It is our pleasure to have Bex Rose, Poet and Mental Health Professional, as a guest on the Poetic Resurrection Podcast in November 2023. 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
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