Poetry – Looking Glass

Recently (well, always really) I’ve been struggling with how to deal with certain emotions that come with trauma and pain. I used to love writing poetry, and so I thought I would process everything this way. I wrote my first poem in hospital this week and thoroughly enjoyed it, finding it therapeutic to release what I was feeling in an artistic way. I hope you enjoy! Here is my first poem:

Looking Glass

There are cracks in the mirror.

The looking glass self, in smithereens.

The looming shadow, the interferer

Stealing fragments of resolve in my genes

A chandelier with flickering light,

All the sparkle and glimmer on the surface, alas under

The true candescence in sparks, fight and flight.

Until beads smash to the ground, resolute thunder.

Now the parts of me are separated, speeding away

Time to mend again, but I will never be the same again

Maybe change these beads. A new centrepiece from today.

Make people believe it was intentional, every now and then.

My First Year at the University of Greenwich with Health Difficulties, A Review

In my first year of university, I have had many challenges. I struggled to see an end to some of the more punishing health battles I went through, but I persevered.

At the start of university, I had a pain flare, which led to me attending university doped up on morphine. My energy levels depleted quickly, so I was always pretty drained.

The new year brought problems with my mental health, as I was put on an antidepressant I did not agree with. As you can imagine, having chronic pain and not feeling yourself mentally is challenging to say the least.

Following this, I needed surgery, which left me out of classes for three weeks in February.

In March, I started to have seizures for which I was hospitalised frequently.

Throughout this, I kept going, with the end goal in sight. I did not for one second want my health to prevent me from doing well in my studies. With the help of amazing, incredibly understanding lecturers, I managed to only have one extension throughout my assignments. They were caring and sympathetic in regards to me needing to have time off, and my personal tutor even phoned me when I was absent due to seizures. I dropped into her office several times throughout the year for chats about university work, my health and anything else that was particularly challenging at the time.

I also received free weekly counselling during my first year at university, which was a great help. It was important to be able to verbally process my thoughts and challenges but to also recognise my triumphs in these sessions, both big and small. I feel that they were very productive in aiding me to be able to cope with my studies in first year.

I also received support from many friendly faces in STAART, which I have talked about in my previous blog post: https://louisefrancescablog.wordpress.com/2018/01/15/my-first-term-at-greenwich-university-london-as-a-disabled-student/
It has really helped seeing other students with health struggles achieve what they set out to do, reassuring me that health should not be a barrier when it comes to thriving at university. Through STAART, I have made very close friends, with whom I can vent and laugh about the struggles we go through.

Being an AccessAbility Ambassador at the University of Greenwich has also boosted my self confidence. I have worked shifts with fellow ambassadors, reigniting the part of me that loves to work and making me feel comfortable doing so despite my challenges. At the University of Greenwich, everyone understands if I need to take breaks during my shifts due to my conditions. I feel that it’s a great transition from not being able to work to hopefully having the career I am studying for upon graduating in a couple of years. I am incredibly grateful to the university for providing me with this opportunity.

Because of all of these elements of university life, I felt capable of ploughing through my first year despite the difficulties I faced. I worked as hard as I could, when I could. My last exam was two days after I’d spent the night in hospital, but I wasn’t going to miss it. I had reassurance from the university that if I didn’t get the result I wanted in my exams, I could resit them in the summer. This was reassuring, but I wasn’t willing to quit just yet. I managed to complete both exams. one being two days after I’d spent the night in hospital.

When I saw grades in the summer, at first I was in disbelief, it felt surreal. I finished my first year with a 1:1

If I can do it, I’m sure you can too. If you are considering doing a degree that is offered by the University of Greenwich (especially if it is Sociology!), I would recommend coming to an open day or enquiring via email. The contacts for STAART are on my last blog post that I linked previously.

It’s not so bad being a spoonie in uni!

Pill Shaming and Why it’s Not Okay

The judgment of when we need pills in today’s society is, from my experience, distorted.

Let’s start with the common misjudgement of people who take opiates for chronic pain. They are often assumed to be addicts simply because this type of drug can be addictive for some, not all. It’s interesting that this stigma is rarely attached to someone purchasing a lot of alcohol despite the rising trend of alcoholism in today’s society. I was once taking oral morphine on prescription during a physical health relapse. I don’t think I’m overanalysing the situation when I recall the way I was given the prescriptions in a rather insensitive way compared to my other medications. Maybe a twenty one year old taking morphine is so uncommon that people, including pharmacists, are instantly suspicious of your intentions with it?

Besides opiates, it seems to be the common misconception that taking drugs for long standing illness (to function to the best of your ability) makes you weak. That, or now that you’re functioning well, people think the next step is to lower your dosage of the drugs that are helping you. I feel that this is due to scare mongering news articles depicting the potential ‘dangerous’ side effects of these tablets, but not the improvements they can make to somebody’s quality of life.

It seems to be the same situation for drugs used for both physical and mental health conditions. There’s a lot of ignorance in society (and online) insinuating that somebody’s lifestyle is the only thing preventing them from leading a mentally stable or pain free life. Yes, factors such as diet, exercise and social interaction can help a lot of different people in many different ways. Alas, they will not ‘cure’ me or many others of very real underlying health conditions. It is often medication that actually makes things such as exercise and social interaction more possible.

