The Second Poem

This one pretty much speaks for itself.
I had just been through the first of many sessions of therapy, and this one focused on my childhood. I then started to compare those of my daughter and me. I think at the time I was also trying to work out how to be a better mother. I'm still convinced I will never succeed, but am a lot more relaxed about it all now.

What a Child Needs

What is it that a child really needs,
Can she get it from a film or in the book that she reads?
Can she watch it on a video with the the Teletubbies on
Or hear it from a DJ when she listens to Radio One?
Can she feel it in the weather when the snow is falling down
Or taste it in the burger she eats when she's in town?
Can she get it from the toy that you buy her out of guilt
When bitterness and arguments are how your relationship is built?
A child needs love that's unconditional
Not whatever's seen to be traditional.
She can see it in the smile you wear upon your face
And hear it in your cheers not matter how she runs the race.
She can feel it in your touch when you give her a big hug
And taste it in the medicine you give to cure a bug.
She can smell it in the cakes you bake her in the oven
And see it when you hang up all the pictures to you she's given.
She knows it when you're there at her bedside when she's ill
And as a shoulder to cry on when she leaves her boyfriend, Phil.
A child should be treasured, never take her for granted
That's where the seeds of love forever will be planted.

The First Poem

Back before I started therapy, I would occasionally try to express my feelings through poetry. Much of it was terrible but just a few would really begin to say how I was feeling at the time. When I wrote this first one, I was still married (the first time) I showed it to my husband and he completely missed the point. I know it's not the best of work but I had hoped he would see something in it. Alas, that was never to be the case.

Why?

Why do I feel tired all the time?

Why do I struggle just to say "I'm fine?"

Why is my memory so poor

Except for things I did when I was four?

Why has my libido gone?

Why does everything I do seem wrong?

Why do I hate birthdays so much?

Why do I shy away from his touch?

Why do I always want to cry

Without ever really knowing "Why?"

What am I doing on here?

This is my therapy.
It isn't really meant to be read by anyone. Anyone who does read it needs to be prepared to not like what they read. I accept no responsibility for feelings being hurt even though that is not in any way the intention. I have found so many times in the past that writing down my feelings and thoughts helps me to deal with them and that is the sole reason for this blog - nothing else.
Feel free to share in my thoughts, but I do not really want or need feedback.

That being said, if you do read it, I hope you can thereafter have some understanding of where I've been, what I've done and how it's affected me.

I've suffered from clinical depression for most of my life dating right back to my childhood. I probably would have recovered from the childhood traumas had I not then proceeded to spend 12 years married to the wrong man. This will all become more evident in my posts. I'm not saying my ex was a bad person, just that we should never have married and I was wrong to have worked so hard to keep the marriage together when it was such a poor match in the first place.

I've had various sessions of therapy and it was only the last set, based around schema therapy, that really helped to make my life make sense. That, coupled with the fact that I have now found my soul mate, is helping me to make quite a remarkable recovery, although there is still a very, very long way to go. I cannot emphasise enough how critical my relationship with Phil has been towards my recovery (and Lyta for that matter.) Everyone needs a "rock" in their lives and Phil is mine.