The Lunatic Is In My Head

As part of a writing group I have joined which gives us prompts every week I am tackling the theme of What have the voices in your head been saying lately? Now, I am the first to admit that I have a huge problem with voices in my head. In fact I recently read a book I could really relate to called Total Recall: The Woman Who Can't Forget by Jill Price about a woman with a unique memory who can remember every single day of her life in crystal clear detail and it has driven her insane. Interestingly for a while she didn’t realise she was different from other people but when she did the true horror of her condition hit her. After reading the book I do think I have a minor case of 'cannot forget much' brain. Scientists say all our memories are stored in a certain part of the brain but most of us cannot access them to the extent that even I can. I would say I don’t forget much that is autobiographical (although I have forgotten most things I learnt at school and college) and can remember a great more about the past than most people can – I can recall a hideous breakup in all its emotional rawness from fifteen years ago if I spend a few seconds drawing out the memory, including the conversation I had with the darstadly ex. But I can also remember certain days from childhood in clear unadulterated bliss. The inability to forget is heaven and hell.

So partly my brain is crammed with these pointless memories. My brain’s motivation in amassing this much dense memory detail is I think a need to order or make sense of a chaotic past. I am also a worrier but I don’t really worry about stuff I believe most mums worry about. I don’t worry whether my daughters will get into Harvard or if they will be run over or whether they ate enough fruit today etc. I don’t worry about getting cancer or whether I will ever be poor. I mostly worry about well ... the minutae of life like will I lose ten pounds before summer or I hope that weird man at the gym won't talk to me or I hope that awful mum who supports Sarah Palin doesn't try and chat to me again. Read all about it in a kind of free form poem if you want an insight into my head.

Domestically Disabled

I was called 'scatterbrain' by the teachers at school
Before the days of political correctness
Still it is a good description
Of my brain that flies from subject to subject
Like butterfly from leaf to leaf

Inside my brain the chitter chatter
Usually makes a din loud enough
To drown out the dull grey outer world
The world of parking tickets

I have a problem with cars
Yes I admit it
I can't or don't read parking signs
Getting tickets even getting towed

Frankly I prefer to walk
But walking gives too much time to think
So thank you Apple
For inventing the trusty iPod

The voices in my head
Are mostly garbage
But I prefer not to smalltalk
To amass other people's
Irrelevancies

Being domestically disabled
I have been blessed with children
Who know what's what
And have some interest in so called 'reality'

Six year old 'Mum before we go out can you check
if you have your tampons with you?'
Eight year old says: 'Mum you have remembered
That today is Thursday and I have Brownies?'

Yes yes I can remember
All these tiny details
But mostly I prefer to live
In the hiss and swirl of fantasy
And imaginings

If you have a brain
That is like dandelion seeds
Thousands of elements
Fluttering in the wind
Fragmented and broken down
Shards of glass trodden underfoot
What can you do
You can't glue them back together
So you must just release them
And let them go


So, do tell ...What have the voices inside your head been saying recently?


If you want to find out more about the writing group go here: