
Conducted training programs in all seven countries demonstrating to hundreds of locals on how to access U.S. Government  export financing programs . 

CA/FPP Deputy Training Team Coordinator – Washington, DC,
Taught consular fraud prevention courses at the Foreign Service Institute, and in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, greatly increasing knowledge and skills in fraud detection. 
Launched Lexus Nexus public record database access for consular officers worldwide, therefore dramatically improving consular fraud prevention efforts, 
Initiated first interagency Fraud Working Group coordinating fraud efforts among Departments of Homeland Security, State, and Labor.  
Received Cash Award.
Deputy Consular Chief, - Mumbai, India
Oversaw American citizen services, immigration visas in fifth largest operation in the world and fraud prevention programs greatly improving management of each.  
Supervised and mentored 15 junior officers and 50 local staff resulting in each unit receiving group cash awards. 
Received two cash Meritorious Honor awards for my work helping American citizens facing crises including helping American citizens whose family members died in India, or were arrested. 
Organized task force that dealt with aftermath of worst earthquake in 50 years.  

Read more →
8 stories • 1 lists • 1 lists • 5 groups

My Poems (224)AutorankLinks
I don't get it
I don’t Get It
 

Mr. Speaker

I admit I don’t get it

How does praye

Stop gun violence?

Prayer did not work in Texas.

26 people were murdered
 while praying.
God if he exists

Obviously does not care

About the poor people

Who died in his church

Because a mad man

Got a gun
And no they were not praying

To be delivered from death

No one deserves to die like this

So my prayer to you

Is simply this
Get off your rear end

Rally the country
And do something


About gun violence
That’s a prayer
I hope works
© 2 hours ago, john Cosmos Aller      
Read more →
 Like (0)  0   

Dear Speaker Ryan

Dear Speaker Ryan
I want to tell you something

The dead don’t want your prayers

The dead don’t care that you pray for them

They are dead after all


And you and your so-called Christians

Are to blame

You refuse to do anything

Anything at all
to stop the carnage
In our streets

The U.S. is flooded with guns

And more are sold every day
Millions of people don’t have health coverage

Millions are barely surviving
And your answer


Our dear great compassionate Speaker
Your answer
 
Is Prayer works

Government action does not

You act as if the gun violence

Plaguing our country

Was like the weather

Beyond our control

So here’s my prayer for you

And your colleagues
When you die

I pray that God

Will send you
And your friends

Straight to hell
Where Satan and his demons

Will use you for target practice

That’s my prayer to you

And as you know
Prayer works
 
another gun poem © 2 hours ago, john Cosmos Aller      
Read more →
 Like (0)  0   

It’s a Gun Situation, Mr. President

Mr. President
You are wrong once again

You said that the tragic events 
in Texas
And Las Vegas were not “gun situations”

But rather were mental health problems
And that in Texas
if there had been no gun controls
Perhaps fewer people would have died

Mr. President

I know you a smart man

The smartest man in the world


According to you
So please contemplate this fact

According to the latest findings

It is a gun situation

In fact, the reason the U.S.

Has so many gun deaths 

Is because we have so many guns

45% of the worlds guns in fact
And 33 percent of the world’s shooters

Are Americans killing other Americans
And most of them 

the majority of them

Are White men killing other people
Not Islamic terrorists


Most are in fact

Self-proclaimed Christians
So Mr. President

When will you come to your senses
And do what 90 percent of the public wants


Enact nation wide effective gun controls?
And tell the NRA
 
they can take their blood money elsewhere

When Mr. President

When will you act

When will you take charge
And become a President of the people
Instead of the President of the NRA?
another gun poem © 2 hours ago, john Cosmos Aller      
 Like (0)  0   


← Previous1 2 345…75Next →
Virginia Beach Massacre Never Again
Virgina Beach 

In a night of horrific scumbagery violence

Rarely seen in this jaded age of ours

Gone in one hour
In a spasm of horrific scumbagery violence
I
In just a few short minutes


Nothing more than that
 
In just a few moments

All 12 victims were murdered
By a disgruntled employee


Every one he knew was shot

And killed for no reason
Caused by the demons

His soul was so infected

Murderous demonic voices

All in his head

Screaming **** them all 
**** them all


Screaming none stop violence in his head

All the time
Causing him to start shooting 
everyone he saw


Regardless of who they were 
or where they were

Everyone must die 
screamed the demonic voices in his head
No one can be left alive


