Classic Poem

Been there, done that...

I can still vividly remember
the last time that I was "hearing voices"
(to use a worn out metaphor).

It was less that a week ago.
I had been there a thousand times before.

Yes, I am on medication.
Yes, I do take it regularly.

But this was only
a short lived episode.

It was a Saturday, and
I hadn't gotten dressed all day,
but instead I had
been napping off and on all day.

I had also done my weeks washing and
had it drying on a clothes horse
in the lounge room
(as is normal, being winter).

It was early evening and
I wanted to go to sleep.

Slumber was a blissful escape,
or perhaps only sometimes.

Anyway, I couldn't get any sleep,
and my mind was racing.

"Everyone's going to find out
all about those secrets.

Everyone will know the
worst things that I can imagine.

They will know all about me
and everything that I imagined
people saying will be true now."

They keep on going around in my head.

They're crap,
and I know it.
They're just voices,
I tell myself,
but why won't they go away ?
A short time passed.
More voices,
different voices,

"You know what to do,
Mother always says so.
What should I do now ?
I don't know!
But you know what to do,
don't you ?"

The vicious circle kept going `round.

***

Time to get up from bed and
ring Mum,
after all
she knows what to do.

Scattered and shaking,
I do this.

I go to the phone,
sit down, and
phone ever-reliable Mum.

She is my tower of strength.

It's an STD call
but I don't care.

She tells me to ring the Crisis Team
(aka the Mental Health Triage)
but I can only fumble with
my electronic organizer.

I know exactly how it works,
inside and out,
but I could not operate it to save myself.

I get a pen and Mum tells me
the phone number of the crisis team and
I write it down.

She tells me that
she can be on the next bus
if I need her to be with me.

I tell her "no thanks,
I think I'll be OK".
I hang up the phone and
call the Crisis Team.

I speak to a lady who knows me,
although I cannot recall her.

She talks me through it and
tells me to watch a bit of TV or
listen to some music and
to occupy myself until
later in the night.

My mini-crisis passes
as I follow this advice throughout the night.

Was it because I did all of
the "right things" or
was it simply that my "medication"
was taking effect ?

***

The above episode
was only a small tremor,
but it still scared me a bit.

I guess that I took it better
than I otherwise might have
because I have been there before
and done it all before.

But that doesn't make it
any less scary at the time.
It's only with the benefit of hindsight
that I can see that I could cope with it.