More Secrets of the Perpetually Sick

girlwithoutwings (51)in #poetry • 7 years ago (edited)

I'm back from a FANTASTIC holiday and owe huge thanks to @robyneggs for her fab poetry dice comp and also @creatives @sammosk and @rahul.stan for their respective comp opportunities :) I've been enjoying these immensely <3 <3 <3

Excuse the long intro, but here is a very personal work. I hope people enjoy. It is a bit hard hitting and apologies for that: it's related to my experience of not only the complete lack of mental and emotional support I have received since being diagnosed with severe seronegative arthritis just over 4 years ago, but also the intense impact this failing has had on my psychological - and then physical, well being. I discovered, just before I went away, that my wish for my care to be transferred somewhere where I might get better treatment, has finally been granted. Whether or not this will help, only time will tell. The relief however of moving away from a system that left me floundering on every front, has been immense and this holiday I was the best I have been physically, mentally and emotionally, in over 4 years. This meant I was able to fully participate in 2 performances with my gorgeous band at the One Love Festival in Kent, England over the weekend. It was such an immense privilege: I never take anything my body can do for granted. Every step is a gift, as is every opportunity to laugh or play my instruments. Look out for a future, non poetry blog that I am planning. This will explore the role of mental health safeguarding for the chronically sick - a topic about which I have become vehemently passionate, even to the point of setting up a charity that provides home help and counselling for people with autoimmune arthritis. I am also using natural methods to recover and doing very well, but suspect I will do better now that I will be receiving hopefully more compassionate, treatment. Peace everyone, peace. Hopefully a story telling poem will come to me soon too :) <3

More Secrets of the Perpetually Sick
I’ve never come to terms with it,
I doubt I ever will:
The harsh words of a doctor
Telling me
I’m not only sick
But sick in a way
That will not heal.

I’ve never accepted it.
Should I?
Am I wrong to protest?
To expect more than
A shrug
When my hair falls out
From the drugs;
More than a stone walled face
When I complain
How my mind has been savaged
From steroids
Leaving me
Hooked on
Googling the most Effective
Method
I can find for:
Suicide?

Is there something I’m missing?
Something I’ve not been told?
Is it only MY body
That refuses to exist in a vacuum
Where mind is a completely separate
Conception
And the two cannot meet,
Unless,
As I’ve been informed,
You're even more of a failure
Than every other chronic sufferer
Whose life’s to be shortened
By the date stamped
Inflammatory soiled
Fire branded
Sick, sick, sick body
Of,
The chroni-cally
She, of painful, swollen,
Useless limbs
Who has no real purpose...
We’re all going to die anyway,
So if she has no bread
Then let her eat cake...
Am I the only one
Left washed up by
This discompassionate
Hospital Circus?

I’ve never grieved.
How can you grieve for what you
Don’t believe
To be gone?
And,
When,
You’re already caught up in grief
For the inexcusable behaviour
Of everyone
Who you did put your faith in,
Whilst you sat waiting
For the gift of
Explanation
Because you’re in pain
And all you’ve ever really asked for,
Was,
Compassion…

Because
I’ve never asked for much,
Not really,
But you’d think I’d requested
The sun,
Perhaps the moon on a stick
Or Mars on a plate
Maybe Venus’s lips
Or a doctor’s dinner date…
When actually,
What it seems that everyone
Managed to forget
Was that
My body,
Quite regularly,
Refuses
To move
And when it does,
It’s also screaming a
Particularly petulant shade of
Murderous blue
And,
I’ve no clue
Who to turn to
When my body and mind
Get confused
Especially…
When everyone around me
Insists on behaving as though
They’re not supposed to.
But seems to me
To be
That they’re the ones who're wrong,
Not me,
And, actually,
Perhaps
It would be more
Apt,
If people would respectfully
Step BACK
And allow my mind to thrive
In whichever way it has learnt
How to survive
Within the chronically confusing
Fairground ride
That is the gruellingly
Heart breaking trip
Of those of us
Who are
Chronically sick.

