Hi, my names Abi. You can call me Onearmwonder21 though. I am a writer and a poet though I almost wasn't. In fact, two years ago I almost died. I was only two or three months from my 21st bday hence the reason behind the 21 in my username. I can't really say how I almost died all I can say is I was in an 'accident'. My accident happened on Sept. 25th, 2013. I ended up loosing my writing hand and sustaining a brain injury. I wasn't able to write when I was in the hospital for almost ten weeks. My earliest writing after my accident is hard to understand-even for me. Anyways take care and always stay positive and remember you are not alone.

"A picture can convey a lot, but it can also mask the pain felt deep inside."

What is it like to be classified as mentally ill? What does it feel like?

There’s no short answer to that. But if I was to break it down into some metaphoric-like examples I’d say:

It’s like standing in a crowd surrounded by people, but feeling completely alone inside.

It’s like everyone is running past you, but you’re standing still watching.

It’s like thinking you’ve hit rock bottom, and then finding a bottomless tunnel going downwards.

It’s thinking something has to give, and then it doesn’t, and then starting the sentence over.

It’s like screaming and screaming but your voice comes out as silence.

It’s like your talking, but you’re not speaking, showing emotions but not feeling. Existing but never really being alive.

It’s like you’re writing pleas with your eyes but everyone is blind.

It’s like being burned until your skin blisters, and then frozen until you’re so numb you just want to fade away.

It’s like there’s a huge shadowy figure looming over your shoulder, but when you turn to see it it disappears.

It’s like being told the answer is wrong but never knowing what the question is.

It’s like driving a car while looking out the back window, and trying to figure out where you are and where you’re going.

It’s like seeing your reflection in a shattered mirror and trying to understand the whole.

It’s having happiness snatched from your fingers so many times, that you stop bothering to catch it, and you stop trusting it all together.

It’s needing to sob your heart out, but finding your face is as stone as a statue.

It’s like your mind is sending you pop ups “Feel the pain now?” And you keep pressing “Later”

And therapy?

Therapy is like being stripped naked and thrown into the middle of a football field, and everyone in the crowd is throwing clothes at you and telling you what to wear.

But at the end of the day; you’ve got to choose what to pick up and what to put on. If you try and put everything on, everything’s going to get chaotic, and you’ll be stuck with a thousand t-shirts and skirts and pants and only one body. One mind. The gentle tones, cliche advice and text book social workers can make you feel as if you’re being convicted rather than supported. And misunderstood rather than understood. Everyone’s speaking to you like you’re fragile, about to break, or explode. When realistically you are probably imploding.

Everyone seems to think they have the answer for you don’t they? When it started, how it happened, what you’re supposedly ‘really’ like. Like it’s a story that had to have a beginning point, and you’re in the middle of it and they are going to predict the ending from here. Well, despite our movie and storybook perception on life that society seems to adopt, life isn’t a story with a set beginning that goes In Chronological order from A to B and then to C. It gives us lessons everyday that can change what was once a beginning into an ending, or what was once good, bad. And what once hurt, Heal. It’s just perception.

What I’m trying to say, is that there doesn’t have to be one thing that happened to clock over and change a person from mentally healthy to mentally ill. I’m not saying its impossible, but I’m saying its what most people assume and it mostly isn’t the case. It could have been a ‘series of unfortunate events’ (Thanks Lemony), and it just kind of changed you slowly, like a plant growing inside your mind that starts to strangle your ability to thrive. It’s you, and you’re it. It could have been our individual perception and reaction to life, which makes others consider us as being ill in the mind. This doesn’t make us weak, this doesn’t make us victims, it makes us different. But isn’t everyone?

Of course, we are suffering. We have suffered, we are suffering and on top of that we are going to suffer a bit more. We wish we could take the outsiders inside us and show them the world through our eyes, but we know we can’t do that. And so many of us feel like prisoners and captives inside our heads. Like we are innocents locked inside as a crime. Most of the time we are fretting about the exterior, and how to make the exterior work with the interior. When we really just need to start understanding the interior, and stop stressing so much about how we are perceived in the outer world, because it is unpredictable. All we can do is learn to understand our inner worlds, so as to function In turn, in the outer one.

Because answers don’t come from others, because there is no set resolution. Individuality is something we all have, and it is neither positive nor negative. It is just a difference in perspectives. People offering you their opinions and their values about how to help someone who is in a dark place get into a supposing better, lighter one, should never be taken literally. The opinions and ideas of others are ‘considerations’ not things to be taken on as burdens. I used to feel like I was weaker than the rest of the walk of life, that the people who told me I was a victim must have been right. I believed I deserved to be punished, because it might toughen me up. That I had to make myself hurt more so that I could learn to tolerate it more. And what happened? Much too much self torture and allowing myself to be abused, because I thought everyone else had the answers for me. Then one day I learned that I didn’t have to hurt and hate myself anymore.

