Mary was walking down the High Street of a little town  a few miles from Knittingham. Here stood tall trees, which have been hacked into stumps by the local council,They are vehemently opposed to anything that might change the town into an upmarket suburb of   Knittingham. They wante it to be ‘modern’, like a small version of Manhattan or Paris, maybe, or even London. but there was not enough room to build a skyscraper or a Gherkin, like the one that Ken Livingstone had erected in London after he went to Soho

 

Mary was wearing a long, blue, unlined, woollen coat from Marks and Spencer, over a dark grey and green sweater dress, with matching leather boots .  iIn her hand, she carried a large green handbag, which contained her Kindle Paperwhite and her purse

 

Suddenly she had a loud cry: “Mary, Mary!”.

She looked round and there was an old friend whom she knew  before the advent of smartphones and computers and, therefore, not being very well organised, she had lost the address of this dear lady, Margaret.

“Shall we go and have a cup of coffee in that  Turkish restaurant?”, Margaret inquired politely.I have my cat in the car and I’ll get him a scone.The people are very friendly

 

“What a brilliant idea!”, Mary cried, “I have come out just to have a change of scene and Annie, my friend in in Knittingham, has got measles I have a cat myself

“I do hope you’ve had  measles already”,  said Margaret.

Yes, I have”, Mary  lied.
“Well, tell me your latest news. How is your rheumatoid arthritis?  Have they given you any of these new drugs, which suppress your immune system to stop it from attacking your own body?”

“No, they haven’t given me any yet”,   Margaret replied cheerfullyA bit late now

“I believe that, nowadays, they give them to people right at the beginning of the illness tbut, in my day, they did not give them to you until it was fully  developed , unfortunately, I have become somewhat disabled.”

“Well, how do you manage living on your own?”Do you have a lover who might help you?

“No lover as yet but I have various devices that I can use”, Margaret told her with a twinkle in her eye,  giving Mary the impression that Margaret was the owner of a gigantic array of vibrators and other similar implements  trying them out for some Health Magazine for the handicapped

Mary was thinking that they were probably better than codeine for taking your mind off your pains and aches which, in the case of arthritis can be  excruciating, making it impossible in many cases for a woman to have sex  though she had imagined marrying her cat Emile as he had expressive eyes and did not desire her body
She did not tell Margaret what she was thinking but  said:

 “I know that you can get a stand for your electric kettle, so that you can pour the water out of it without lifting the kettle up from the work surface., and you can also get vacuum cleaners that are self-propelled.”

As Mary had a great many books, she was unlikely to buy one of these vacuum cleaners, because they would knock over all her carefully choosing piles of scholarly works and art books, not to mention the tubs full of pens and pencils, and coloured pastel chalks.

When they went into the cafe, the waitress was very polite and soon they were drinking their coffee at a little table in the window, from where they could see the local people passing by.Many were wearing badges asking for an end to the Civil War in Britain

“You’ll never guess what happened to me”, Margaret said

, “I was in  the bookshop, where they have a folding chair for me to sit ; they know I can’t stand up for a long time without suffering pain.  I’d just sat down when this young woman came up to me and said:”

“You can’t sit there and read: you have to go upstairs and sit in and armchair.”

“Well, if you show me the lift, I will be very happy to go upstairs ” , I said humorously

.Or maybe you can carry me up as you are very heavy and strong

“We don’t have a lift”, t he woman cried loudly, “We only have one for us to  take books upstairs and we do not allow customers to use it, because it is not insured.”

=Would you mind if I just sat here for 5 minutes?”

“No!, you cannot sit there for 5 minutes”

“ Well, I was unable to get up, straight away”, said Margaret “but, as soon as I could, I put the expensive book, which Ihad been going to buy, back onto the rack of new non-fiction and saved  £20  there and then

” “That’s not very nice”, continued Mary. i“It might even be illegal to tell a disabled person  to go up some stairs, when there is no lift or escalator.”

Margaret  called
“Let’s talk about something else.  I like that coat: it’s a lovely shade of Prussian blue

“Never say the word Prussian to me”, said Mary “it reminds me of the war.”

“Well”, said Margaret “if our luck continues on its present track and also the Middle East, there will be almost no country that we can talk about it without  getting distressed by the name.”

It’s a real indictment of humankind.Civilisation is inextricably linked to War.Let#s put that thought aside and talk about clothes instead

“I like this coat however we name the olour”, said Mary “because it is made of wool and the sleeves are lined but the body is not lined, which means that is suitable for this early spring weather and also quite llight to wear always an advantage for the older lady. iIt also covers up whatever else I am wearing underneath because it is quite long.”

“What  on earth are you wearing  underneath?”tMargaret asked humorously

“For all you know I might  have nothing underneath it”, said Mary “exccept a pair of silk knickers and a silk vest.”

But I have a dress on over my silk and wool underwear,I am using an deodorant called

Unarmed and dangerous

“ I have changed a lot since my husband died and I do all sorts of peculiar things.  For example, I believed in times it will soon be legal to marry an animal and I would like to marrylEmile, so that he can sleep in bed with me rather than on top of the bed.”

“But he might scratch you accidentallyy!  “, cried Margaret.And can he kiss you?

“Oh, there’s always a fly in the ointment”, Mary said.

“Well don’t marry the fly”, her  friend responded.”I don’t think that Father Brown would like that, even if it could speak and say ‘I do’; it would definitely not want to sleep in bed with you. it will be flying  around  your bedroom, buzzing all night, and I don’t think it’ll be the only. one”
“I have to marry a spider then”,  said Mary, “Maybe two spiders”

They both laughed uproariously, to the amazement of all the other people in a cafe

“It’s good to see old ladies laughing isn’t it?”

