Poetry Saved My Life — Twice.

The first time I left with a broken tooth. The second time…

I’m writing this to reach those who suffer in silence.

If it wasn’t for poetry, I’m not sure where I would be right now. One thing is for certain though — my mental health would’ve definitely continued a steep decline to my demise.

Why Narrative Therapy is So, So Important

When I think about the state of mental health, what worries me most is; the amount of time people dedicate to striving and goal-setting GREATLY outweighs the time we dedicate to stillness and introspection.

I understand that actions speak louder than words and you need to put in the work to achieve what you’re determined to do (yada, yada).

BUT

The problem occurs when you use your ambition as an excuse to neglect the time needed to intentionally wire the pathways in your brain that reiterate the stories you tell yourself.

That’s where writing comes in.

In the 2021 report from Mental Health America, 46% of people who were screened for moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety and depression said that past trauma was one of the top three things contributing to their mental health problems.

That’s 46% of people suffering from a problem that no one has the ability to fix except themselves.

There’s no magic pill that rids of trauma.

Relieving yourself from its grip requires you to face it, head-on.

The challenge with leaving past trauma unaddressed is that you constantly relive the narratives that were formed during that turbulent time.

Your brain and emotions work together to prevent you from ever being in that vulnerable position again.

It seems like a way form of protecting yourself at first but, in truth, you’re hindering yourself.

You’re preventing yourself from opening up to love, embracing your full potential, and learning to trust people.

You think you’ve moved on but really, you’re stuck.

It’s Starts Young

I used to run up to my mom’s room and log onto our 2000s Windows PC to continue the short stories I’d been creating the day before.

My imagination took me into adventures of heroes and great expeditions.

Writing made me feel creative, inspired, and…free.

But I started feeling guilty about my inability to support my family at 12 years old.

With a single mom from Jamaica managing two kids on her own—I was introduced early to signs that things weren’t okay.

That’s when the survival mindset kicked in.

That’s when the anxiety began.

It’s also when I got serious about life and started thinking about the fastest ways to make money and the best career path to bring abundance to my family.

Because of the fun and joy that writing brought me, it became a “hobby” that I no longer had time for—it was time to focus all my attention on actions that could put food on the table and keep the lights on for a full month.

Then the Lightning Struck

In 2008, we moved to Ontario to be closer to my mom’s brothers and sisters, hoping to have the support of a larger community.

But that didn’t turn out as we had thought.

In 2012, my brilliant sister suffered her first psychotic episode, was brought to the nearest hospital and diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Just as quick as you read that sentence is as quick as it happened.

No one knew what to do.

My mother had to focus all her time on my sister’s recovery and I….well, I was left on my own a lot of the time.

14

Low-income

Single-parent

Scattered family

Can you see how the survival mindset and fears of scarcity developed?

Over 7 years, my sister was shuffled through 7 different hospitals.

There was a time my mother had to abruptly leave the province and spend months on end in another province to care for my sister.

I felt like I had nowhere to go.

Until a God-given family offered to take me in.

For the next 5 years, I lived with family friends on and off, because my real home wasn’t a happy place to be.

But the way I took on independence wasn’t healthy.

And neither was the way I dealt with my emotions.

With no channel for self-expression (like writing), the emotions I kept in were bound to implode.

An Era of Self-Sabotage

Starting at about 16 years old, I used alcohol to numb my pain and escape my thoughts.

It landed me in some bad situations but none as bad as my third year of university.

I was unable to go home for Christmas for the second year in a row because I had no money for the flight and neither did my mom.

It was frustrating because I knew she was struggling alone and, honestly, she is the nicest person you’ll ever meet. So, once again, those narratives popped up in my head again.

“Why can’t you do more?”

“You’re worthless”

“Why did you even take this leap of faith if it’s not giving you the ability to support the family like you intended?”

“What are you doing with your life?”

My friends and I went to the club one last time before everyone would be heading home for the Christmas season.

I blacked out that night.

Apparently, I said something to the wrong guy and got knocked a few times before members of my football team were able to jump into my rescue.

That’s the story. I remember about 5% of that night.

I got beat up pretty badly.

I couldn’t pronounce words that started with “s” for the next few months after getting 3 of my bottom teeth replaced.

I was alone that Christmas season and with all that time to myself I decided to open my notebook, write down every thought I had to get to the bottom of my cycles of self-sabotage.

Writing came to save me.

The Power of the Pen

I started taking my healing process quite seriously after that night. Writing poetry gave me the ability to externalize the narratives in my head and discover the story of their origin like watching two actors on a stage.

I started out by naming a negative belief before writing about how that belief came to be. Then, I’d end every single poem with what I planned to do about it.

I started sharing these stories with my friends because, if they felt so empowering to me, they could possibly create the same impact for others.

And I was right.

I started sharing these poems on open mic nights in a community cafe.

I started using poetry to address larger issues in the world that whittled down to impact individuals in ways I had been experiencing.

Poverty.

Child Welfare.

Mental Health/Illness.

My spoken word career took off from there and I ended up doing some big collaborations with broadcast companies like CBC Radio. I was even asked to compete nationally. But instead, I wanted to teach young people how to wield the power of the pen and their voice. So I declined and delivered workshops for the next 5 years.

But as I grew older, new responsibilities set in.

Once again, I lost touch with writing as I focused on “more immediate issues.”

Little did I know that writing would be there to save me again. This time, when I couldn’t breathe.

“I Can’t Go Out Like This..”

Flash forward another 5 years. I’m 26, I’m engaged, and living in Ireland.

I have a good job in marketing, I’m close to family, and I’m living in my first house.

Yet, something feels off.

I’m stressed to bits every day at work because I still tie my livelihood to a paycheck and I worry that I could be cut at any time.

No matter my achievements over the years, that same narrative I thought I had escaped was still there.

“You’re not good enough.”

One month, I developed a compressed feeling in my chest. My heart would beat rapidly for most of the workday. And one morning—I found myself unable to breathe properly.

I thought I was having a heart attack. Or, maybe a panic attack. My chest felt like it was closing. I started to take deeper breaths (deeper) as I walked to the shower (somehow thinking that would help) and only spoke when I was spoken to.

It was in the shower, as I felt my chest closing up, that I thought I would be rushed to the hospital within minutes.

I broke down.

There was no other culprit to this end than me.

Regardless of my will to be better, I still couldn’t escape this insidious pressure to become something more worthy.

And now, I would have to pay for all the years of stress I put on myself.

“Not like this,” I thought.

That’s when it hit me.

“I need to write.”

I finished my deep breathing in the shower, slowly got dressed, and went downstairs to my writing spot.

Just like many years ago, I let my emotions drip onto the page.

I wrote about my ancestors.

I wrote about the lies of trauma and why it felt so difficult just to take up space.

But I also wrote about being saved.

By community that barely knew me.

By an Irish woman that knew how to love me.

And by writing, which was a gift bestowed upon me to reap rewards from the inner fight.

I said:

“Diving deep into the belly of turmoil, I found a mirror that reflects the light.”

Don’t Forget to Write for Yourself

There’s a lot of opportunities online to make a career out of writing. People will tell you that you are not the main character of your story — your readers are.

This is true.

However, your readers can learn a lot from your personal story.

It’s not about using Medium or other writing platforms as your diary, but rather about passing on the wisdom from those diary entries to someone who just might be facing a similar situation.

Be the hero of your own story first, truly.

Then pass it on.

You must learn to enjoy your gift as much as you work it.

Because writing will never leave you.

In the haste to “make it” by leveraging your gift—don’t forget to spend time thanking it as well.

You never know, writing just might save your life one day.