COGS IN THE WHEEL

As a person with a lived experience of mental health distress, I am rather curious, during these times of COVID-19, about various responses being employed by the many cogs in the wheel. It appears apt and actually quite accurate to draw similarities to the cogs, we as the so fashionably termed ‘mentally ill’, have, through necessity and calls to survival, maintained and successfully transformed. Those of course, who have managed to navigate their way off the wheel.

So, are the cogs perhaps discovering the uncertainty of the wheel? Are they panicking as a result of a wheel which appears to be confused, misinformed, and maybe even lying? I can’t help but relate my own lived experience, when reality was indeed confusing, misinformed and potentially dishonest. Are our popular attempts at controlling the external world to ease our internal worlds finally being challenged? Or possibly even reversed? As someone who has made it through parts of these evolving positions, I can say…IT WILL BE OK :) Finding space to sit with uncertainty is overwhelmingly freeing and quite beautiful. Although initially provoking anxiety, panic, intrusive thoughts, depression and psychosis, uncertainty has proven to be a lovely place to be.

Another somewhat interesting and immensely dissonant observation I have experienced of late, is the highly ‘risk averse’ wheel now turning in a way which seems to be welcoming and promoting risk, unbeknownst to its faithful followers. Surely the wheel has our best interests at heart? It’s been there in our times of need, giving us work to enable its spinning, providing us the means to nourish our working bodies, educating our young to one day also contribute to the spinning, encouraging our unemployed and hungry to also be cogs…and most importantly, the wheel makes us happy…right?

The truth and happiness found in my lived experience have surfaced through allowing this cog to question, think critically, read, talk, express…and repeat…continually. Not only has it contributed to shaping how I fit and identify how to influence the direction of the wheel, but also, I have learnt that I am the only person accountable and responsible for the survival, mental health and happiness of this cog, in the hope that the wheel will also thrive.

Much love always <3 :)