Everyone must die

Virtually all must die 
in his internal video game

Everyone must die


Regardless of who they were 
or where they were
Again just another day

Gone horribly wrong


All across America
In
every town

No where is safe anymore
Virgina Beach massacre

Virgina Beach massacre

Just another
Average night in America

An Active Shooter
scumbagery violence

Rarely seen

in this jaded wild world
Gone in one hour
In a spasm of horrific
scumbagery
In just a less than 30 short minutes

Nothing more than
In just a few short 30 moments

All the victims

were murdered while at their daily 
work
wrong place wrong time
act of a demotic deranged madman

voices screaming ****
The voices scream
death to all humans


All must be killed
The voices scream over and over

All must die now

Just another night in America
Land of the Free

Home of the free
another gun poem © 2 hours ago, john Cosmos Aller      
 Like (0)  0   

More Guns for Everyone

More Guns for Everyone in the World

The NRA has decided

That the best solution to global problem

Of rampant violence and crime everywhere
Is for the rest of the world


To become like the U.S.

Where anyone can buy a gun

As an armed society is a polite society’

And so the President i
s about to announce

A global campaign against gun control restrictions


As these restrictions
are an undue burden

On the rights of the US arms manufactures
To sell their guns 
everywhere in the world


As everyone wants what we have to sell

The best weapons in the world
Instead of trying to limit the damage


That unrestricted gun sales

Have done to the U.S.
Our President, our great leader

Wants to sell more guns

Everywhere in the world

And there are eager buyers

Lining up around the world

Eager to buy the best guns

The world has ever seen

We want to export

The gun madness

That has infected our society


Leaving behind so many dead bodies
The dead were not consulted

For they remain dead


They do not vote
T
hey have no voice
For the guns silenced 
them
For good
 just as the guns intended


Just doing their gun thing after all
Humanity has evolved

From stones to arrows

To guns
T o nuclear, biological weapons

And the U.S.
 While proclaiming itself

A champion of Human Rights
Remains nothing 

but a country
 
Of gun runners
 Merchants of death

And destruction
another gun poem © 2 hours ago, john Cosmos Aller      
 Like (0)  0   

NRA Quit Talking

NRA Please Stop Talking

Another day
Another mass shooting

Another incident
of domestic terrorism


another gun man
killing people
because just because
 he can
and he wants to **** people

The NRA 
And their stooges

Come out

Flood the airways
With their noxious
Poisonous weasel words


The NRA says
Mass shootings

Are like the weather

You can’t control them
You can’t predict them

And you can’t prevent them

Just have to accept

It is all god’s will

Guns don’t **** people
IF guns were outlawed

Only outlaws
 would have guns

Only solution 
Is more guns

For everyone

An armed society
they say 
Is a polite society


Support for gun control
I is
socialist/communist/fascist/anti-Am  erican/anti-Christian nonsense
The beginning of tyranny


If only the Jews had guns

The holocaust would not have happened

Jesus would want us all
 
to be armed 
with machine guns
To protect us against the evil doers

It is the Christian thing to do


To blow away evil doers
With heavy arms


In America
Land of the free

Home of the brave
We can’t do anything


At all
About the mass carnage

Unleashed by madmen with guns

Who walk among us

Searching for their next victims
Any restriction of the right


To bear arms

Is tyranny at its worst
The nanny state run amuck

Talking about gun control

After a tragic event
Is

just not the appropriate time

We only need prayers

and meaningless thoughts

Universal background checks

Too onerous
Registering guns

Too burdensome

Researching gun violence

waste of tax payer money
banning military style assault weapons
r

Restricts my right 
to blow 
away

Bambi the deer
with a M16

the NRA will keep talking

talking and talking

preventing anything

from being done

and we will have another

Mass shooting event

Before the day is out

So my plead

This day
To the NRA
A
and their stoogies

Talk is cheap

Your comments
Are not helping

If you can’t

Be a part of the solution
Just stop talking

Please stop talking


And let the rest
Of us  figure out

How to stop

The madness in the streets
And stop the carnage


So NRA

Please
 just
 stop
 talking
 Now
another gun stop © 2 hours ago, john Cosmos Aller      
 Like (0)  0   


