Tag Archives: poem

Carer Poem : The Journey by Matthew McKenzie

Welcome everyone especially unpaid carers. I am preparing a lot of things for Carers Week 2022. It looks to be an exciting set of activities for carers and those that work with them across the UK.

I am also been busy working on my new book for this year. It is a poetry book on the experiences of providing care to those suffering mental illness. This is from the perspective of an unpaid carer.

Here is one of my latest videos on the Poem “The Journey” and also a reflection of that poem.

The poem is from a book I am working on is called “The Poetry book of mental health caring” as you can see from the cover below

The Poetry book of Mental Health Caring

I am hoping to release the book on Amazon this year, perhaps around the Autumn, but it is not just a book containing poems. The book will ask readers to reflect regarding the nature of the poem. One of the NHS trust’s I talked to felt it could be useful for training, even though a lot of focus is on unpaid carers to reflect on the nature of the poem and how it could help them.

Anyway, I am hoping to blog more of my poems soon.

Mental Health poem by Matthew McKenzie

Welcome to my latest blog post. It has been a while since I have uploaded a poem. I have written close to 65 poems on the carer experience since the start of this year. Slowly a fair number of poems will be uploaded to my YouTube Playlist. The poems will play by themselves.

Plus I have added some podcasts of my poems

https://caringmindblog.com/carer-poetry-series/

My latest poem is called “Confusion”

This poem is quite dark, but tells an often all too familiar story where the carer is trying to care for someone who has relapsed into mental illness. There are no beds or resources for the person who is very sick and thus the carer is confused on what to do. She will stick it out and try and cope as she watches her ‘loved one’ descend into madness.

Confusion by Matthew McKenzie

I sit and wait wondering what is next
Too scared to look at whats before me
The phone sits on the table, i am not sure who to call
I just dont know…I have tried before

The sounds…so distressing, so much is on me
but time is going so slow as my mind torments me
I look at him as his eyes look straight past
My heart sinks as my mind is harassed

Minute by minute..hour by hour
Not a word heard or a form of contact
I sit and wait wondering whats next
confusion takes me and I cannot find the solution.

Look after yourself – Carer poem by Matthew McKenzie

No one ever told you that you will be doing this
Yet here you are trying to cope
Trying to care

No one ever told you how much you both will suffer
Yet you are are trying your best
Being there

No one ever told you that things could go wrong
And yet each day you struggle
hoping the illness to disappear

No one ever told you about the sacrfices
Yet you will keep sacrificing
Year after year

No one ever told you about the future
Yet you are putting it on the line
facing it with fear

No one ever told you that you was a carer
Still caring?
Look after yourself.

The thin line of Patience – Carer Poem by Matthew McKenzie

This poem is number 9 of the new book I am working on regarding the experience of care expressed as poetry.

I am looking at that clock again
Tick tock, tick tock
The sound is driving me crazy
Tick tock, tick tock

His in the ward again, being detained
It has been weeks now, and I am going insane
All these thoughts rushing through my brain
Wondering when if things will ever be the same

I think I will sit down and watch the TV
Maybe if I put something on, the time will pass easy
My brain hurts and my stomach is queasy
Oh when will they ring, so someone can inform me

While the TV is on, its only been 20 minutes
Nothings good worth watching and I am hitting my limits
The sound of that clock, its making me fidgit
Maybe I ll head out and see him on one of my visits

Oh I don’t know. Why am I doing this
I rang them ages ago, something is amiss
I grit my teeth, have a frown
Something needs to turn around
No one is calling
My heart is falling
My patience is gone and I am about to start bawling

Poem Time – Carers and co-production

Welcome to another blog post by carer rep, author and poet Matthew McKenzie. I have just released another poem called “Being Part of it”. As an unpaid carer I was involved in many co-production and involvement meetings, especially to help shape Health & Social care services.

Having unpaid carers and service users become involved in shaping services will help provide services that have such stakeholders in mind. There has often been criticism of where professionals design services and those services do not work out well because the patients or families and carers were not involved in such design.