YOU choose what comes into your world, YOU choose what you want to believe, and YOU ride in the front seat of your car because its your bloody car in the first place isn’t it? Don’t hand someone else the break or the wheel. It’s not their control.

Somewhere inside you know that no matter how deep you’ve buried that love, you are worth all of it, and every kind thought you send to yourself. You can’t keep feeding that sprout hate and torture and expecting it to bloom flowers! Sure, like the rose, we all need our thorns and we all have them. But don’t be sleeping beauty stuck inside her immense black thorny forest of darkness, waiting for some miracle of a prince to come cut you out with his answers and solutions. You are the prince, you are the princess, and you are the thorns. Don’t let anyone else tell you how to get out of the maze.

While I’m sure you are sick of my metaphors already, I’m going to throw another at you afterall. If your life was a car, and you were riding in it then you’d understand that it’s a pretty confusing drive most of the time. Half the time it’s because we’re expecting ourselves to know the destination. But we can’t and we don’t, and its ever changing (No beginning and no end is set in stone), and dammit it’s just the ride that counts. So don’t listen to Barry who thinks taking the next left is going to be great for you because right turned out poorly back along the line, or Roald who thinks turning back and going in the opposite direction is going to be A-Ok for you, or Betty who seems to think stopping and taking a piss on the side of he road is going to be exceptionally beneficial to your welfare.

Don’t fill up your cup with pointless advice, or its just going to overflow and turn the world into chaos. When you want to learn and observe someone else’s advice, do so, don’t take it on as a burden. Feel free to dismiss it, disregard it, forget it and let it fly away free from you. Advice is optional. Always. It’s not an answer to a multiple choice question. It can be A B C and/or D. Your choice. If you don’t know what your doing, accept you don’t and spend time being clueless. Don’t fret and run to someone else and take them literally if they tell you they know the universal secrets to living a fulfilling life. I’m completely honest with you when I say you already have all the answers your hurting over, and frustrating yourself about. That’s why sometimes we go “aha! That makes sense” when someone tells us something we subconsciously knew about ourselves but didn’t hear our inner voice enough to get it first hand. We always seem to want it confirmed by an outside source. And if you find a therapist who can do that, then they are likely a person with a fantastic ability to empathise and build a bridge between two minds to help them understand something they know but can’t translate themselves. Then, my friend, you’ve got yourself a really good therapist, a really good friend or significant other.

You know, if there was a flow to life, then being one of the “mentally ill” is having that flow stop. Like being thrown out of the flow and onto the sidelines. Instead of having reactions and experiences occur automatically we have to somewhat build them manually. It doesn’t come naturally, it’s like the rest of the world is blissfully asleep and you’ve suddenly snapped awake into consciousness. It’s like suddenly you’ve got a watch on your wrist, and while everyone is enjoying or immersed in the flow, you’re watching the clock face the entire time, watching how the minutes tick by, agonisingly slow and mechanical like. No matter what you do you can’t tear your eyes away from that watch. You can’t forget it’s there. You can’t stop the moments breaking apart, can’t stop having to remind yourself you’re supposed to laugh, you’re supposed to cry, and smile and frown. Because you’re out of the flow, you’re that 0.1% that is now in a different frequency, and the other 99.9% of the population won’t shut up for a minute between the rants of how you got there, and how bad it is that you are, and need to leave it, and how ill you are, to tell you that the frequency is somewhere you are going to learn to live. And they can’t tell you how to do that. It’s a secret you’ve been told and its changed everything and you can’t un-hear it now. You’ve lost everything and more, so having it back can’t erase the fear of losing it again. Something has changed in you. And yeah, that could be a plural too. Basically, Someone’s taken your favourite book and thrown ink all over the last page, and you can’t keep trying to scrape the crap off and figure out how it ends. You need to start blank and rewrite.

Those who are still in the flow, I watch mostly, often telling those who are out of it that they just need to jump back in. “just be grateful, you’ve got this, and that” they drone. And so they think its their fault they feel the way they do, and that it’s a choice and you can leave it, like you supposedly chose it. No, no and no. Others in the flow might tell them they are just being too negative. Again like they choose to be non-positive; again, this is so far from the case. This makes them beat themselves up for beating themselves up for beating themselves up, and then you’ve just got this paradox that never solves anything.

Out of the flow, life is different. You can’t spend your life waving your arms about in a panic because you can’t get back to where everyone else is. It’s a new world for you. With new emotional heights, in both ups and downs. With whole new perspectives that always give more than you would anticipate. There is no medication you can take that’s going to put you back there, retract the secret and make you forget. No doctor who speaks golden words that change the way you work into something legitimate. You’re human, not a computer with a fucking virus. And because you see this in your perspective now, and see that it isn’t set, it isn’t easy; you learn to crawl here, then you learn to limp, walk and maybe someday run. And it is the way it is, we can’t concentrate on why it happened to be us who got thrown out, there is no reason, and if there is we aren’t going to figure it out until God himself tells us why. Know that you aren’t alone here, there is others too. And now you can look for inspiration in the right places.

http:/ /mindfulofthoughts. / 2012/ 12/ 12/ mental-illness-whats-it-feel-like-some-ideas-and-outlooks

"My Favorite written words":

YogolanA by crimsonstylus

In a perfect world, things would be as it should be. Our paths might have intertwined. Our souls, connected.