← Previous12 3 456…75Next →
guns **** People
Guns **** people
g
Guns do **** people
it is not mental illness

it is not video games
it is not a million other things

it is simply this
a gun is a weapon

a weapon designed to **** people

That is what guns do
guns don’t care

they do as they are told
If you pull the trigger
t
They will **** the victim

that is what guns do

that is why 
in a civilized society

military assault weapons 
are locked up

yet in America

the land of the free

home of the brave
 
everyone and his cousin

must have their gun

guns for everyone

cries the NRA

that’s the solution

The president
a 
and his supporters

deny the obvious
guns **** people
That’s all they do


it is a gun thing

you would not understand
Guns just do
what guns gonna do
**** people

Mr. President

You can take your words

your empty platitudes
Your empty promises
Your prayers 

straight to hell

and back

where with any luck

Satan will use you

as target practice
another gun poem © 2 hours ago, john Cosmos Aller      
 Like (0)  0   

Chief of Staff You are Absurd

the President’s chief of staff
said the other day

it was absurd

to suggest that the president’s words

had anything to do

with recent mass shootings

yet is it absurd

to see the lengths

to which the President’s supporters
will twist and turn

spinning awa
y
the inconvenient truth
President Trump 
is a racist bigot con man

who some how
 conned his way

to become President
he call immigrants criminals, vermin, animals

invaders infesting the country
the El Paseo shooter 

said that he went to the border

to shoot the invaders

and said
 that he was a big Trump fan
it is not absurd
 to connect these two huge dots
The President’s words
 
have real world consequences

Yes Mr. Trump is a racist pig
a
and his supporters
 are being absurd

to suggest otherwise
another gun poem © 2 hours ago, john Cosmos Aller      
 Like (1)  1   

Mr. President Words Matter

Mr. President Words Matter

Mr President

Words matter

your words matter

your words of hate

your words of division
your words 
calling fellow human beings 
****, vermin,

invaders, animals 
matter

they matter a lot

and is it little wonder

that people listen 

to the hate you sprew forth

and some deranged people

take action 
on your call 
for action
against the invaders 

on the border


they march to the border

to **** the invaders
your words matter

Mr. President


and your false words
of regret
fool no one

the damage has been done

the hate has been spread

just as you intended

and you 
have the gall 

to call yourself
A Christian
you are the anti-Christ

you are not a Christian

so please quite pretending

to be what you are not

please man up

accept your responsibility

set things right

apologize

the dead though

don’t need your prayers

they need action

they need leadership

and you are the president

so please start acting

like you give a ****

and if you do so

perhaps 
you will find

people will follow you
but please
 quite the words 
of hate


the words that hurt
and quit calling immigrants
 invaders 
and vermin
 

they are human beings

they are deserving of respect
this I ask of you 
In Jesus’s name
even though I am not a Christian
another day, another shooting

Another Day Another Shooting
another day in paradise
just another day in Americal
Land of the free
Home of the brave

and gunshots,
lots of gunshots
more guns for all
cries the NRA

yes another day
another gun battle
another white man
who just wants to ****

the President sends his condolences
Thanks the law enforcement 
for an incredible job well done
It was horrible

Hate has no place
in our country
and we will take of it 

and do what ever we can do
condolences 
nothing but false words
empty words 

lots of things to do
it is mental illness problem

but he fails to mention
the words gun at al
not at all
and tomorrow and tomorrow

but he at least finally 
said 
hate has no role in country
nothing but prime BS
in my humble opinion

he did not mention 
white supremacy
his rhetoric had nothing
nothing to do 
about this at all

and so tomorrow
I will turn on the TV
and we see
nothing at all

and the dead
will remain dead
the guns will fire again

nothing will be done
welcome to America
land of the free
home of the brave
poems about gun violence
EP Robles Nov 2020
PEOPLE with eating disorders are “allowed” to keep their identity secret. You’re not allowed to be a person.

You are simply “a stomach that ate.”

Everyone who sees you has a lot of power over you. You must be nice to them, speak in a certain way, present yourself in a certain way, and never be so self-conscious that you don’t want to eat.

You don’t want to eat because if you did, you would be severely sick.

You wouldn’t be in control of your life.

You would be a creature.

You would be weak.

It was during my treatment that I learned who I really was.

I understood that my eating disorder could be cured, because it was merely a disease of mind and body.

I didn’t have to be afraid of food, because it’s a powerful human tool.

I knew that I was not being a stomach that ate; I was a person who had been infected by a brain that wanted control. My illness wanted to make me not a person but a mind that ate.

A mind that went through life being controlled, and told what to do, and how to feel.