It certainly is.”

“So will you be going back to that book shop?”

“Well, I did try to go back but, as I approached the door, my mouth went very dry and I realised I was getting that ‘fight or flight’ reaction, even though I didn’t feel so anxious but something inside me was worried that history was about to repeat itself and I ’d be the object of scorn and derision.”

“Yes, it’s horrible to feel humiliated isn’t it”, said Mary. 

“I was reading an article in the Guardian, which said that some scientists of the most social sorts have discovered that even the nicest people unconsciously see disabled people as less than human.”.

 

“Oh my god! that is very frightening because I am getting older and I might get disabled and then I will suffer like you do.”

“Well, you have to be  tolerant of suffering”

But how tolerant should one be? I don’t want to have back some of those politically correct people who go around like Methodist -preachers, attacking people who are agnostic or who want unisex toilets

“Are there any heterosexual toilets?”

“I’ve never seen any but you never know.”

After drinking their coffees, they walked into Marks and Spencer’s  to look at the new spring clothing

That looks like a satin  tracksuit!”,   Mary called politely

“I believe that the short trousers are coming back into fashion. tThey are a big problem because itthey puts all the focus on your ankles, so you cannot wear those dirty old socks that you can wear  at home or with long trousers. I think they are a plot to make us buy ankle boots.”

Everything’s  a plot now, isn’t it. 

“Don’t say that to the doctor or she will think you are getting paranoia.”

 “Getting paranoia? I’ve been paranoid all my life.”“How sad!”

We’ll, nowadays you need a bit of paranoia, especially if you come from Europe and believe that you can work in Britain and contribute to the economy, while enjoying all the lavish pleasures of London city and nightlife.”

“The so-called foreigners are much more courteous than English people. iIn fact I a’m ashamed to be English now and I pretend that I came from Ireland instead.”

You look more like a Valkyrie.”

“Don’t say that! I hate  the composer Wagner.”

“I do believe the word existed before he wrote the music but I understand how you feel. It’s not your fault that you’ve got blonde hair and blue eyes and a white skin.”

“My hair isn’t really blonde any more.  I think it’s more silvery, like Helen Mirren.”

“Does it really matter what her hair looks like now?”

”“Well, we have to amuse ourselves somehow and, since we no longer have husbands, wel ’re deprived of much pleasure and love, and we  have to put out the wheelie bins ourselves, which I think is really awful.”

 

Well, it’s a sort of exercise, isn’t it?”

 

“If that’s all I got, I’d be paralysed by now!”

 

“So, what else do you do?”

 

“I do some vacuuming, now and then, I move books out of the bookcase and carry them into the other room and, you won’t believe this, last week I accidentally put a bag of nearly new clothes into the ‘dirty’ wheelie bin and found I still had the rubbish in the hall.!  Unfortunately, the bins had been emptied and there was nothing I could do to get them back.Mind you, I did feel a certain relief but as the hall was no longer full of black bin liners and other stuff like that..

Not to mention all those cables, cords, and chargers that we have nowadays. I think the computer was invented purely to give us more things to buy, to keep the economy going. Nobody really wanted to have computers but they realised that, once you got one, you would want to connect it to your camera, or your television, or the printer, and so it would mean a big market for those cables and cords.

But it gives me something to do, while the Government argue about  Brexit.”

 

It’s not just the Government who are arguing. My gardener nearly hit me when I said I wanted to remain in Europe. I am forbidden to mention Brexit anywhere near him.”

 

“I have noticed that it doesn’t matter what the evidence is,; even the most intelligent people will not change their minds, so it must be coming from a deeper level.”

 

“It sounds  as though people are trying to understand why Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews and they have come up with all sorts of theories about his childhood.  I thought it might be related to sexual fantasy   but the latest idea is that it is beyond explanation in any human terms; it is evil beyond our ability to explain. It is not true that, if Hitler did not exist, someone else would have behaved the same way. He could have lost his mind when he was defeated by Russia at Stalingrad but, if you lost your mind, would you go and exterminate six million Jews  and gays or 6 million  other people?

 The frightening thing is that it could so easily become the way that Muslims are treated. People say to me: “I don’t want to think about politics, it’s upsetting me”,
but isn’t that what the German said in the 1930s?  If we don’t bother about it, we may find ourselves in a trap that we can’t escape from.

 It is painful to think about these things, when we would rather think about the daffodils and the magnolia flowers, but who will protect us  or guard us, when we go further down this lunacy track.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. iIt’s like thinking that know, if people are depressed, sad, worried, it’s just thought to be very, very bad and they have been put on tablets and getting CBT when, in fact, it may be  appropriate to  feel that way, as long as one can channel it into some useful activity.”

i“It can give you energy… I believe there’s a big march in London against racism and fascism.  I don’t know wherether the big marches have any effect. dDo you remember the one against the Iraq War?  One of the biggest matrches ever seen in London and yet it made absolutely no difference to Tony Blair.”

“Anyway, just give me your news before we depart.”

“I shall tell you what; I’ll give you my email address and then we can communicate about our children or our other activities: grand-children etc. Maybe we can meet more frequently now, as we don’t have to rush home to make the dinner.”

 

The two women hugged each other before they separated and then Mary went back to the High Street. although she couldn’t remember now what she was going to buy.It might have been an electric tin opener, or a bottle of wine, or a throw from Robert Dyas to hide under, if anybody looked through the window.

 

Does it  matter what she was going to buy? s She just wanted to get some fresh air, and meeting  old friends always a good things, especially for aged people

 

I’m sure Emile would agree,  if Mary brought him with her in her handbag, but he was putting on weight and  is a little bit too heavy to carry.  It would be wonderful  if Emile were very big, then Mary could ride on his back as if he were a donkey
Why not buy a real donkey?

 

“Oh no! cry all of us .”

 

 

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/180988/what-is-the-word-for-poignant-but-with-a-positive-connotation#:~:text=Poignant%20denotes%20touching%20and%20significant%2C%20but%20typically%20with%20a%20negative%20connotation.

O

Have you done a thesaurus search on “poignant”? I’ll bet there are other words or phrases that may have a slightly different flavor – such as “heart-felt moment”, “touching”, “meaningful”, etc. –
Kristina Lopez
Jun 26, 2014 at 16:08
‘Poignant’ is the often painful counterpart of the often pleasurable ‘piquant’. ‘Connotation’ is misused in the question, but the particular misuse is common; the question is also overstating the case with respect to senses of ‘poignant’, but the same would hold true of a reversal with reference to piquant: “Piguant denotes touching and significant, but is often used to refer to pleasurably stimulating or fascinating sensations or ideas. Is there a word that has that same general sense, but is often used to refer to painfully stimulating or fascinating sensations or ideas (poignant)?” –
JEL
Sep 2, 2016 at 5:04
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As far as I know, poignant does have a positive connotation, meaning something that is moving or touching but also slightly painful. One wouldn’t describe an event as a ‘poignant tribute’ if it had a negative connotation.

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answered Jun 26, 2014 at 15:12
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thecrease
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Agreed. There is no negative connotation to poignant. Words that have a negative connotation are words like mawkish, blubbery, even sentimental. –
FeliniusRex – gone
Jun 26, 2014 at 15:18
1
The negativity is in the sadness (cf heart-rending) of poignancy, which normally refers to the past; there is always some regret in reviewing the past, and that’s part of being poignant. But not necessarily

• ‘Poignant’ is the often painful counterpart of the often pleasurable ‘piquant’. ‘Connotation’ is misused in the question, but the particular misuse is common; the question is also overstating the case with respect to senses of ‘poignant’, but the same would hold true of a reversal with reference to piquant: “Piguant denotes touching and significant, but is often used to refer to pleasurably stimulating or fascinating sensations or ideas. Is there a word that has that same general sense, but is often used to refer to painfully stimulating or fascinating sensations or ideas (poignant)?” – JEL Sep 2, 2016 at 5:04

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6

As far as I know, poignant does have a positive connotation, meaning something that is moving or touching but also slightly painful. One wouldn’t describe an event as a ‘poignant tribute’ if it had a negative connotation.

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answered Jun 26, 2014 at 15:12

• Agreed. There is no negative connotation to poignant. Words that have a negative connotation are words like mawkish, blubbery, even sentimental. – FeliniusRex – gone Jun 26, 2014 at 15:18
• 1The negativity is in the sadness (cf heart-rending) of poignancy, which normally refers to the past; there is always some regret in reviewing the past, and that’s part of being poignant. But not necessarily 

• ‘Poignant’ is the often painful counterpart of the often pleasurable ‘piquant’. ‘Connotation’ is misused in the question, but the particular misuse is common; the question is also overstating the case with respect to senses of ‘poignant’, but the same would hold true of a reversal with reference to piquant: “Piguant denotes touching and significant, but is often used to refer to pleasurably stimulating or fascinating sensations or ideas. Is there a word that has that same general sense, but is often used to refer to painfully stimulating or fascinating sensations or ideas (poignant)?” – JEL Sep 2, 2016 at 5:04

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6

As far as I know, poignant does have a positive connotation, meaning something that is moving or touching but also slightly painful. One wouldn’t describe an event as a ‘poignant tribute’ if it had a negative connotation.

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answered Jun 26, 2014 at 15:12

thecrease

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• Agreed. There is no negative connotation to poignant. Words that have a negative connotation are words like mawkish, blubbery, even sentimental. – FeliniusRex – gone Jun 26, 2014 at 15:18
• 1The negativity is in the sadness (cf heart-rending) of poignancy, which normally refers to the past; there is always some regret in reviewing the past, and that’s part of being poignant. But not necessarily 

If I could not see
I’d miss the bare black branches
Against dim burgundy.

Trees nod heads gently
Accepting night fall and moon
Neon light, vulgar

Dark blue,plum, soft grey
The sun dies bleeding , upwards.
As it sinks to darkness

Would I notice skies
If I wasn’t alone searching?
I found more wool gloves

I found wrist warmers
It is no longer freezing cold
But no warmth

Darker and darker
Now the branches join the sky
All plum velvet deep

https://www.thecandidly.com/2019/why-we-try-to-solve-other-peoples-problems-and-how-to-stop

https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/what-to-do-when-you-feel-overwhelmed-or-helpless

Indifference tolls the knell of humankind
So easy just to turn our eyes away
We often self deceive or mimic blind;
So Hitler goosestepped; foolish Pope but prayed

How bright the candlelight on Christmas trees
And tender children widen joyous eyes
Yet for the other,we will hear no pleas.
At every heartbeat “foreign” babies die..

Can we love any but those who share our genes,
What sense the tale of Arab aiding Jew?
Is the underlying truth not seen?
As Jesus said the chosen are but few

We split the world into a double view;
The good, the bad,the heart of darkness slew

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/apr/21/how-to-focus-by-the-people-whose-jobs-depend-on-it?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Oh ,Frances has got cancer and her husband had a stroke

Is brother had got Parkinson’s and died before he spoke

A lot of time to think again and pray for what is best

Life for human beings no seems to be a test

As we grow old and people die we learn we maybe next

God is not our mother so there’s no joy being vexed

My sister died when she lay down, how my brother cried

Now he’s in the hospital and seemed to be okay

He fell while walking down the ward that was yesterday

Q he broke his thigh bone when he fell, my sister could not cry

She’s got cancer in her lungs who’ll the first to dir?

