Find safety, find sanctuary, find peace…
Feeling alone in the world is hard enough when life is upright, but when it is all upside down, perhaps something resembling of wreckage and ruin, when the world around you becomes Hell, the only place you can run, is inwards…
In poverty, poor health, job losses, divorce, grief, we find our way home. I know it feels counterintuitive, but the reality is that suffering births freedom. This ugly, greedy, all-consumed world, delivers to you a truth to trust, you see it daily in the box that talks and lights up. You need stuff. You need brands. You need EVERYTHING to feel the way they feel in the t.v.
Everyone suffers. That is a simple truth. It has been true since the dawn of time. Or perhaps it is better to say, all life suffers. And the source of most of it… greedy human beings. This world is hurting you, likely has been since your birth. The only way out of The Hell it has you imagining is to revisit yourself through a new lens, one shaped by compassion, understanding, and pure awareness in your capacity to heal, come back to joy, and stay safe…
There is no time to waste if you feel unsafe, unhealthy or unhappy. Your life has so many moments left, no matter your age, shape or size, no matter your IQ, capacity for human connection or self-care. In a world full of so much information, I have chosen to streamline it for you and present to you what has worked for me. Over the years I have recovered in cycles; there is no end to recovery, only maintenance, slow rebuilding, and self-preservation. As I write this final sentence, I cry, softly, quietly, but the tears and the losses are still there…
During the past 5 years I have experienced psychological torture and terror. I will not share the cause of my suffering, but I will share with you a little of where I was, so that it might bring hope to those sitting beneath the illusionary ‘rock bottom’, beneath society’s safety nets, the ones full of gaping voids and nightmare gaps. Back in 2020 I experienced ‘Shell Shock’, you know, the traumatic response observed in numerous WWI survivors. Hell had new tricks one day and it resulted in a body that could not leave a bed without necessity, a mind that could not listen to a word anybody spoke, and eyes that stared into space, secretly watching invisible nightmares that resulted in silently leaking tears.
Did I need medication? Of course not, my body was so clever, it told me everything that I needed to hear, ‘Stay in bed’, it said loudly, as it convulsed with terror every time I had to get up to go to the bathroom. That happened for eight weeks. After that, I managed to sit still in a rocking chair sometimes, a burnt orange retro one from the 1970s that I’d purchased the summer I arrived home after teaching overseas for a few years; it was my hope that I’d be living in a small home in the country by the end of 2019. Life chose something else… or God, you label it for yourself. I choose to label it as The Light, The Absolute, The Divine… The Father of Light and Mother of Matter. To me, all is one, so it doesn’t really make a difference what word you use to label The Creationists!
What I will tell you is this… Life forced me to pray!!! Hard, loudly, and daily. I lay in that bed and sat in that chair because I needed to, for 18 months. After those first 8 weeks of shock and terror had past, somehow, I went to nature, it was there that I screamed as loudly as I could, to the point of breaking my voice. After that, I wandered home and stumbled past the church where I attended Sunday School as a child (I am not affiliated with any religious doctrines, too much blood has been shed in their name, but I do love a church, any place of worship really, but for me, The Divine is best felt most instantly within the natural world). The doors of the church were locked, the time was The Pandemic and the local vicar was warmly enjoying a day in his giant home behind the church with his full, safe, healthy family. I did wonder during those years, where did the homeless go, why were the churches not ‘open for business’, was their faith lacking? Were they tending to the poor, the weak and the sick in other ways? I didn’t see them anywhere. I think they might focus on helping those easiest to help, as is the way of things in our society.
