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By Sophie Marianne Bond
ISBN: 978-1-84991-859-6
Published: 2012
Pages: 89
Key Themes: Mental Health, Depression, Anxiety, Recovery, Poetry
About the Author
Sophie Marianne Bond was born in 1957, the oldest of four sisters, no brothers.
She grew up in London and after primary school, went on to gain entry to an all Girls’ Grammar School and studied for ‘O Levels’. However, due to growing up in a very dysfunctional family, was told she was not clever enough to go to university and was packed off to a local college to do a secretarial course for a year, after which she worked in the City, and then managed to become Secretary to the Managing Director of a large department store in the West End of London until she got married in 1977.
Sophie was always made to feel different and was told she was a difficult child by various people and developed very low self-esteem. She started to have mental health issues in her teens when she developed an eating disorder. As an adult, she continued to have problems and was first admitted to hospital with severe anorexia in 1996. This was followed by a period of bulimia and then once again admitted to hospital with anorexia in 1998. Along with this came many other mental health problems; depression, anxiety, panic attacks, agoraphobia, mood disorders, numerous suicide attempts and self-harm.
Finally, after nearly 15 years of various treatments, admissions, medications, counselling etc, she was then diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder with Hypomania, Borderline Personality Disorder, an element of Dissociative Identity Disorder, continuing Eating Disorders and continuation of the above mentioned difficulties.
Sophie married, then moved to Essex in 1979 and went on to have two children, a girl and a boy, now grown up and is a proud ‘Nanny’ to two beautiful little granddaughters. She has lived in a large town in Essex for 30 years and was divorced during this time.
Seven years ago, Sophie came across a psychodynamic counsellor, who she still sees regularly and is helping Sophie to live a much more functional life, who doesn’t make her feel small, insignificant and ‘not clever enough’ but encouraged her to develop other talents, in particular writing, mostly poetry which has become her passion. She has written more than 500, some of which are included here in her first collection. Sophie owes her life and her happier existence to this wonderful counsellor.
Book Extract
BRITTLE
I wish I could tell you I was different then
That I was happy, content, just a child
But even in those early growing years
I knew something was brittle
I wish I could tell you it’s because of divorce
Or a car crash, a scene, a fight in between
But even when day dawns, light filters through
There was too much of my mind
I wish I could tell you it was society
Put it down to one event, let it be
But there is reason behind me
I am just this way, I was made brittle
I was brittle before I reached the age of one
Before my first dark, grim nightmares
Before the first small guilty bruises of my youth
I was already brittle in my mother’s belly
I tried to soothe my mind with a music box fairy
Broken promises, dusty, stained wishes
But I am brittle
So take my hand, gently as I am liable to fracture
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