The doctors were on strike last week they did not do the scan

Now they have he’s had a stroke,oh doctor strikes be damned.

Resign yourself and tell your sins the priest he’s waiting here.

Write a few apologies and drink a pint of beer.l

https://www.nytimes.com/1966/08/07/archives/the-politics-of-frustration.html

https://bigthink.com/influence-power-politics/disagreeing-without-being-disagreeable/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/06/psychologist-devastating-lies-mental-health-problems-politics

But there is another way to see this crisis – one that doesn’t place it firmly in the realm of the medical system. Doesn’t it make sense that so many of us are suffering? Of course it does: we are living in a traumatising and uncertain world. The climate is breaking down, we’re trying to stay on top of rising living costs, still weighted with grief, contagion and isolation, while revelations about the police murdering women and strip-searching children shatter our faith in those who are supposed to protect us.

As a clinical psychologist who has been working in NHS services for a decade, I’ve seen first hand how we are failing people by locating their problems within them as some kind of mental disorder or psychological issue, and thereby depoliticising their distress. Will six sessions of CBT, designed to target “unhelpful” thinking styles, really be effective for someone who doesn’t know how they’re going to feed their family for another week? Antidepressants aren’t going to eradicate the relentless racial trauma a black man is surviving in a hostile workplace, and branding people who are enduring sexual violence with a psychiatric disorder (in a world where two women a week are murdered in their own home) does nothing to keep them safe. Unsurprisingly, mindfulness isn’t helping children who are navigating poverty, peer pressure and competitive exam-driven school conditions, where bullying and social media harm are rife.

If a plant were wilting we wouldn’t diagnose it with “wilting-plant-syndrome” – we would change its conditions. Yet when humans are suffering under unliveable conditions, we’re told something is wrong with us, and expected to keep pushing through. To keep working and producing, without acknowledging our hurt.

In efforts to destigmatise mental distress, “mental illness” is framed as an “illness like any other” – rooted in supposedly flawed brain chemistry. In reality, recent research concluded that depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance of the brain. Ironically, suggesting we have a broken brain for life increases stigma and disempowerment. What’s most devastating about this myth is that the problem and the solution are positioned in the person, distracting us from the environments that cause our distress.‘I’m glowing’: scientists are unlocking secrets of why forests make us happy

Individual therapy is brilliant for lots of people, and antidepressants can help some people cope. But I worry that a purely medicalised, individualised understanding of mental health puts plasters over big gaping wounds, without addressing the source of violence. They encourage us to adapt to systems, thereby protecting the status quo. It is here that we fail marginalised people the most: Black people’s understandable expressions of hurt at living in a structurally racist society are too often medicalised, labelled dangerous and met with violence under the guise of “care”. Black people are more likely to be Tasered, sectioned, restrained and over-medicated than anyone else in our mental health services today.

The UK could learn a lot from liberation psychology. Founded in the 1980s by the Salvadorian activist and psychologist Ignacio Martín Baró, it argues that we cannot isolate “mental health problems” from our broader societal structures. Suffering emerges within people’s experiences and histories of oppression. Liberation psychology sees people not as patients, but potential social actors in the project of freedom, valuing their own lineages, creativity and experience, rather than being forced into a white, eurocentric and individualistic idea of therapy. It directly challenges the social, cultural and political causes of distress through collective social action.

This framework makes complete sense when we hear that the pandemic in the UK has affected poor people’s mental health most. Does it mean wealthy, privileged white men don’t experience suffering? Of course they do. We’re still learning about the complicated ways these structural issues affect our everyday lives. For example, how the pressures of individualism and capitalism may lead to isolation and substance abuse, or how colonial violence towards immigrant families plays out within homes and on bodies.

Let me be clear, I’m not saying people in distress should be out there on the picket line. Pain can be debilitating. But those of us who are supporting people in distress, such as mental health workers, have a key role in social transformation. Social action is the medicine that relieves people’s personal and collective distress.

Instead of trying to change “mindsets” in therapy, we need to change race- and class-based hierarchies, the housing and economic system. Universal basic income has psychological benefits, and recent studies show how it improves the “crises of anxiety and depression”. As a clinical psychologist, some of my most powerful work has been not in the therapy room but in successfully advocating for secure housing for, or working in the community with, queer, black and brown facilitators in organisations such as Beyond Equality, to prevent gender-based violence. The network Psychologists for Social Change shows us a practical imagining of this work. We also need social change that is preventive, such as investing in young people and community-led services such as healing justice london and 4front. They work to shift trauma in marginalised communities through building social connectedness, social action and creativity, towards futures free of violence.

None of this is to dismiss the value of one-on-one therapy (that’s part of my job, after all). But therapy must be a place where oppression is examined, where the focus isn’t to simply reduce distress, but to see it as a survival response to an oppressive world. And ultimately, I’d like to see a world where we need fewer therapists. A culture that reclaims and embraces each other’s madness. Where we take the courageous (and sometimes skin-crawling) risk of turning to each other in our understandable, messy pain.

Meaningful structural transformation won’t happen overnight, though the pandemic taught us that big changes can happen pretty quickly. But change won’t happen without us: our distress might even be a sign of health – a telling indicator of where we can collectively resist the structures that are hurting so many of us.

• Dr Sanah Ahsan is a clinical psychologist, poet, writer, presenter and educator
• Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

… as you’re joining us today from the UK, we have a small favour to ask. Tens of millions have placed their trust in the Guardian’s fearless journalism since we started publishing 200 years ago, turning to us in moments of crisis, uncertainty, solidarity and hope. More than 1.5 million supporters, from 180 countries, now power us financially – keeping us open to all, and fiercely independent.

