Gum on My Shoe

I was listening to some of my favourite tracks on YouTube and Spotify a few weeks ago and realised many capture aspects of what caring means to me. Here’s a selection in no particular order, each with a note explaining why it resonates for me. Maybe they’ll resonate for you, too. Links are to my favourite versions of the songs on YouTube. I’d like to acknowledge my friend and fellow mental health blogger Aimee Wilson of I’m NOT Disordered who encouraged me to explore what the songs mean to me, rather than simply sharing the lyrics as I’d originally intended. It added hugely to the effort involved in putting this post together — but she was right! I learned a good deal about these songs, their artists and backstories, and the article is far stronger as a result. Thank you, Aimee! 1. You Will Find Me You leave me room for my imperfections I’m a mess and you jump right in If I drift in the wrong direction You turn the tide and you calm the wind Anytime, every time I get los...

But you keep my old scarf from that very first week. Cos it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me. (Elisabeth Wagner Rose / Taylor Alison Swift. “All Too Well.”) I recently met up with a friend I’d not seen in person since last August. As we rediscovered how to do face-to-face after so long relying on chat, voice, and video calls, I was reminded how important the little things can be. Our choice of coffee shop and table, the small gifts, familiar actions, and the recalling of past times we’ve spent together, all reassured us our friendship’s still going strong. And that’s what this post is about. The little acts, customs, and traditions we cherish in our friendships and relationships. They’re not memories as such, but they provide the framework upon which our memories are strung, like beads on a friendship bracelet or fairy lights on a tree. As my friend reminded me, “It’s the little things that count the most.” The best and most potent of these are personal. Not neces...

And I might be okay but I’m not fine at all. (Elisabeth Wagner Rose / Taylor Alison Swift. “All Too Well.”) I wrote recently that I’ve never felt part of any group or collective, even those to which I’ve felt the strongest of attractions. As painful as that’s been, does it really matter? So what if I don’t belong to the tribe of writers and poets I’ve met in the past few years? There’s no lasting harm in discovering I’m not a performance artist! Some exclusions, however, are more perilous. Being excluded from my local recovery college for having no lived experience of mental illness was completely justified, but it left me feeling permanently estranged. If I began displaying symptoms of mental ill-health I’d almost certainly play it down. Not from shame, but because I’d be afraid people would think I was faking it, or exaggerating things in order to “join the club.” The irony is, even with a diagnosis I’d probably still feel I had no legitimate right to be there. I feel a fra...

It’s never about belonging to someone, it’s about belonging together . — Renée Ahdieh Searching for a blog topic the other day, I chanced on some notes from an exchange with Fran in March 2019. It was a time of considerable uncertainty for me, and the snippet arose in a conversation about my options and needs. “I think, Fran, underneath much of this, I have an unmet need to feel I belong.” “The reality is you do belong, everybody does. You just don’t feel it yet.” A great deal has changed since then, but I never addressed this lack of belonging. There are hints scattered here and there in notes, blog posts, and journal entries, but nothing approaching an epiphany. Until now. Reading those old lines again, it came to me that belonging is a longing to be. No more, no less than that. A. Longing. To. Be. But be what? That will be different for everyone. A longing to be successful, perhaps. To be secure. Safe. Loved. Wealthy. What am I longing to be? The first things that spring to ...

This article was inspired by something I saw posted to a mental health social media page: Have you ever gone out of your way to help someone and found out how ungrateful they are? In two and a half months the post has been liked and shared more than three and a half thousand times. It’s attracted over 800 comments, of which these are typical: Unfortunately yes. Yes! People suck! All the time. Too many times but I try not to [help] cuz when I need help there ain’t no one there. Absolutely. It’s left me not wanting to be that kind of good any more. The comments left me feeling sad and disillusioned. I decided to explore why that was. Gratitude Feels Good Let’s start with the obvious. It feels good to have our help acknowledged. At some level, it’s an ego thing, but that’s not necessarily unhealthy. Gratitude is encouraging and guides us to be better people. If someone thanks me I know I’m on the right track. If there’s no feedback, how do I know I’m offering what they n...

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