A mind that no longer could think for itself.
A mind that wanted to give up control, but didn’t know how.
A mind that could think but couldn’t act.

I understood that I had to take back control of my life.

I had to make myself be a person who was not a stomach that ate.

I was a girl who thought, and had dreams, and wasn’t a blob.
I was young.
I was a daughter.

I had big plans for the future.

I was a Christian.

I was a girl, who needed love, and felt loved.

I needed to be loved, and loved.

I wanted to be strong, and able to live a life that my illness would never again keep me from.

I wanted to make a difference in the world, and to love others.

I needed to learn to love myself, and to use my illness to help me learn how to love myself.

I could choose.
I would choose.
I would love myself.

I could have a beautiful life.
I could be happy.

In order to be healthy, I had to learn to let go of that which I didn’t need.

I needed to let go of the need to control my life.
I needed to let go of that which scared me and made me afraid.
I needed to let go of the struggle to know what to do next.
I needed to let go of the confusion of what I wanted and who to be.
I needed to let go of the struggle to say no.
I needed to learn to say yes.
I needed to let go of my imagination, because life doesn’t work that way.
I needed to let go of my imagination, because my illness was reality.
I needed to let go of my imagination, because my disorder was my life.
I needed to let go of my personality, because my illness was my character.
I needed to learn to find my own self.
I needed to learn to let go of being tired of not being a stomach that
ate.
I needed to learn to be a person, because being a person is what I wanted most.

And after I learned how to let go of that which I didn’t need, I became a person that my illness no longer could control.

I learned to say yes.
I learned to say no.
I learned to laugh, and be silly.
I learned to cry, and have emotions.
I learned to write, and speak, and love.
I learned to have fun, and to love life.
I knew how to make choices, because my disorder was not only no longer controlling my life, but was helping me to make choices.

My eating disorder was the healthiest thing that had ever happened to me.

It was a sickness of the mind, and a sickness of the body.
It was a sickness of the body that was a sickness of the mind.
It was a sickness of the mind, that could be treated, and a sickness of the mind, that could not.

I learned, over time, how to say yes.
I learned to say no.
I learned to find my voice.
I learned how to be brave.

I had not learned how to be brave when I was diagnosed, but I learned it with the help of my mind and my illness.

I learned how to be brave, because I had to be.

I had to be strong.
I had to be able to overcome this disorder, and be brave, because there was no other option.

I needed to be brave, for me, for my parents, for my friends, for my boyfriend, and for everyone who loved me.
I had to be brave.
I learned to say yes.
I learned to live in a world of uncertainty.
I had to live with the uncertainty that my mind and my stomach might not agree with.
I had to live with the uncertainty that my disorder would destroy everything that I ever wanted in life.
I had to live in uncertainty, for me, for my parents, for my friends, for my boyfriend, and for everyone who loved me.