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ContinueRemind me in Novemberhttps://6bd2070874e8cb4fdc70397ff773cf80.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html?n=0

But there is another way to see this crisis – one that doesn’t place it firmly in the realm of the medical system. Doesn’t it make sense that so many of us are suffering? Of course it does: we are living in a traumatising and uncertain world. The climate is breaking down, we’re trying to stay on top of rising living costs, still weighted with grief, contagion and isolation, while revelations about the police murdering women and strip-searching children shatter our faith in those who are supposed to protect us.

As a clinical psychologist who has been working in NHS services for a decade, I’ve seen first hand how we are failing people by locating their problems within them as some kind of mental disorder or psychological issue, and thereby depoliticising their distress. Will six sessions of CBT, designed to target “unhelpful” thinking styles, really be effective for someone who doesn’t know how they’re going to feed their family for another week? Antidepressants aren’t going to eradicate the relentless racial trauma a black man is surviving in a hostile workplace, and branding people who are enduring sexual violence with a psychiatric disorder (in a world where two women a week are murdered in their own home) does nothing to keep them safe. Unsurprisingly, mindfulness isn’t helping children who are navigating poverty, peer pressure and competitive exam-driven school conditions, where bullying and social media harm are rife.

If a plant were wilting we wouldn’t diagnose it with “wilting-plant-syndrome” – we would change its conditions. Yet when humans are suffering under unliveable conditions, we’re told something is wrong with us, and expected to keep pushing through. To keep working and producing, without acknowledging our hurt.

In efforts to destigmatise mental distress, “mental illness” is framed as an “illness like any other” – rooted in supposedly flawed brain chemistry. In reality, recent research concluded that depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance of the brain. Ironically, suggesting we have a broken brain for life increases stigma and disempowerment. What’s most devastating about this myth is that the problem and the solution are positioned in the person, distracting us from the environments that cause our distress.‘I’m glowing’: scientists are unlocking secrets of why forests make us happy

Individual therapy is brilliant for lots of people, and antidepressants can help some people cope. But I worry that a purely medicalised, individualised understanding of mental health puts plasters over big gaping wounds, without addressing the source of violence. They encourage us to adapt to systems, thereby protecting the status quo. It is here that we fail marginalised people the most: Black people’s understandable expressions of hurt at living in a structurally racist society are too often medicalised, labelled dangerous and met with violence under the guise of “care”. Black people are more likely to be Tasered, sectioned, restrained and over-medicated than anyone else in our mental health services today.

The UK could learn a lot from liberation psychology. Founded in the 1980s by the Salvadorian activist and psychologist Ignacio Martín Baró, it argues that we cannot isolate “mental health problems” from our broader societal structures. Suffering emerges within people’s experiences and histories of oppression. Liberation psychology sees people not as patients, but potential social actors in the project of freedom, valuing their own lineages, creativity and experience, rather than being forced into a white, eurocentric and individualistic idea of therapy. It directly challenges the social, cultural and political causes of distress through collective social action.

This framework makes complete sense when we hear that the pandemic in the UK has affected poor people’s mental health most. Does it mean wealthy, privileged white men don’t experience suffering? Of course they do. We’re still learning about the complicated ways these structural issues affect our everyday lives. For example, how the pressures of individualism and capitalism may lead to isolation and substance abuse, or how colonial violence towards immigrant families plays out within homes and on bodies.

Let me be clear, I’m not saying people in distress should be out there on the picket line. Pain can be debilitating. But those of us who are supporting people in distress, such as mental health workers, have a key role in social transformation. Social action is the medicine that relieves people’s personal and collective distress.

Instead of trying to change “mindsets” in therapy, we need to change race- and class-based hierarchies, the housing and economic system. Universal basic income has psychological benefits, and recent studies show how it improves the “crises of anxiety and depression”. As a clinical psychologist, some of my most powerful work has been not in the therapy room but in successfully advocating for secure housing for, or working in the community with, queer, black and brown facilitators in organisations such as Beyond Equality, to prevent gender-based violence. The network Psychologists for Social Change shows us a practical imagining of this work. We also need social change that is preventive, such as investing in young people and community-led services such as healing justice london and 4front. They work to shift trauma in marginalised communities through building social connectedness, social action and creativity, towards futures free of violence.

None of this is to dismiss the value of one-on-one therapy (that’s part of my job, after all). But therapy must be a place where oppression is examined, where the focus isn’t to simply reduce distress, but to see it as a survival response to an oppressive world. And ultimately, I’d like to see a world where we need fewer therapists. A culture that reclaims and embraces each other’s madness. Where we take the courageous (and sometimes skin-crawling) risk of turning to each other in our understandable, messy pain.

Meaningful structural transformation won’t happen overnight, though the pandemic taught us that big changes can happen pretty quickly. But change won’t happen without us: our distress might even be a sign of health – a telling indicator of where we can collectively resist the structures that are hurting so many of us.

To return to the plant analogy – we must look at our conditions. The water might be a universal basic income, the sun safe, affordable housing and easy access to nature and creativity. Food could be loving relationships, community or social support services. The most effective therapy would be transforming the oppressive aspects of society causing our pain. We all need to take whatever support is available to help us survive another day. Life is hard. But if we could transform the soil, access sunlight, nurture our interconnected roots and have room for our leaves to unfurl, wouldn’t life be a little more livable?

