My Audition from 8/17

Written when I was pregnant with Remy:

Crazy f'en nuts

Happy pills galore

Schizophrenic bowling team

Amnesiacs by the score

Straight jackets, rubber rooms

Who could ask for more

Soon they'll charge admission

A dollar, maybe four

To see the crazy people on parade

Behind the padlocked doors

I wrote this poem 22 years ago after my second inpatient stay at a psychiatric hospital. It was a time where I was still "in the closet" about living with mental illness and only those people who needed to know knew about my stays or any of my treatment. This is the first time I am sharing the above poem publicly. I was afraid to tell many people about my mental illness then because I was afraid they would think those words in that poem. I thought then that living with depression, anxiety, (and now PTSD) made me a weak person, damaged and people would view me as such if they knew.

But as the years went by, the stigma of mental illness had lessened some and I realized that happened because other people were willing to give a voice to their struggles. I slowly began sharing my story about living with mental illness as well and the more I shared the better I felt. But the stigma was still there 4 years ago as I noticed some during my treatment at a partial hospital program, not by the staff but by those around me in my everyday life. I was extremely open about my mental illness and going for treatment. The stigma was not cruel or malicious, but it was noticeable. This poem comes from the fact that mental illness is not a "casserole" illness.

No One

Depression lows and anxiety woes,

No one buys you flowers when you're crazy

Colorful carnations, a spray of baby's breath,

No one gives you flowers when you're crazy 

Tulips for a broken leg, roses for a broken heart, but nothing for a broken mind

No one sends you flowers when you're crazy 

Whispered conversations and averted glances,

No one brings you flowers when you're crazy 

No Welcome Back party and no Get Well Soon cards,

No one gets you flowers when you're crazy 

After that time I became even more vocal and more public about living with mental illness. I have been featured in the local papers more than once, became a part of a national campaign to end stigma, given podcast interviews, and spoken to groups both large and small about living with mental illness, among other things but there is still more work to be done. Now that I am pregnant I have experienced more stigma because I am pregnant and live with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. And I also want my unborn son to not experience the stigma of mental illness for either me or if he has his own struggles nor do I want him to stigmatize others who live with mental illness. We have come such a long way but still have a journey ahead. I am blessed to have great support along this journey from family and friends and my therapist (who has always and will always see me as me and not my mental illness).

MDD, GAD, PTSD

That is all some PhDs, MDs, and MSWs seem to see

They try to treat me with CBT, DBT, and ACT 

But others can see the real me and that is what I need

I don't want my unborn son to feel ashamed for me

I want to live in a world where this idea takes seed

I started to speak to plant that tree

Where no matter the illness you can just be who you were meant to be