Poetry Therapy

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I got up one morning recently and felt terrible. I was going round in a daze with negative thoughts when the idea came to write it down and get them out. I did and this poem is the result. I wrote it in just fifteen minutes – just pouring it out.
Afterwards when I read it through I laughed out loud.
Writing for me is great therapy for getting stuff out of my head. It stops the round and round thoughts that you feel you can’t escape from.
Far from ending up feeling maudlin and sorry for myself I felt elated.
I hope to discuss some ideas and strategies for getting through difficult times.
And they don’t have to be on treatment either.
We get them as a result of being alive on planet earth.

Awakened with the same muscle aches
The habitual reaching out for the pill of relief that will allow the slow getting into the day
Lying there wondering how long?
Going back in time to the beginning.

There was the shock discovery of an alien invasion
Probably been undercover for years
Tell tale symptoms of their existence that the establishment didn’t recognise or instead denied
Are they a virus as well?

The family after shock, the questions, the non answers, the waiting for the various steps.
Preparing for battle.
The final moment of marching into war the glorious prize of freedom and a new life gleaming ahead

The steady plod, plod through heavy days of combination drugs
Isolation of normal life – normal? What was that like anyway?
The endless internet searching for comfort
What about the itching, the sleeplessness, the sweats, the fog of confusion that descends, the rage, the depression.
Is this normal? Am I normal?

The friends found. Fellow sufferers invaded and violated by a detected and counted but unseen foe,
Unseen but felt, eating into our vital resources,
Slowing us down.
Amazing empathy. They know. They feel the same. We share our common humanity in a special way.

The results of warfare. The wins, the losses.
The victors. The failures.

Freed from the virus or stuck with it.
Moving on as best you can.
The losers awakening with the same muscle aches
The habitual reaching out for the pill of relief that will allow the slow getting into the day
Lying there wondering how long?

The Monthly script for pain from virus and interferon caused
The unbidden thought, why not just take them all?

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