• Dr Sanah Ahsan is a clinical psychologist, poet, writer, presenter and educator
• Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com

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ContinueRemind me in Novemberhttps://6bd2070874e8cb4fdc70397ff773cf80.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html?n=0

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/06/psychologist-devastating-lies-mental-health-problems-politics

https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/5-ways-manage-politically-induced-stress

You revealed the face within your face
Human,lowly,humbler than an ant
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The other face, defended, has no grace
With it ,you appear quite confident.
Yet you revealed to me your hidden face
I know now of the suffering of your days
A fear of tragic pasts feared imminent
The pathos in your eyes made sad my gaze
The mental torment heavy all your days.
Yet you must hide from men intolerant
You revealed the face within your face
Like martyrs, you were tortured and disgraced
You wandered feebly,lost, itinerant
The pathos in your eyes makes sad my days
If Love exists then would that not embrace
The lost, the lonely, even the vagrant?
You revealed the face within your face
The pathos in your eyes made me feel base

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/20/im-all-for-rawls-but-labour-must-not-forget-its-true-socialist-roots?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

We had to learn in school what our religion was about so I’ll try to put down the main ideas.
It’s good to take thorns out of lions’ paws.
Men should never cut their hair nor anyone else’s.
Sausages are rude because they look like penises.That’s why some folk can’t eat pork,I think.
When we receive Communion and bite the bread,Jesus can feel it.That worried me
Candles can help the soles in purgatory as they can see others then
If you have no sins to confess,you should be ashamed of yourself as you are too proud.
Jesus was God’s son but God’s name was not on his birth certificate so Mary was on child benefit and housing benefit too.And it was not wrong because God told us to help each other and the poor.And it was a test.Which we have failed.
God can sew because Jesus liked needles with small eyes. and did embroidery.
God didn’t want Jesus to die but human beings are cruel and tend to attack the good… like God’s own chosen people who were given the ten commandments to pass on.There were more than ten but they lost a few in the desert when their tablets’ batteries went flat.
God likes to hear us sing but not rock music as it makes his head ache.
God has his own Spirit to fortify him but he doesn’t smoke every day.He’s like a dragon,you see.
After we die we can be improved by being roasted in a hot fire and eaten by cannibals.It’s called the Inferno and Dante wrote the script before God made the film which seems hard to find but we kept looking.
When we are in heaven we will never have sex again.Or in some cases leave out the “again”.

Suffering does not benefit mankind.

Retaliation causes further horm

Blindness does not benefit the blind.

Brooding will embitter suffering minds.

bitter are the lessons we must learn

Suffering does not benefit mankind

God the artist plays with shape and lines

It’s we who have to distribute the alms

Blindness does not benefit the blind

We try to find what Jesus left behind

Perception is more moving when we’re calm

Suffering does not benefit our minds

Remember Blythburgh church and angels’ arms.

Even demons can’t resist their charms

Suffering does not benefit mankind

Blindness does not benefit the blinds

What do you say to a new teapot?
We’re all going to be in hot water soon

What do you say when you are thirsty?
Show me a photo of Warren Beatty.He makes my mouth water

Why don’t we drink sea water?
Fish pee into it.Whales drown in it

What do you say to a coffee mug?
Won’t you at least try this tea?

What do you say to a rabbit?
Have you no warren of your own to go to?

What do you feel for when you get a text message at 3 am
My husband

What kind of flour do you use?
It depends on how strong the bombs need to be

Why do you like hand writing?
We can’t afford writing paper

Which pens are the best?
The ones with ink inside.

Is it hard to write a poem?
No, it’s only 5 letters.Maybe A should be capital?

Are you autistic?
Is it so black and white?

Why do you like maths?
It stops me going mad

Did you work on differential equations
No they were too dirty for women to sit on

How did you find the University?
We had maps then.. much cheaper than phones

I mean how did you feel?
With maths you don’t need to feel

So what does make you feel?
Love, glue and hot water

What advice would you give to a person now?
Never give advice.

What do you think of the Corona virus?
It makes no difference what I think.It’s what we do that matt

My phone was very expensive

Yes therly are expensive narrados

It’s not just the phone’s price you have to buy a car so you can use it in car charger

Surely there must be some other way. Have you not have you not got electricity in your house?

But I want to drive around talking on my phone

One of my neighbors and then he spent six months in prison.

I wouldn’t mind six months in prison because I’m very short of money.

Well how could you possibly buy a car?

Can’t you get a loan for buying a car?

But how will you pay off the loan?

Why are you so negative?

It’s you who is too positive

What do you say to 21 eggs?
Where are the other three?

Why do eggs come in boxes of six
Because hens can’t count past six!

Why do Sainsburys sell eggs in fifteens?
Their hens are more intelligent than the others

Will egg boxes be decimalised?
Hens don’t see the point

Why are eggs good for the hair?
Because it takes longer to shampoo them out

How many eggs are in an omelette?
None,they are on the outside.

Is it a sin to steal eggs?
Yes, if they are human.

Are eggs used in warfare?
Their atoms are.

Can we measure the velocity and position of eggs?
No, but we feel it when they hit us

If I could not see
I’d miss the bare black branches
Against dim burgundy.

Trees nod heads gently
Accepting night fall and moon
Neon light, vulgar

Dark blue,plum, soft grey
The sun dies bleeding , upwards.
As it sinks to darkness

Would I notice skies
If I wasn’t alone searching?
I found more wool gloves

I found wrist warmers
It is no longer freezing cold
But no warmth

Darker and darker
Now the branches join the sky
All plum velvet deep

Watercolour by E.Limbrey 2019 copyright

 

When Mary woke up, it was very sunny and bright.  Then, she realised, she had forgotten to turn off the light over her bed, when she went to sleep. So, it was not sunny at all; in fact, it was the middle of the night!

