This is so personal and painful and full of yearning from your heart to be comfort. The sorrows you have to face, and as you wrote, your own darkness yet sometimes saying "hold on" is all we can do at the moment. It's still doing something. You do what you can, even though I'm sure especially with where you work it that desire to help even more in any way is strong.

Schizophrenia is the mental illness that probably tears at me most, and the one that scares me the most because of its severity, emotionally watching my aunt live with it and my mom do what she can from another state. I'm grateful that my aunt doesn't have to live in a group home yet but my heart just aches for her because I can see how much she tries to overcome those voices telling her the same things. I know sometimes my mom feels guilt because she is not right there with her sister, but she does so much I think in answering calls everyday and being that reminder that a certain delusion is not real. To simply say "those are your voices" or "you are a good person" and help that person try to see reality can be so powerful. We should keep those fighting their demons in our thoughts/ prayers/ wishes... that they may have strength.

Your words always hit my heart! <3

Andrea,
This is excellent. Apart from how well written it is, the content really is good.
I guess it takes someone very special to be plagued by darkness and yet still try and show others some light in their time of hardship.
All the best and I hope you are well,
Ben

This one here touched my heart in a way words can describe. It's close to home and it takes very special people to understand. Living with this disease which is not cureable can have a major impact on those around them. So sad not to mention the meds for the rest of their life. Makes you truly wonder and nobody has really been able to find out what truly causes it. A life in pure agony. Thank you for sharing. Add to my favorite. Be blessed.

I really like your work! So deep, so dark, the struggle so real, but yet you hold out hope. There is a light shining out there somewhere, never give up.

Judging comment:

This is an extremely chilling piece, the proximity between the verses"because the voices told them to do so" and "telling them to hold on/while demons tell them to let go...." is what haunted me. Schizophrenia is one of the mental illnesses that is amongst the most recognized, but not a lot of people know much about it or are aware of how much it varies in terms of it affecting people. One of my uncles are diagnosed with schizophrenia (it's under control now, but there were/are times when it isn't and well daunting is the word to describe it). This piece touch me.