This was not the case. It broke apart. Shattered. For we were weak.

Things are supposed to be great. The gears could still be turning, dancing, singing its noble hymn.

A dream divided us. We were worlds apart. We could not see each other. We could have been deceived.

Both our minds were confused. A dazed. Oblivious to the truth.

Perhaps you've been spared. But, what of me?

In a perfect world, things would be as it once was. Our paths, together. Our souls, in sync.

This was not the case. We were severed. Betwixted. For I was weak.

Life plays with hopes and dreams. Delusions and ideals, burned into the back of our minds. We were apart.

Our wishes, were different. Our craft, contradictory. Our lives, polar. Our suffering, the same.

Both our hearts were at extremes. You're not ready. I am too eager. Both yearning at different times.

Perhaps I've been hasty, fearful, loathesome...

In a perfect world, we would have never met. Our paths, never to have crossed. Our souls, strangers.

This was not the case. We've met. Connected. For we were glad.

Things were supposed to be like that. Just you and I, friends. Oblivious to the truth.

A moment divided us. Our worlds, severed. It was because I was fearful.

Now, you are bathed in light, affection, support.

What of I? I do not matter.

As long as your smile beams, to me, it will be all just a dream... A bittersweet dream...

"Sometimes I wonder if it was a type of love, friendship, obsession or all three."

Picture by another writer on fictionpress-

Picture

A picture captures a moment It may be good or bad Happy or sad You may put them in frames Or tear them to your hearts content

They cover my walls I look at the ones of you and me when I cry And when I cant stand I sit down by your picture With my head in my hands And I cry I try to not do this often But I hold in all my tears during the day And your picture watches me while I cry The picture doesn't hug me I close my eyes and pretend you are here Pretend that you are hugging me Whispering in my ear I love you Like how you used to

Only two months Then I won't see you again Unless you choose to be where I am Because I don't know where you will be

I won't forget how happy I was When your arms wrapped around me And my head rested on your chest I listened to your wonderful heartbeat It was so musically sound Calming my tears When I found the cut on your wrist And you told me it was no accident Waves of sorrow hit me You saw how much I cared And so you let me see the sharp objects You told me to throw them away All I could do Was hug you And tell you that I love you

But before that You asked me to be the one you called your girlfriend I was shocked and told you to give me time I was so close to telling you yes But then you got a girlfriend

I accepted that I was too late I took my punishment bravely We laughed We talked But you weren't single So you had to put me on the back burner I understood But it still hurt

Well you broke up with her But only a day after you started dating another She didn't and doesn't like me She tried pushing me away But I didn't stop loving you So she took you away I tried to reason with her But it ended with me breaking down There were so many witnesses to my tears But only my brother and a teacher tried to aid my pain I sat in that small room the teacher took me to I cried and cried He left and I cried harder But you don't even know that Even though the only thing that separated us was on thin wall While you played your baritone I listened to the bands melodies I just sat in that chair And let my heart break

After that you asked for forgiveness and so did she I gladly gave it to you But I was now scared of her Her cruel words were forever replaying in my mind But things went to an almost normal between us If only it stayed

We were in the band hall I wanted a hug You were refusing and said you were nervous I was so confused on why But then you placed that note in my pocket And I looked at it and I was hoping my worst case scenario was not coming true But it was So I read the note And to my dismay It started the tears That I cry When I look at your picture On my closet door

Poem I found on fictionpress that reminds me of my year long obsession with a girl named Caroline. She was my crimson Rose gorgeously beutiful, but at the same time deadly with thorns so sharp they pierced my heart and soul till there was almost nothing else left of me. I was almost dead and dry and then I met HER. The one that saved me and wrapped her wings around the holes and gave me reason to live again. I am sure though that maybe one day I have yet to meet my soulmate. Wherever he is though I do NOT know.

The Bloody Rose

That rose had dawned a gentle red
it dangled loosely in my hand.
Without a care or thought or dread
I lay upon the soaken sand.

Because I sought a deeper red
that rose was my infinity.
I prayed for it, though I'd be dead,
drinks granting it divinity.

Repeatedly I woke with fright,
but it remained throughout my rest.
I gazed upon it in the light
and wrapped it closer to my chest.

I cluthced it tighly in my sleep
dreaming only of the morning.
My blood had never run so deep
underneath the crimson morning.

But it sought a different red:
barbed talons through my flesh did rip.
Lying alone, alone I bled.
Foul curse! I crushed it in my grip.

The darkness swathéd round and round!
The darkness filtered through my veins!
Though dropped upon the muddy ground,
the blood remains; the rose remains.