:: 10.22.2020 ::
yúyīn Mar 2019
this invisible monster is strong and i'm stronger,
but right now i'm just tired
Autumn Sep 2014
Often times upon hearing that somebody is sick, we assume that means that they are physically ill with the flu, the common cold, or some other virus going around. What we don’t realize is that people can be sick in the mind as well as in the body. I watched a young girl jump off of the 25th street bridge in the fall of last year, and that’s when I came to understand the true impact that mental illness can have on an individual. Only after witnessing this tragic event did I really start to grasp that mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, and insomnia, to name a few, are just as real and draining as physical illnesses can be.
I was planning on having a fun night out with my sister. It was a couple of weeks after my eighteenth birthday and my older sister Charlotte was going to take me out for a girl’s night. Our plan was to go to Lawrence since I would be able to get into concerts and such after turning eighteen. I was really thrilled, I got ready swiftly, and I headed over to my sister’s house. I was soon disappointed though because once I arrived she didn’t want to go to Lawrence. I was of course bummed but we decided to go get pizza instead. It was on our way back from picking up pizza that we both witnessed this tragic event.
As we drove across the 25th street bridge it was rather dark and I was not paying much attention, however, Charlotte thought that she saw somebody standing on the other side of the bridge. At the time I thought for sure that she was mistaken, but she turned around the car and as we drove slowly back across the bridge, I was horror struck upon seeing that there actually was a young girl probably about my age standing there on the other side, grasping the ledge with a pale face and wide eyes.
My sister stopped the car in the middle of the road and yelled to me, “Autumn, call 911 right now!” It took me a moment to realize what was actually happening. Even as it sunk in, I did not ever imagine that she would really jump. As I fumbled with my phone trying to call 911, I could hear my sister begging and pleading for the girl to come down. At this point I was still not convinced that she would jump so I did not realize the urgency of the situation. I explained to the 911 operator that there was a girl threatening to jump off the bridge. She kept asking what street I was on but I did not know the street and I had become side tracked by listening to my sister try to coax her down. I just remember being very appalled by the girl because she was being extremely rude. I of course did not understand what would cause her to be so rude to people that were trying to save her life. At this point in my life I definitely did not think of depression as something so serious. I of course knew about it but I had never come to understand it before. I knew I had to find out the name of the street so I peeled my eyes and ears away from my sister and the girl and started sprinting down the street. I could feel the cool fall air on my hot flustered face as I was running. I know it sounds crazy but my adrenaline was rushing and I became detached from the situation during those 30 seconds of running. It was such a lovely November night and exhilaration was running through my body like a steady current. I felt like I was in a scene from a movie. I was not really that scared yet because I had already played it all out in my head. The way I pictured it, Charlotte would convince the girl to come down, cops would come and make sure that she would come down safely, we could all go our separate ways and that would be that. I’d never experienced any sort of situation like that one, so of course I had envisioned it would play out just like it would if we were in a movie.
All I remember next was being pulled out of my run by a piercing scream from my sister. I stopped and looked over and the girl was no longer standing on the ledge. It had occurred to me that she had jumped but for some reason I was still convincing myself that she was fine. Even though I knew logically that the likelihood of surviving after that kind of a fall was not of any percent, I couldn’t help but think that she might still be okay. I just had not played out that scenario in my head, so therefore it was unreal to me.
I stood there in complete and utter shock. It was as if everything around me had come to a standstill and all I could hear was the operator on the other line “Ma’am…ma’am? Are you still there? Do you know the street name ma’am?” I simply hung up. It seemed as if in a matter of seconds 12 cars were surrounding me and sirens were going off and people were shouting and I still to this day have no idea how that bridge went from being such a quiet empty place to being filled with dozens of people within seconds.  My sister was not in an emotional state to deal with what was happening so I quietly moved her car, called her husband, and talked to the cops.
For some reason I never got emotionally upset about the event. My sister to this day is dealing with PTSD and still has vivid flashbacks and reoccurring nightmares. It was only after witnessing this event and seeing the dramatic effects that it had on my sister and still continues to have on my sister, that I realized the importance of dealing with mental illnesses on the same level of urgency that we deal with physical illnesses. I have never had many mental health problems so therefore I can look at things from a broader more logical perspective. I often times learn a lot just by evaluating other people’s experiences rather than experiencing things on my own.
I can now see that when somebody has a mental illness we need to help them and we need to be patient. I think the most important thing to do is to remain kind and open minded. We need to realize that when somebody is dealing with a mental illness they do not always realize or understand that they may come off as rude or angry. What I have learned is that getting angry with somebody who has a mental illness will only escalate things further. I did a lot of research into mental illness after this event and I think the most important thing to remember is that just because you don’t understand mental illnesses from a personal viewpoint, does not mean that you can’t be knowledgeable about such illnesses and learn to deal with them in a helpful and compassionate way. I think another important thing to mention as I bring this story to a close is that there may not be a logical reason as to why horrible things like these happen, but that doesn’t mean that we have to create one. By this, I mean we should not place the blame on ourselves because that is just as illogical as jumping off of a bridge.
Mateuš Conrad Oct 2015
they rarely get it spot on,
the side effects of anti-psychotics makes you
**** your bed after going against
the prescription allowances of being sober,
and with regards to a cognitive illness: suddenly
thinking is an illness walking sensibly down
the street with a beer -
the whole inherited aspect of it? like it runs in the family?
well... my great-grandmother almost thought
she was losing it - but she was on the front line of
world war ii, giving my grandmother opiates
to hush her so the werhmacht wouldn’t find them in hiding,
she was from a large family, as was usual at the time,
and most of them didn’t make it -
but then my grandfather’s orientation in this realm
of “illness” probably started when he still remembers
asking two blackshirt ss-men for some sweets and getting them,
then becoming a communist and seeing communism “fail”
thanks to john paul ii.
my take on “thinking is an illness, all thinking is an illness
in the hands of psychiatrists?”
dating a tsarina, being poisoned to near death
by a best fwend - and probably dropping a baby into her lap -
now the question is... how well informed i am
given the condition: everyone’s permitted a personal life,
a private life, a life a third party knows nothing about -
patchwork jigsaw and crosswords all in one go -
which suits the fact that drinking as the time passes
makes all my director’s cut scenarios of the same corner of my life
seem more entertaining - well i could add that
the best chemistry experiment i ever did was at school:
two clear liquids, clearly not mixing like fruit juice concentrate and water,
so they’re sitting there, one on top of the other,
and then... magic! using forceps you pull at the event horizon,
and what you pull out are strands of polyester (polyethylene terephthalate).
so i’m not buying into this psychiatry school of thought
that attempts to cure the colonial white man of repressed anger
and lost self-esteem voyaging to kingston and shanghai
pulverising guilt with oxfam adverts just to employ charity workers
and not sending money to the needy,
but being interrogated by about 10 different sick doctors
you learn their thinking: almost all want you to talk
about your childhood, because there is an inherent need to use
the psychiatric scalpel (i.e. the id) to cut with and find your
ego, attired in diapers, talking about your parents (the superego),
but oddly enough not the supra-ego (i.e. your grandparents) -
considering the fact that the major part of my development is
due to joseph “stalin” and helen, and my great grandmother mary...
but enough about that... i relish on saying this word:
******-synthesis, because such is the primitive nature of psychoanalysis
originating in the upper tiers of the marxist pyramid:
they're synthesising is to be as soulless as
their analysis allows drilling as far in as the faculty of dreaming.
but i guess we all become “complicated” human beings
after european industry becomes exported to china,
drop the hammer and the steel, learn to write learn to
read, become sensibly sympathetic and curiously
sensitive and bam: you're a qualified patient!
and added to the fact that the existential parting with god
only precipitated a complication of the individual man, purposively:
god became infinitely simple (i.e. seized to exist)
and thus man entered the glorious existential domain
of scrutinising and itemising every misery, every pleasure,
every thought, every feeling,
then adding to the sheer outburst of the populations,
he soon too realised - well i don’t really exist either, unless i’m
constantly striving for some sort of recognition other than my own,
hence the solipsistic debasement in existentialism? or
the antidote: solipsistic dignity in the realm of post-existentialism?
i know the answer - how? i’m already using it and the two
questions are meaningless to me - as i already testified inventing
a god: solipsus - purposively; the liberated / pardoned sisyphus
from the toils of the stone, by the wise zeus.
Makenzie Robison Jan 2016
My body is shaking
Words are spinning
Its all in my head
That's what they say
I can be an actor
I can play the part
The part of a girl who doesn't battle Depression
Of the girl who doesn't hate herself and her body
I can play the part well.