 

“Oh dear,” said Mary to herself. “Shall I make a cup of tea or, since the landing light is not working, maybe I should stay here.” She closed her eyes and began to think about whether there was any space in the house to store the hundreds of chargers and USB cords that she seemed to have acquired over the last 20 years.

 

Soon, she was thinking about what she was going to wear, because Annie and she were going to a poetry reading in the Civic Centre at 4 p.m. and, before that, she had to do some shopping.  It was much easier in the 1960s and 70s, when everybody wore denim all the time, whatever they were doing, except of course in bed. “We don’t actually know whether anybody did wear denim in bed but I would not recommend it, because denim is very stiff when you are in bed.” Mary mused.

 

Before long, Mary fell asleep again and started dreaming about Stan, her dear husband. They were in the kitchen, scrubbing the gas cooker with Brillo pads.  Stan did not speak to her, nor did she ask him why he had never cleaned the cooker during the many years of their marriage. There was no point in dwelling or ruminating over what has gone.

 

On the other hand, it would have been nice if she had dreamed that they were staying in a hotel overlooking Poole Harbour and, from there, were magically transported to Corfe Castle, to have lunch in a beautiful restaurant.  Stan and Mary had been for a walk along the top of a hill overlooking Poole Harbour, when they were younger, and it is one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen; certainly, more beautiful than Torremolinos.

 

When Mary woke up again, it was 8 o’clock and Emile was mewing on the landing, as he wanted his breakfast.  Once she was down in the kitchen, eating her Weetabix, Mary heard a noise and, when she turned around, she saw her neighbour, Annie, dressed in purple velvet, standing at the back door

 

“Why are you up and dressed so early, Annie?” Mary cried “and why are you wearing velvet in January? It doesn’t look very warm to me.”

 

“Don’t worry,” said Annie “I am feeling very hot.”

 

“In what sort of manner are you feeling hot?” said Mary, quizzically

 

“You have got a vulgar mind, Mary!”

 

“Well, you may be 72 but you look stunning and I am sure that men will be staring at you, as you walk down the street.”

 

“I don’t want men to stare at me” Annie retorted

 

“Well, in that case, why are you wearing the foundation cream from Rummel St Quarantine, silver beige, and that purple mascara that you bought in Wigan last summer.  By the way, why did you go to Wigan last summer?”

 

“I was following a man on Facebook.”

 

“But you don’t literally follow them, do you?  I thought you just read what they wrote on Facebook. Did he know that you were following him?  He might have reported you to the police and said that you were a stalker.”

 

“No, he wouldn’t do that; he was very nice.  Actually, he introduced me to his wife and she took me shopping in this amazing pharmacy, where they had wonderful make-up: mascara in 20 colours and lipsticks in 40 colours!”

 

“I see,” said Mary “why did you not send me a postcard?”

 

Just then, they heard a noise by the front door. It was the post and, there on the door mat, was a big picture postcard of Wigan Pier

 

“Good heavens!” said Annie “why does it take the whole year for my postcard to arrive”

 

“Don’t ask me,” said Mary “I could understand differential operators but I cannot understand the so called Royal Mail”

 

She picked up the postcard when, suddenly, she felt dizzy and fell over, clutching at the banisters with her left hand.  Emile was very worried; he sobbed and sobbed.
“I think I’d better ring 999.” he said. “we need some help!”

 

“I think I’m alright.” said Mary “It’s just my hand is a bit painful but I haven’t broken anything.”
But it was too late, as Emile had already phoned.

 

The doorbell rang and Annie opened the door. In ran Dave, the trans-sexual paramedic, wearing a purple velvet trouser suit and a green silk scarf.

 

“Is that your new uniform?” Annie asked him politely

 

“No, I’m not on duty officially but, when I heard it was you phoning, I thought I would come.”

 

“Well, you see, Mary fell over in the hall.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Well, she had just seen a postcard that I sent to her when I was in Wigan last summer and it’s only just arrived.”

 

“Did you see the Pier?” Dave asked her.

 

“You know the Pier’s not real; it is a figment of somebody’s imagination, like George Orwell, for example”

 

“Well, I’ve often heard people talk about Wigan Pier.” Dave muttered nervously.

 

“Well, Wigan is not on the coast.” Annie told him.

 

“Don’t test me!  I didn’t even do O-level Geography.”

 

Mary stood up and said “All you need to do is look at a road atlas.”

 

“I am afraid you are behind the times.  People do not have road atlases, because they use a sat-nav.”

 

“Well,” said Mary “even if I were to use sat nav on my bicycle, I would still like to see where I’m going before I leave home and then I would know if Wigan was on the coast and whether Southport was at the bottom of the Langdale Pikes, if you see what I mean.”

 

“Yes, I do see what you mean.” Dave said “Let me take your pulse.”

 

“Where are you going to take it?” Mary asked him, anxiously.

“I will use your wrist but not the left one, because I know you have just hurt it on the stairs …Your pulse seems quite normal, Mary, so I won’t bother to take your blood pressure, because you might get ‘White Coat’ syndrome.”

 

“But you are not wearing a white coat.” Mary joked.

 

”That doesn’t matter. I am a Medical Professional, so you can imagine I am wearing a white coat in your unconscious mind, even though I am not”

 

“My goodness, Dave, you seem to be getting very clever these days; you sound like a Professor from Oxford.”

 

“I’ve never had the good fortune to meet a Professor in Oxford,“ Dave replied “but I have seen your Professor here in Knittingham, because there is a University here; actually, there are two Universities here now.”

 

“Yes, I know.” said Mary. “Let’s all go into the living room and have a cup of tea.  My cat needs to have his breakfast.”

