Description

& Other Poems

By Andrew Aldred

ISBN: 978-1-78382-079-5
Published: 2014
Pages: 113
Key Themes: Mental Health, Mental Illness, Paranoid Schizophrenia

Description

This book is a description of an ex-soldier’s opinion of the army, prison, secure mental hospital, the home office and other aspects of life in his recovery journey from committing a crime of wounding with intent.

It is not intended as a rant against a system he found very unsympathetic, but in its own way this is what it is because it could not be anything else.

About the Author

I have been in Mental Health Services since 1985, when I had a huge mental breakdown after serving in the Falklands with the army. Since then my life has been something of a rollercoaster of mental illness until meeting my wife Jane seven years ago.

I have been in and out of hospital from 1985 until 2009. I had an illness which I attributed to my father and resulted in me stabbing him in 1997 and going to the Edenfield Unit in Prestwich Hospital for 6 years. This is when I started to write poetry to keep myself sane and give me something to focus on.

Book Extract

Twisted and Broken

I’m twisted and broken
A dysfunctional mind
I fit into a society
Of a different kind
The symmetry is perfect
But it’s bent out of shape
It makes perfect sense
But there’s jagged holes that gape
It’s out of your sight
But I can see it myself
It’s plain to me
And nobody else
I’m secure in the knowledge
That I’m a damaged man
I’m criminally insane
And I know that I am
Twisted and broken
Bent out of shape
A character full of holes
That is lying agape