I mean no one notices me when I smile all pretty
I can play the part
Of a girl who has no mental illness
Who is not scared that one day she will break
And no one can fix her
Yet everyone looks at me
Like I am a painting on display.
I am covered in figurative blood
My mind made it appear
Its all over the walls

I can play the part of a innocent little girl,
Well I already do.
But all you see is my anger
I cover up my broken prices.
I swept them under the rug...
Do you think they can still exist?
Well of course they do.
Why did I ask that stupid question..
I ask a lot of stupid questions.

But the dumbest question ever asked is
Are you okay?
I want to say I'm not
But instead say
Everything is fine and dandy
But I'm gripped by fear..
I am afraid of everything
I am mostly scared of breaking
I mean the cracks are getting bigger
You will be fine
The voice in my head says
It talks like I am a piece of meat waiting to be inspected.

I have mental illnesses that cause me to be wacky.
I have bad feelings.
They make me want to cause destruction.
I do, cause destruction
I make cuts on my arms
And cuts on my legs
And cuts on my stomach to.
But the cuts on my heart are the ones that people cant see
They are the ones that hurt the most.
In fact they make me who I am

Mental Illnesses are nothing to laugh about
You don't know what they went through
It makes me crazy thinking the possibilities of being sent to a mental hospital
But yet it makes me smile
I could be free
Free of the chains that hold me down
I am already crazy
The hospital can't change that
They can only lessen it.
So yes
A mental Illness
Isn't fun but they push through and fight against it.
They are the winners
The ones who beat a mental illness
They have won there battle in life.
I am just beginning mine.
Debbie Brindley Jul 2018
Lifes tragically hard
more things going wrong

