He understands. He loves her. He will stand by her. She loves him.

So many people don’t understand.
They make her feel weak for depending on medication.
It’s not just the medication though – it takes much more than that.
She has a family who understands, who appreciates her, as she is.
She was born with strong sensitivities.
Life, in her youth, was always a see-saw.
Little things would throw her off balance –
a busy scene, crowds, too much noise.
She’d find herself feeling dizzy, tearful, out of control,
needing to retreat, into her shell.
Growing up wasn’t easy, but she had a family who cared.
Even if they didn’t always understand – she knew they wanted to –
That was enough.

The man she’s now married to has known her since then.
He’s loved her through all the see-saws of emotion.
They met when she was just eighteen.
She was a mess, first year at University.
She was escaping, retreating, in a pool of alcohol.
She didn’t realise then, how much she was ‘hiding’,
She was numbing herself to reality.
He was her friend, her constant.
He never took advantage of her precarious state –
but sought out the woman that was underneath.

He waited, patiently, avoiding intoxicated advances,
maintaining the friendship and courting with refrain.
He listened, with a genuine ear, and made her smile –
the best medicine of all.
She spent most of her twenties seeking to find,
the person who was hidden beneath the veneer.
A person that cared, too much at times,
about the world around her and the wrongs she saw.

A fixer, a perfectionist, a troubled soul,
seeking a better way, but confused with reality.
Avoiding conflict and troubled situations,
looking for a path of peace in a twisted world.

Then motherhood came.
She loved living in the moment, seeing the world anew.
Her children, she found, were her biggest teachers.
No time for vanity, or desperate analysis,
only time to ‘be’, in the moment, in a mist of sleep deprived fog.
Moments of clarity, moments of light.
Realisation of when things were not right.
Wishing to be the person she envisaged,
a mother who could lead by example and set the path right.

She sought out help, and help she found.
The light went back on and her senses were lit anew.
She could take the world, in all its shades.
The beauty she would embrace, with awe,
the pain she could take – without desperation and collapse.
She found a balance, without extremes.
Feel, she still could, but without distress.
Beauty and beast, together she could take.
Her path she could walk, with patience and grace.

At times she’d feel so fine she’d stop taking the ‘help’,
she’d feel fine, at first, for a week…
and then, the old horrors would return.
She’d feel overwhelmed with tears and anxiety –
when she needed to be her strongest.
She needed to lead by example, stay calm in a crisis,
her children needed her, she could never surrender.

Now here she is, still seeking answers,
but gaining more wisdom as the years pass by.
Thankful for him, loving her through it all,
understanding her, growing with her, open heart, open mind x