Lived Experience Forum

[GonePirate]

as always loving your stuff

[Silenus]

Cheers Cap'n... 🙂

[Silenus]

Fear. This is an important thing when we are animals in the wild. It keeps us alive. It triggers our fight or flight instincts.

But in this age of overthinking, anxiety creeps in. Fear ramps up. We can often become paralysed by our fears. These fears, fed by a lifetime of experiences, of hurts, of pain, can limit us in profound ways if we let them.

This poem deals with the fear that I identified and faced. After my major breakdown in 2011, I feared I would never be able to properly function again. That fear lingers still at the edges, as I have yet to prove that I can once again function in this world...

In certain things, we need to be fearless, or at least act that way...

I Turned Around for but a Moment

I turned around for but a moment,
My concentration briefly lost,
And when I tried to gather that fragment,
I found that twenty years had passed.

Where were those dreams of yesteryear,
The mountains I thought I’d conquer?
Why is there now this marrow-deep fear
As I cower, head down, in my bunker?

I remember a me so young, so proud, so strong,
Striding through creation as if I owned it,
Firm in the knowledge I could do no wrong,
Physically at my peak and mentally fit.

Now I hunker down by the sputtering fire,
Of the wisdom from things I have learned,
Too often I see obstacles before me and tire,
A gnarled twig once too often burned.

I know I need to warm these bones,
And once again venture into the world,
But all I hear are wolves’ hungry tones,
And I find myself by this fire curled.

All this wisdom is all well and good –
It’s a measure of all that I am;
But it needs to be more than just firewood,
Or excuses to do nothing ad nauseam.

Fear of pain is a mighty hurdle,
And one that we all must face;
And even though my blood may curdle,
I will pick myself up and the future embrace.

[BlueBay]

@Silenus

You are so talented with your poems.  I can resonate with this one too.  Fear - that is huge for me.  Can I ask you?  - how did you let go of the fear? Because at the moment fear is holding me back; it's paralysing me; and it scares me so much.  Anxiety levels creeps up and it's a rollercoaster ride for me.

Love to hear back from you 🙂

[Silenus]

Thank you @BlueBay 🙂

It means a lot to me as a writer (and person) that my words resonate with others...

How did I let go of my fear? That's a tough one, and a very individual journey.

I think for me it all changed when I honestly and seriously asked myself this question: "What is the worst that can happen?"

The answer to that question set me free, and released fear's grip on me. The answer was that, more than likely, the worst that could happen was not as bad as being trapped by my fear. For years, I was paralysed and so much less than I could be. I realised this was so much worse than the occasional scratches and scrapes I would get from failing or falling short...

Failure is not a bad thing when we learn from it. Then it actually becomes a good thing. By repositioning our thinking like that, failure and fear start to lose their power over us...

It's a subtle shift, a sidestep. For me, it has worked. I'm still riddled by fear and anxiety, but I work my way through it, and reality is very rarely as bad as my fears make it out to be...

[Sehnsucht]

Silenus, your therapy is so beautiful 🙂

Is it OK for me to offer something I penned here, or should I start my own thread? x

[Silenus]

Hi @Sehnsucht 🙂

Thank you for your compliment. I would be honoured if you (and others) shared your words on this thread.

It's all about the therapy, and the art we create in the process. Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you. 🙂

[Sehnsucht]

It has been wonderful to read that others too find therapeutic value in writing.

For me, pen and paper is a place without judgement. Judgement from others, and from myself.
I get overwhelmed with precision, lose grasp of what is yes or no or right or wrong or real or unreal. You ask me a question, I cannot answer. I cannot answer to not answering. No, the answer is answering. But I didn't answer. I should have answered. No I shouldn't. Wait, what again?
I have a thought, it gets this same scrutiny. I can't ground even my own thoughts.

But pen and paper isn't a place that can come under later questioning from others, if I keep it hidden. Pen and paper allows a free-flow from mind to existence before my mind denies that opportunity.

So a lot of what I write when I sit down to mind vomit is, well, mind vomit. But it's pretty, and I keep it all. One has to pander to their delusions of artistic or philosophical fame, you know.


I also write in moments of clarity, when I feel something whole. Not necessarily positive, it can be negative, or neutral. But whole. Sehnsucht, if you will. Usually in a moment of complete grounding, where I am present in the moment and nothing more.