Sometimes I do wonder
how sorrowful
the lyrics would be
if written as a song

A song of great love
friendship
contentment
and trust

Of passion
happiness
beauty
and
lust

Of illness  
tragedy
loneliness
and fear

Of anger
confusion
and heartbreak
over the one I hold dear

What sad lyrics they'd be
If my life with you
were a song
Life
Loser Mar 2019
Turning illness into a weapon never got me far.
Turning illness into art only glorified scars.
Turning illness into stories only got others sad.
I think that illness is the best friend that I have ever had.
abi Jan 2019
depression is a civil war. you're essentially fighting yourself. and i don't mean that you are your mental illness. i mean your mental illness is you. it's just as much you as your brain or your heart. it's made of the same molecules that make up the skin on the back of your hand. (but for the record, nobody really knows that anything is made of molecules. it's all a construct of humankind's perception to their observations). my point is, fighting in a war with a predetermined winner seems pointless and unfair. but when you actually are fighting it, you don't know which part of you will win. but you do know you will win. sometimes, the mental illness wins. sometimes you lose your war. and that's okay. you never really can win your war. you simply dominate your mental illness. dominance can be overthrown. don't believe me? i dominated my mental illness. but here i am. writing an essay in the form of a poem. and since something changed along the way, i've been thinking about this civil war. i've known for a while that i was fighting it. so why am i just now deciding i'm going to choose when and how my blood stops flowing through these veins covered in beautiful scars. the answer is overthrown dominance. you can try every coping skill, every drug, every conversation, but that only masks the war. it doesn't get rid of your mental illness. it only helps you dominate. dominance can be overthrown. i know i sound bleak and hopeless. but it's the truth. some people can dominate until they die of other things. but they never win their war. but they don't lose it. no dosage of any drug can fix your chemical imbalance. i say it like that because that's what it is. it's the same as if you had an imbalance in your blood cells. but for some people with mental illnesses, it's controllable with a pill. when you look at the science behind it, the pill stimulates your nerves to send a signal to a gland in your brain to release serotonin or dopamine, therefore balancing out the chemicals. but if the person forgets their pill, their chemicals are still imbalanced. you can never really **** a mental illness. but it can **** you. and that's terrifying.
jeffrey conyers Jul 2019
All honesty, mental illness affects many.
This we all be willing to admit.
But some are mastering the tricks of avoiding justice.
How?
By using the mental illness excuse.
We seeing in the news.
And more so by what gender?
And what racial group?

It long been a staple of the wealthy to use tricks?
Now, we seeing the middle class mastering the tricks.
Trying to keep that child out of prison by claiming mental illness.

Multiple killings, from them at work?
Using racial hatred to **** many within the church.
And off course in the school.
And when facing punishment from prosecutors and judges.
There you hear about their mental illness.

We were trying to get him/her help?
Still containing the ownership of many weapons.
Others, laugh loudly with truth.

If they without use this excuse?
Innocent guilt and prison they will see.
And they probably the one most in need.