 

.Emile crawled out from under the kitchen table, he was shivering with nerves.

 

“Oh dear!, Emile, I am sorry that I frightened you when I fell over”

 

“Oh, mama, I thought that you were going to die!”

 

“Well, I’m not dead yet.” she replied tersely.

 

“Thank the lord!” cried Dave.

 

“You sound like an evangelical Christian,” Annie told him.

“Well, I might be an evangelical Christian.” he said, in a rude tone of voice.

 

“Don’t be so rude, Jesus would not like it.” said Annie, bluntly.

 

“How do you know?  He lived 2000 years ago; they must have been very rude then.  I do know that the Jews are very ‘in your face’ and they like arguments” the paramedic replied.

 

“But that is not the same as being rude to people.”

 

“And I don’t like arguing; it makes me get migraine.  Thank the Lord I never married a Jew,” Annie cried.

 

“But  the Lord  was a Jew, himself.” Dave whispered.

 

“Very true. They are very clever people, you know, and they have been persecuted so much; it’s a miracle that there are any left at all,”  Mary told them, uneasily as it caused her anguish to think of the Holocaust and the Museum in Prague

 

“Well they enjoy their bodies; they are told that the body is good and that sex is good, both for procreation or for recreation or, hopefully, both at once, now and then.” he lectured her

 

“You seem to know a lot about Jews.” the women said  “Are you Jewish?”

 

“No, I am not Jewish, although my mother was, I believe, but she died when I was only 3 years old and I never learnt anything about that religion … but I know they can’t eat pork”

 

“Who brought you up?”  said Annie.

 

“My father and his sister brought me up and I like both of them, and that is why I am a trans-sexual dresser, because I like women’s clothes and men’s clothes, depending on the weather …You have never asked me before about my background.”

 

“You just seem so British.” Mary told him.

 

“Well, I am British; I was born in Clapton.”

 

“What a shame it was not Clacton-on-Sea, because there was a pier there, unlike Wigan, and I am sure that you would have liked to grow up by the sea.”

 

“Yes, but Clapton was also an interesting place to grow up; there are people from all ethnic groups, including Jews, Muslims, black, brown, white, Irish people, Catholics, Protestants, evangelical missionaries …….”

 

“For God’s sake, stop!” Annie told him “I have had quite enough.  How are you feeling, Mary?”

 

“I was feeling alright, actually, until you began asking Dave about his background.  Mind you, it is very interesting because, if your mother is Jewish you are too, so Dave is actually Jesus.”

 

“I don’t believe it.” said Dave “I am not the Messiah.”

 

“But would you know, if you were the Messiah?”

 

“Yes, I’d imagine so, but we can never be absolutely sure about anything.  Perhaps my time has not yet come.”

 

“And I hope it never does!” cried Emile

 

And so say all of us

 

Resting I dozed off thought you were here

The gap in space is you my love my dear

Aujourd’hui, nous allons étudier des nombres rationnels
et irrationnels
Du moins, c’est ce que j’espère dans cette
c’est que vous soyez peut-être un peu plus intelligent
Avez-vous pensé que nous serions très stupides
Pas du tout, je ne peux que de mon expérience
en supposant que c’est quelque
que vous n’avez jamais connu auparavant
comment pourrais-je savoir?
Voulez-vous dire que vos mécanismes de défense
bloquent le bois?
oui c’est ce que je veux dire très bien
Nous ne voyons pas même l’infini
Je ne sais pas
Saurais-je comment saurais-je comment sauriez-vous

Je donnerai des documents la semaine prochaine
qui marque la fin de la conférence de cette semaine
Veuillez signer le formulaire
par la porte en disant que vous ne direz rien
à personne que j’ai dit dans cette conférence

Si vous ne souhaitez pas signer,
veuillez écrire sans nom et mettre une croix
C’est pas mal pour quelqu’un avec
un QI de 65. après tout un mathématicien
français célèbre a 55 alors je dois être brillant

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/30/hamburg-allied-bombing-king-charles-visit-uk-german?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Hamburg Fire Storm ihow it affected the Jews in particular

Hamburg was largely reduced to rubble and nearly a million people fled the city. Among the victims of the attacks were thousands of forced labourers from central and eastern Europe who had been deported by the Nazis to Hamburg for work and who, like the remaining Jews in the city, were not allowed to take cover in the air raid shelters. After the attack, entire districts of Hamburg were walled off and declared as “death zones”. The Nazis then forced inmates of the nearby Neuengamme concentration camp to find and defuse unexploded bombs, clear the rubble, and remove and bury the dead bodies. Hundreds of them died during this extremely dangerous and traumatic mission.

Absent now is your dear face

But still I long for your embrose

In your arms I felt secure

The pains of life I could endure

But now you’re gone and I’m alone

My smiling face is blank as stone

As lost as seashells on the sands

A refugee in a-strange land

I cried out in the gnawing pain

But summer will not come again

Your eyes are sharp as razors boiled in wrath
It’s easy to provoke but less to soothe
My hair is protein, do not rip it off

You think you are above us yet we laugh
Your hair curls tightly. men don’t like it smooth
Your eyes are sharp as razors boiled in wrath

Though my hair is tangled I’ve no moths
I have no lice, nor eggs,so do not brood
My hair is protein, do not cut it off

You’ll catch nineteen germs if someone coughs
Stay in Lockdown, banish those who feud
Your eyes are sharp as needles boiled in wrath

,

Take your steely look and make it love
Our eyes can with such kindness be imbued
My hair is protein,I must be a Goth

Life is wasted when we start to feud
Or stick like needles in the rounded gtoove
Your eyes are sharp as hawks sent up in wrath
O tragic world,men hate more than they love