I wrote this particular piece when in recovery from my acute episode of the above. I had found place in my mind, but there was no place for me beyond that. The outer world was so full of contradictions itself, it was madenning. And yet despite my 'crazy' perhaps being a mere reflection of reality itself, I didn't find a place in it. I would wake up, and want to hide away back in my mind. Do away with fuelling my body, engaging with others, thinking. But the whole reason I had begun working to 'recover' was a strange sense of 'home'. Of innocence. Of recalling a time when I woke up to my existence excited and joyful.
Recovery was harder than the acute episode, for me. It was a lonely, incredibly draining place where every breath and step required wilful push. There was no rest.

The reason I love this piece so much, is that it travels with me, it resonates, wherever and whatever my frame of mind. It morphs in meaning and direction, it makes me regard it as so complete. And it's this completeness that I find so fascinating. And continuously therapeutic, beyond the time of writing.
It's incredible how piecing words together has such power and versatility.



Bits of high school come
Flooding back
Through the doors to
The outside world.

And I don't know if I can make it
Coming home.


Slipped into daylight
Bright banana peel
The sun and moon laugh
Like poor politicians

And I don't think I can hack their
Enemy love.


Clouds don't cover
The pain
It doesn't rain
Happy shades of gucci grey ambivalence

And I don't feel I can fake it
All alone.

No matter where you slept the day
No matter where you tripped that night
Happiness gets shafted
Through dust at dawn

And I refuse to believe you can take it
In a pill.


When the clock on my bedside zeros
In my room
With my things
Time hasn't passed and it hasn't changed.
High school photos frame my aged reflection
And certificates of acheivement
Hang over the holes
I have not filled.

I just don't know I'll still be here
When I wake up for real
Back inside


And I don't know if I can make it
Coming home.

[Silenus]

Beautiful, @Sehnsucht

Thank you for sharing this. Writing is so individual, and so universal at the same time...

[Silenus]

I wrote this poem to celebrate a spiritual moment of epiphany that I had back in the early 1990s. Way before I knew that I was bipolar, way before I knew I suffered from depression, and way before I knew anything at all about Mindfulness or being present in the Now moment, I experienced something one particular morning as I was getting ready to head to my day's university lectures.

I was stressed and overworked. University wasn't easy for me - my memory is not too good (another symptom of bipolar, as I was to learn many years later), and so I had to work extra hard to pass the exams. As I now know, I had fallen into depression, and was really struggling to find a reason to go on.

There I sat, one winter morning in my garden, overthinking, worrying, stressing, dissociating. I was anywhere but in the present moment. And then a rainbow flicker caught my eye. It was the morning dew caught on a spider's web, glittering in the light of the sun.

The breathtaking beauty of this simple thing broke the spell I was under, drew me instantly into a profound experience of Mindfulness, and successfully stopped my advancing depression in its tracks. It was a very spiritual moment for me, and it has stayed with me for 25 years as one of those magical life moments.

It took me 22 years after the event to finally be able to process and write this poem about that moment. I hope you like it.

Eight Legs, Silk, Water and Light

I woke this morning, full of dread,
My inner demons, playing with my head,
They ripped at me, their talons cruel,
I considered hiding, a poor scared fool.

But something stopped me from playing dead,
And I rose from the comfort of my bed,
Dressed and ate my morning gruel,
Then entered my garden’s morning cool.

I sat on a rock, waiting for who knows what,
Not really caring for life one jot,
And as I waited, lo and behold,
Something caught my eye, and it was gold.

The sun was shining, not yet hot,
I focused on this thing, within eyeshot,
I watched transfixed, this thing unfold,
This natural wonder, both subtle and bold.

The light was shining oh so bright,
And the angle there was just so right,
I caught my breath, and stared in wonder,
It stopped my world from tearing asunder.

A spider’s web, so fragile and light,
Studiously built the previous night,
And here was I, in my morning blunder,
Trying to stop myself from going under.

The morning dew, wet and pendulous,
Hung from silky strands, fey and fabulous
The morning light, full of promise,
Caught my eye with visual bliss.

The spider caught me with its stimulus,
I stopped for a moment, feeling tremulous,
Nature, I realised, is oh so flawless,
And I gathered strength from seeming weakness.

Eight legs, silk, water and light,
Who’d have thought it would end my night?
Such simple parts that make a whole,
Warmth for my heart, salve for my soul.