I wrote this post freehand 4 weeks ago, however I've kept a hold of it until the start of this week for very specific reasons, I didn't want to jinx a potentially life changing opportunity. I'm not normally superstitious but I was taking no chances.
I'll get back to this at the end of the aforementioned useless ramblings.
It's taken me some time to decide what kind of post to write to accompany my most recent poem, lately there have been very few text posts so I do feel a need to return to some kind of informative content past my poetry. I feel the need to explain what kind of purpose I put into my writing in general and underline exactly what I want to achieve.
My anxiety hit me young. Too young to be able to understand what was happening, too young to be able to ask for help. I performed well in school, one teacher told my mother to start saving for my university fees when I was only 8 years old.
Gone.
With anxiety came depression, another alien mindset, hellbent on confusing me into oblivion. Everything slipping slowly away, education a screaming passenger on an out of control roller-coaster yet still refusing to believe the now reality it had fallen into. All of this while not being able to understand, and me not being able to understand meant nobody else could understand either, to some I was an arrogant, ignorant child refusing to attend to their responsibility to learn.
The only thing I wanted to learn was what on earth was happening to my mind.
Those that had took pity, I shunned away for fear of letting them see how far my own mind had slipped.
Fear.
Then three laboured years later, a light. My educative environment had changed, a seemingly safer place to learn, away from the pressures of a mainstream schooling system. With it, a promise to see a child psychologist.
Hope.
What a glorified waste of time, I sought enlightenment, I gained what felt like a Rubik's cube of anger. What had they said when I wasn't there. If I had said more when I was there instead of fearing judgement of my parental companion, instead of having the confidence to ask to be alone. I felt as if I was promised the world and delivered an already devastated island, still uninhabitable, still bearing nothing of life. I had failed as a patient.
Reflection.
I think back to that whole scenario daily. In the right environment help can be there. In my youthful stupor and desperation, I wanted answers, to be told simply what was wrong and how to fix it. As practical as that sounds, I know now it's impossible. However, given the right environment...
Ambition.
I can't bear witnessing, reading, hearing of anyone go through the same torment so young. I just won't sit witnessing, reading, hearing of anyone go through the same torment so young. I feel all the mistakes I've made, all I have learned not just from experience but from therapy and research, I've developed a yearning. A need, to stop a serious problem that often goes unnoticed, so that nobody has to go day by day and be confused about why what and how. For the near future this is all I have, my own thoughts down on paper, typed through ones and zeros for people to read, and I'm pleased with the audience I've reached, I'm happy with what I've achieved through such a simple project and I love expressing my creativity through my poetry as well but where do I go next?
Onwards.
I'm not satisfied the audience I truly wish to reach is the one I can't just write to, this is all great empathising with those who've gone through similar, but those who are going through things and can't understand it? Where are they, past lost in their own minds looking for a way to understand? You don't simply think, this is what's wrong this is what I'll do, it's not as simple a taking a couple of painkillers and it'll be right in a few hours. At an age when minds are ripe for molding, an emotional upheaval is so, so challenging. I want to know more about why these things happen to us, what changes in our minds to make us feel such distress, and how to teach. Teach how better to prepare, teach how to understand, teach how to recognise.
Now I have that opportunity.
My next journey begins in September.
I'm going to enjoy having you all along with me as well.
I had intended on having a poem accompany this post, however after 3(finished) attempts, I couldn't find anything I was happy with. I feel the point of this post is clear enough without expressing any more emotion towards where I hope to be in 4-5 years time.