My blog is story telling, often in verse, and some of which includes tales of both living with, and crushing, seronegative arthritis. All work is original.

Follow me: (https://steemit.com/@girlwithoutwings)

#onehumanbasket #health #healing

7 years ago in #poetry by girlwithoutwings (51)

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rwarriorgoddess (43) 7 years ago

You Go SiStar GodDess Jackie!!! @girlwithoutwings In our challenges we find not only more courage and strength but our gifts to share. Thank you for sharing your journey and your gift here. It is lovely to see you transform your story of suffering into such beauty. PS-I hope you have figured out that your "disease" and incurable diagnosis is because you are in the "conventional" allopathic Deathcare system called healthcare but is really genocide and population control/disease management for profit. Also that dis-ease is caused by the rampant poisoning of our air, food supply, water, "medicines", bodycare products, minds, etc...EVERYTHING is reversible because homeostasis is our natural state and our bodies always naturally return there when healthy, nutritious, and loving things are put in, on, and around us. The unresolved emotions must be addressed, too...But you're on your way!!!

PS-I am a Spiritual Awakening Facilitator, Conscious Evolution Coach and healer so I state this from some empirical wisdom my dear SiStar...ReBirth most Majestically!!!...<3 <3 <3

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girlwithoutwings (51) 7 years ago

Ah dear @rwarriorgoddess you are truly beautiful. And thank you thank you so much for the appreciation. I've been asked if this poem can be used for an application for government funding for a charity who deals with mental health and chronic illness . Very humbling. I run my own charity too for autoimmune arthritis - designed to offer compassion to sufferers - a direct result of my own horrific treatment (but we won't take government funding!) we aren't afraid to plug natural healing (unlike pharmaceutical funded charities) - and do, big time. No sugar laden fundraisers for us. NO WAY. Sugar pollution is one of the biggest drugs there is. The doctors I have encountered here have no interest in the role of a healthy, well supported mind when it comes to physical illness (or food or emotional care) - and my disgraceful treatment was a direct result of me not being able to cope mentally - what what??DEATHCARE : like it <3 Doctors made me so much sicker. the body is not a machine and cruelty and harshness and judgement is no response to emotional distress. I use plant based low fat diet now - never cheat, monitor my body constantly. And I'm steadily improving. Homeostasis is the truth. I learnt that recovering from a massive anxiety disorder a few years ago and I'm learning it physically now. Emotionally... hahaha.... ah aha, yeah, tough one. my next layer - it's tormenting me at present! I understand the spiritual awakening tho. I trained as a shaman many years ago - it's my spiritual discipline and I receive incredible guidance... whenever I find space to listen. I wrote another poem about that. My spitirual guide comes to me physically. She's amazing - shows me how to breathe, how to move, even caught me once when I fell (honestly!) and she reveals so much... but I'm not ready for some of the big answers yet. I know that as the barriers come up. It's coming tho, it's all coming. Bless you bless you bless you. <3 <3 <3

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rwarriorgoddess (43) 7 years ago

"Doctors made me so much sicker. the body is not a machine and cruelty and harshness and judgement is no response to emotional distress. "-Bang on! all of it actually...but they are part of the control grid and trained to be that way. The ego of most conventional doctors is appalling. The one thing I would recommend is to add more good fat in. It is the cushion for our nervous system and protectio against disease. As in Avocados, raw/unrefined organic coconut oil, coconut milk, nuts, and I use raw dairy from organica grassfed cows and goats, especially the butter-Organic Valley's pasture butter is highest in CLAs that I know you can buy in a healthfood store but local sourcing is better. Also eggs from chickens not fed gmo corn or soy or in a CAFO are an excellent source of good fat. Great book "Eat Fat to Lose Fat" or you can read the China Study. Very cool that you trained as a shaman. I have studied with some and done a lot of my own shamanic journeying...I feel I am a cosmic shaman because I have no support of a community that a shaman has...on a vision quest from another dimension...LOL. Also about your spiritual guide!...Shine On SiStar @girlwithoutwings & congratulations on your poem being requested!

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