I’ve personally found a trend in certain people’s reactions when it comes to me taking medication. When my symptoms become unbearable to function with, people seem keen for this to be ‘sorted out’ in any way possible, including medication. They are not keen however for me to stay on the medication long term, even if it is keeping my symptoms at bay/bearable. I’m often asked whether the doctors are going to reduce my medication, to which the doctors say no because of the improvement in my symptoms.

So, why did taking medication even come to be a bad thing in today’s society?

– As I mentioned previously, there are several scaremongering articles in newspapers, websites, etc that contribute to society’s view on depending on medication, generating unnecessary fear across all age ranges. What people maybe don’t take into account is that articles are supposed to be thought provoking and controversial to grab the reader’s attention, especially tabloid newspapers.
– Lists of potential side effects can scare people into thinking that medication does more harm than good, when the reality is that a lot of these side effects are rare, and everybody responds differently to different medications.
– Most people who don’t suffer with long standing mental or physical illness are most likely used to taking pain/anti psychotic medication very occasionally and only for a short amount of time. As a result of this, they may not understand why some people need them long term. This may be why some people see relying on medication as ‘weak’ because they have never had to do so themselves.
– This leads to the next point which is that when people see us doing better, they may not realise why we still take them. It’s easy to them to forget just how challenging life would be without the medication. For those of us who have struggled or endured an injured quality of life with mental or physical health, it is almost impossible to forget the contrast.
– The word ‘pharmaceutical’ is often associated with money and business. What is integral to remember s that pharmaceutical companies simply manufacture the medication for profit. It was scientists who originally developed these drugs. Their best interests were advances in science, healthcare and the wellbeing of people, not profit!

Why is pill shaming harmful?

Pill shaming is harmful to patients because there is already enough stigma surrounding physical and mental illness. Trying to dissuade somebody from taking medication that helps them can be harmful in that it can induce feelings of shame and/or guilt. Opiates are becoming increasingly difficult for patients with chronic pain to access because of society’s stance that it’s an addicts’ drug.

If you know anyone that takes medication for any reason, please take into consideration the points discussed in this article.

If you are somebody who takes medication, I hope this helped you to understand that you should never feel guilty, ashamed or weak for doing so.

How dodie helped me to accept life with mental health issues

Dorothy Clark, commonly known as her stage name dodie, is a refreshing new voice in both the music industry and on YouTube. Whilst she is gaining popularity on several platforms, she remains incredibly intimate, personal and transparent with her fans regarding her mental health. Dodie suffers with depression, depersonalisation and dissociation.

On her Snapchat stories, she speaks out about and displays her struggles with mental health in her day to day life. This can include chats on how she feels ‘drunk’ as though she’s not experiencing the world as she should, or picturesvideos of her trying out methods such as rTMS treatment, along with whether she thought it helped or not. She doesn’t glamorise mental health issues at all either by showing her followers are her raw, vulnerable, emphatic self on a daily basis. She portrays the whimsical rollercoaster of mental illness as what is really is: sometimes scary, sometimes happy, but nevertheless unpredictable and not something that we can just ‘get off’ of. Sometimes keeping your hands and feet in at all times during this rollercoaster can be hard, and dodie portrays that beautifully. She was recently very honest and open about her struggle with starting an antidepressant. She shared how it made her feel too numb, so she had to lower the dose. In posting simple but constant updates like this, dodie is doing so much for mental health awareness. She’s demonstrating that mental health issues are not straight forward to treat. Dodie is unknowingly answering questions her followers may have about treatment options, breaking the barrier and making her communication with followers human to human rather than idol to fan.

 

Dodie creates beautiful YouTube videos and songs about her battles with depression, which really help people like me to feel less alone in some of the darkest battles I face with anxiety, depression, dissociation and depersonalisation. I find dodie’s complete transparency and honesty so endearing. It’s this realism that’s vital in today’s world where everyone seems to filter their lifestyles to blend into a ‘perfect’ society. These filters seem to just put more and more pressure on today’s young people to fit the ‘status quo’. By highlighting the tricky as well as amazing parts of her life, dodie is helping her young followers (and me) to feel better about any mental health struggles they may be going through themselves.

Here is a video dodie did on a day in the life for her with depression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9cTNVO8s04

 

In dodie’s music she explores her feelings towards dissociation, anxiety, depression and depersonalisation. Her song ‘Secret for the Mad’ (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfVIMfSGBhw) encourages people to persevere through mental illness showing an in depth knowledge of how harrowing, stigmatising and alienating the experience can be with the line ‘I get, that I don’t get it’. Nevertheless she encourages listeners to open up about such difficulties with the line ‘there are a hundred voices who will listen to you cry’. She includes the repetitive, reassuring line ‘I burned my way through and I don’t regret it’ to reassure people that there is hope from her own experiences of battling through . In another song entitled ‘When’ (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2LuQAtD9tE), she sings about her struggles with mental health with the lines ‘never caught up in the moment, busy begging the past to stay’ and ‘teach me how to think’.

 

Thank you, dodie, for helping me to accept that I’m not alone when it comes to mental illness and for being so open with your experiences.

Image credit: dodie clark’s instagram www.instagram.com/doddleoddle