At those involvement meetings, I often thought how could I express my experiences to other unpaid carers and with this poem, I now have the method to share my experiences.

To view my poem please watch the video below.

Valentines day and its relation to care

Welcome to my latest blog post.

Did you know it is Valentine’s day for Feb the 14th 2022? I am sure you have not forgotten and if I just reminded all those men out there…….better get those gifts quickly.

On a serious note, when we think of valentine’s day, we think of partners or those in a relationship buying gifts for each other. We think of those who are close spending time out at the cinema, restaurant or some place special. We think of those who want to rekindle they love for each other.

Now thats a keyword ‘Love’.

I am going add something to valentines day. As you already might know, I raise awareness for those who are having to care for someone suffering mental ill health. I often think of those, even though I am not providing that sort of care anymore.

I feel, that it is not only out of love that a person is providing that care. As if it was out of duty or out of concern, but a lot of it relates to love and care.

I want valentine’s day be a reminder for those battling to keep someone here for not only valentine’s but the days, weeks, months and more so that they can one day hope the person they care for is recovering.

So valentine’s day is not always a day that we buy gifts, show off our love and feel special. Just like Christmas or other religious holidays, that valentines does have a serious deeper meaning.

The Carer’s Assessment – New poem by Matthew Mckenzie

Welcome back to another blog by former unpaid mental health carer Matthew Mckenzie. I am working on my carer awareness poetry for 2022. Poetry can be great for creativity, expression and even for campaigning.

I have done around 60 poems for the book I am going to release later on this year, the poetry book will contain around 150 poems.

For this particular poem, it is about a recent download of a carers assessment and my attempt at filling it in. At first I am nervous about filling in such forms because it asks such personal and thought provoking questions. After a while, I find the form gets easier to fill in, but I query is it worth filling the form.

This poem called “The Carer’s Assessment” can be views from the video below.

There will be times carer’s can’t be bothered to fill them in because they don’t get anything out from it and its engagement to carers can just be a tick-box exercise.

It’s still advisable to fill in carers assessments since it is a good way to be recorded and identified as a carer.

Mental Health carer poetry – On Alert

Medication

Happy new year to visitors of my mental health carer blog site. As mentioned in my earlier blog posts, I am working on promoting awareness of caring for someone suffering mental ill health.

I created a number of carer poems, quite a few are on this site, but are subject to being edited as I am often fine tuning poems.

I am also adding a couple of my poems on to my YouTube platform and will blog them every so often.

The poem I want to introduce here is titled “On Alert” as it highlights the struggle unpaid carers go through in prompting medication. A lot of carers hate doing such a task, but when the experience the person’s mental health crisis, they want to try avoid the situation again and take resort to being on alert.

Watch my 2 minute poem “On Alert” off my video link below.

Poem – She Never Gave up

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Welcome back to my carer blog.   I guess it has been a while, but it is creative corner time.  I have received a lovely poem from an unpaid carer who networks with our forums from the NHS Oxleas services.

SHE NEVER GAVE UP

The challenges were bad
They were ever so mad
A Son she loved – lost
In the abyss of madness – tossed
To and fro from pillar to post
The Son she once knew now a ghost

SHE NEVER GAVE UP

Despite being banished from the lips of her Son
She faced the choice and won
Won the many fights but not the War
Against his brain so horribly sore
Deep inside she could see
The ghost of her Son fighting to be free

SHE NEVER GAVE UP

Poem by – Elsie Cronin

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Being There

Being there

Being there because we care
Being there because we dare
Being there to help to with the journey
Being there because of the fear

Being there to because it takes time
Being there to hope your fine
Being there to catch mental illness early
Being there to stand in the firing line

Being there to try to advocate
Being there hoping its not too late
Being there due to all the worry
Being there to avoid the fate

Being there to help to help take the blows
Being there during the highs and the lows
Being there because no one else wants to
Being there because who else..I suppose

Being there because I care
Being there because I dare
Being there to help to share the journey
Being there because of we fear

Embed from Getty Images