Now, to those crying to not build more prison?
Just remember all killers don't have a mental illness.
luci Jan 2018
Assisted suicide?
Physician Assisted Suicide is the process of a doctor providing the necessary sleeping pills/lethal dose to allow a terminally ill patient to perform the life ending act. In the United States, all but four states have made physician assisted suicide (PAS) illegal.When in a situation a terminally ill patient is in, they should have the right to commit a physician-assisted suicide.
In 1994, the state of Oregon enabled the Death With Dignity Act (DWDA). With 51% voting in favor of the act, it gives terminally ill patients access to PAS. Attorney General John Ashcroft challenged the act by saying it was not “real” and that allowing doctors to do perform that, violates the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). CSA protects the regulation of doctors from performing unauthorized distributions of drugs and drug abuse. If doctors are able to assist suicides, through Ashcroft’s claim, they would be using drugs as an abuse. In the Supreme Court, petitioner Paul D. Clement argued in the case about the violation of CSA, with 6-3, “we conclude the rule is not authorized by the CSA, and we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals” (Gonzales V Oregon).
Patients of irreversible illnesses often develop disorders that go underdiagnosed causing them to live a life that isn’t happy for them or their family members. According to Dr. Fine of the Office of Clinical Ethics, terminally ill patients usually get depressed when dealing with intense suffering. When the patient is depressed, they may not respond to treatment as expected. If the patient is not responding to treatment well, the doctor may up the dosage of medication or consider adding antidepressants, causing the patient to be reliant on medication for the rest of their life.
Patients who receive a terminal diagnosis usually experience high levels of anxiety.  According to Dr. Fine, anxiety can cause problems such as, agitation, insomnia, restlessness, sweating, tachycardia, hyperventilation, panic disorder, worry, or tension. Sleep deprivation plays a huge part in the anxiety the patients feel. The patient’s sleep is often interrupted many nights and several times to get their blood pressure checked, blood withdrawals, checkings of veins, etc. Because these medical requirements can not be withheld, many doctors may feel the need to heavily sedate the patient to make them feel lucid during the day time.
Studies have shown that patients of terminal illnesses fear that they’d burden their families. The patients feel, “grief and fear not only for their own future but also for their families’ future” (Johnson), researchers say. The feelings of being in the way can cause emotional, physical, social, and financial problems. In  doctors Johnson, Nolan, and Sulmasy’s research, they found that feelings of burden are most likely to affect emotional symptoms, quality of life, and patient satisfaction. Wanting to feel like they aren’t a burden to their families and society was most important to patients seen by the doctors. The research the doctors conducted found that out of a list of 28 qualities, the wish to not be a physical or emotional burden on family, 93% of respondents said that this was very or extremely important to them. The doctors made three categories of experiences that were related to “self-perceived burden” (Johnson). The first one being “concerns for other” (Johnson), then “implications for self” (Johnson), and last being “minimizing the burden” (Johnson). Feeling like a burden can cause “empathic concern engendered from the impact on others of one’s illness and care needs, resulting in guilt, distress, feelings of responsibility, and diminished sense of self” (Johnson).
To let a patient commit an assisted suicide means, they’re freed from pain. To force someone who knows that their time's coming to an end quickly when they do not wish to be in pain anymore should be a crime. In Epidemics, Book 1, it states, “practice two things in your dealings with disease: either help or do not harm the patient”, by allowing the patient to continue their life is harming them, all physically, mentally, and spiritually. Doctors take an oath, the Hippocratic Oath when practicing medicine. In the oath, there is a phrase that says “Also I will, according to my ability and judgment, prescribe a regimen for the health of the sick; but I will utterly reject harm and mischief”, if the patient has considered an assisted suicide, they’ve been in too much pain and wish for it to end. Refusing them the help causes them more physical and emotional pain; physical being the illness itself and emotional being the feeling of being a burden.
Patients with terminal illnesses have the right to commit assisted suicides because it allows them to end their life from something no drug would be able to fix. With the illness being irreversible, dragging it out will cause both suffering and financial problems. Terminally ill patients have the right to die with dignity. Dying by choice will let their loved ones know that they are ready and have accepted their fate, easing weight off their families shoulders. Having the ability to die will portray the patients as human beings who want to make one last decision before going rather than people who are laying in a hospital bed waiting to die. A patient knows that the doctor’s job is to relieve pain, with a doctor refusing their wish, only cause distrust in their relationship. Letting assisted suicide would allow their families to begin healing. By refusing the patient their right to die, forces them to live a poor quality of life no one would ever wish upon anybody. It is in everyone’s interest to let them go. Doctors have a responsibility to make the patient happy and to relieve them of any kind of pain, letting them go is relieving them of the pain they wish to no longer feel. PAS gives them the ability to go happily and contently.
***
*** you a riddle that anyone can get,you was born out of nowhere, you came out of nowhere.,,you are the evil secret weapon,you came and control  people's lives who are you ***? why are you here? Why are you so painful to our lives? Why do you bring destruction to our world? It was our world then but  since you enter this world you control it as if it belong to you, you have our belongings into your hands and you direct usto death through hell                                             *** you are cruel ,you just three letter but you so powerful and every letter of you have a sadness meaning,,Letter H-which means hell,you drive us to helll ,,Letter I-illness,you are the illness that weakens our body and Letter V-virus, virus you are the last course we need, you destroy people's lives and suparate their feeling into million pieces                                                      *** you've done and still done painful things, you get into people's live and caurse kios into in people's relationships, you take parents away from their children and leave their children homeless, you make people to give up their lives, you made us live in fear,you get into people who never though it will be them who contacted you, you crep around the coner with no footstep to hear                *** we all live in dfear odf you,we will stand up  without shedding a tears,this is our live come on only "we" can judge ourselves its not about willing to give up, its about willing to fight back and take whats belong to "us" which is health,life an world *** you are people's unwanted friend that they will live with day to day till God remembers them
The most fearfull deases "***"

— The End —