That day, I was determined to beg God for something, so I knocked the vicar awake to his service to his community and asked him to pray with me. He had no idea how to do that. Not all are the same. Once, a beautiful priest based in St Paul’s Cathedral sat and spoke a prayer that healed me and offered hope; a Hindu Priest in India gave me a prayer that I still sing to this day, without understanding a word; and The Call to Prayer for my Islamic friends overseas became a sign of community ritual that I miss, those friends also gave me prayers via WhatsApp in an hour of need. But this local fella, my oh my, what he did was abominable. As I spoke, he was clearly triggered and decided to tell me all the gossip, all the other troubles of the community. My pot was full, overflowing in fact, and this very evident narcissist chose to make me feel worse. After a few minutes I asked him to stop talking, explaining that his stories were not what I came for. He offered to leave me alone in the church and I thanked him…
After that, I attended the altar, threw myself on it and begged for mercy for my family. The next day, Letter One arrived in my heart and hands… So, during those months, when Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was busy shaping a new me, I wrote long, hard, fact-based letters. I did this frequently and often, mostly directing full accountability in the direction of the highest-ranking professional I could find. I did this for a person I love very much. In it all, I forgot myself and lost my previously full health and vitality along with it. Intermittently, I’d attend more traumas, manage more crises… write more letters… before returning to the cage that a world without help had left me in… an empty bed.
After asking for help and finally receiving it, I got back some fragmented pieces of myself. I worked hard with an NHS art psychotherapist for 16 months. She was my angel. Still is sometimes, when her compassionate voice speaks up from memory and reminds me to be gentle with myself, more than that… to remember myself. Sadly, after being discharged more crises came and I declined once again. When I returned to the NHS for further treatment and care 18 months later (once I’d made it through the referrals processes and waiting lists), they simply told me to go home and forget about it, the only justification given was, ‘We only tend to give treatment once’.
After that, I let go of ever asking the NHS for help again, but it turns out there aren’t really any healing facilities for people without financial freedom (Mind is not what you think it is, please read this letter to caution yourself against underqualified interference with your mental health). I imagine it is where many untreated mental health patients are left, in the abyss of the limbo of ‘no help whatsoever’. My fury, along with my love of helping others, resulted in The Self-Help Library! I chose to build what I needed and trust that others would find their way there too. As I introduce you to The Platform, slowly over the coming weeks, I will also be reintroducing it to myself (can I tell you a secret? I am unable to use it myself yet, so please do not judge yourself if you aren’t ‘there’ either).
The Self-Help Library is a place you bring yourself to when you need a little hope, when the darkness is unbearable and you need help remembering that there is a way out. The platform is also able to support a recovery already underway, or simply serve the bettering of one’s health and personal safety. Not everyone will be ready to take the steps today, but I’ve got a secret to tell you… thinking about healing is the first step. Not everybody has the capacity to start right now, to get up, to fight like heck to get better. Not everyone is there, their body isn’t ready, their mind isn’t ready, they are not ready. If this is your situation, be forgiving of yourself. I was, and in truth, the harder I was on myself, the more I told myself that I was wrong to be in bed resting and feeling safe, the harder any other recovery steps became. All I had to do to let go of the shame, self-judgement and comparisons with others, was to remember WHY I was in that position. Anytime I remembered that, I became my own hero, one that chose to do exactly what their own ‘System of Self‘ was instructing them to do…
Be okay with who you are, what your life looks like and where it takes itself. The illusion of control is one’s fiercest enemy. Who would have thought that I’d pray to The Unknown for help in 2020, and that in 2024 I’d be delivering letters that I hoped would come to change other people’s lives too. I am thankful for the blessing, for the gift of being able to do this for others. Please make the most of the online space and feel free to share the love, but remember yourself first. You deserve to be healthy, safe, and free to smile in life. You deserve to like yourself, even at your lowest ebb. There is nothing wrong with anyone who has a ‘mental health’ condition, with anyone who suffers. My gift to you is this, suffering is normal, just so beautifully normal. Lean into it, for it is what makes you human… and you’re allowed to be one, openly, fully, and without apology.
Time to help yourself…
The truth is, many of us expect help to show up when we need it to. Likely, the world has made it pretty hard for anyone to truly show up for you these days. We cannot foresee a future that is fogged by physical health scares, mass-declines in mental health, and food that makes us metaphorically deaf, dumb and stupid.
The truth is, there are no heroes. No one is coming. You can of course ask for help, but now that so many human beings are suffering acutely, the sad reality is, I think there may be too many people to recover via a 1:1 support system. But do not fear, you hold so much power in your choices; unfortunately, choosing the right things when your cognitive functioning is impaired can become very challenging, which is why we recommend the book, Recovery Foundations, to anyone trying to recover from darker times.
