It is our pleasure to have Bex Rose, Poet and Mental Health Professional, as a guest on the Poetic Resurrection Podcast. She shared her poem called A Subconscious Mind, which talks about depression from her book Mental Health via Poetry. We had a fascinating conversation about the poem and her personal story of growing up in Brooklyn, New York writing poetry with Tourette’s, then transitioning to become a mental health clinician. Tune into this touching and entertaining interview to learn more about Bex's inspiring journey.

A Subconscious Mind

What are these thoughts

The if, and, why,

What is this feeling I get

As if I'm ripping apart from inside

Why has my internal drive

Become so weak

Why am I too depressed to even open my eyes

To even sit up and think

Can't even make it to my own kitchen sink

Not even thirsty for a drink

It's lawless

The pressure to be human

Eat, think, sleep like a person, it's arduous

It is not involving the effects of any one single event

I wish my time could be better spent

Society's pages depend on a therapy book

So quick to not even take a real look

So quick to hand us the bottle than to ask us how to spell out the name

I'm not so easy to belittle with labels

Each diagnosis on paper

Can become quite easily a fable

Remedied with quick-think drugs bought from any store and self-help label

Not knowing there's also drugs on the corners underneath the table

Waiting

For us to crave more

Why do we have to think and be challenged to want to search for more

When we’re left un-adored

In majority, for the very same reason you referred us to get help in the first place

I am not a charity case

I will not just fall in line

I will make use of this time

As I tiptoe between the tattered line

Between each tear-stained work of mine

I speak

For others whose medication has rendered them mute and subconscious

How dare you try to band-aid depression as if it's a rouse

I think rather that it's abuse

To be this overlooked

Well I stand here let-loose

I will tell you with my rhymes

The enforced societal standard behind each bind

Left on the "mentally unequipped"

Considered Drones of the unkind

These vastly purged minds

It's exhausting

Left unchecked it could be an easy departing

Why should I let that be the case too

I am as much a human being as are you

If I had a presumed fully capable mind and funds I guess I would sue

But you'd stay there thoughtless

Wondering how this mess started to involve you

Feeling targeted you alone

Truth oftentimes is that

You don't even bother unless it happens to one of your own

Biography 

Bex Rose is a born and raised Brooklynite and native New Yorker who is both openly gay and active in the social work community. As a Licensed Mental Health Professional (LMHC), Bex is a Program Director for a NYC based non-for-profit. She has a background in family focused evidence-based practices as well as upper leadership administrative management. Additionally, her work extends beyond community-based services and extends into her private practice – Candor’s Call for leadership development, coaching and consultation.  

Despite a dysfunctional childhood and diagnosis of OCD and Tourette’s she has been able to cultivate success in her field and through many social media platforms. Her most recent book “Mental Health via Poetry” speaks to the duality of a role as a clinician and experience living with Tourette’s. Bex hopes to utilize social media platforms to continue promoting healthy conversations, collaborations and content around mental health, creativity and positive representation.

Get her book: Mental Health via Poetry

https://linktr.ee/Bexrose

https://www.candorscall.com/