Storying Sheffield

I think in pieces, not stories.

I think in pieces, not stories. I think in feelings not words. My action is predicated on nameless fears, obscure dread, and strange sudden desire.
There’s a clear bright world you describe. A place of reliable measurements, reasoned discussion, and heated debate.
You recognise its clarity; its certain lines: that world you love.
I envy your assumptions. From the corner of the room, I watch as you master the days.
Your world isn’t mine. This is clear in every word you utter; every action you take. Please understand that you have not visited the landscapes I inhabit.
Every night I pitch camp on the edge of a precipice. I dream of space, of deep tunnels in the rock, of underwater refuges.
Each day I tread carefully, keeping to shadows, expecting the worst.
Contours shift abruptly; land collapses into torrents and mud slides. The constant roar of unseen beasts under a bruised sky, dark with rain.
You think you know me. You think you know the land I walk in. That’s a violence I find hard to bear.
Be thankful that your world is bright with possibility. And please allow me to speak, when I can.
Uncertainty is not a gift I chose, nor ignorance, nor fear. But they’re my possessions now. So I hold them tight.
At dawn, I merge with the land, outlines blurred in desaturated gradients. And in that silence, I glimpse something I once knew but have now lost.
Visions I thought had faded materialise.
I think in pieces, not stories. I think in feelings not words. My action is predicated on nameless fears, obscure dread, and strange sudden desire.

 

From a talk by Brendan Stone, ‘Power, partnership and possibility in mental health’,
The Centre for Critical Psychology and Education , May 17