On another grey and cold summer day you find me alone at home listening to Puccini. Apart from Gareth my butcher I haven't seen a soul all day. The nightmares came back as I tried to sleep. Not a good start.
The last 10 weeks have made me reflect on who I am, what I am and how people perceive me. The hammer blow on 9th May of someone so close slamming the door in my face with no explanation still reverberates. Like the terrifying sound of the metal door in the asylum all those summers ago.
For the most part people praise, wonder, revere and are inspired by my story of survival in the mental health world. Indeed almost exactly 30 years ago the prognosis on my discharge papers read "likely to commit suicide within 6 months". What a horrible thing to say. But I survived those 6 months, the next 12 months and indeed 29 years.
Yet I still have to live with the pain of the present. My reflection was a lot to do with the university where I worked for 14 years. There too high praise as well as poison. In the time since people from that world have fallen silent, ignored me or overtly cut off contact. That's painful to live with.
During the week though I saw 2 people from there on the street. On Tuesday I bumped into a former student who asked if he could hug me. Then yesterday I bumped into a former colleague who also hugged me and relayed they still talk about me and still miss me.
That not all from the past want to shut down from me brings strength when needed, validation that is needed and reaffirmation that I'm not the failed and flawed character my paranoia tells me but someone loved, thought about and valued. I need that.
I Heard a Voice.
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