A Mooroopna poet has found new inspiration after a creative breakthrough, and she hopes her message will help others who, like her, live with mental illness. Rosa Ritchie reports.
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Grief has been Victoria Hebbard’s constant companion for nearly a decade, and poetry became her confidante after the loss of her twin boys and fiancé in quick succession in 2012.
Old scars reopened this year when her former partner took his own life in March, and Victoria's mental health deteriorated.
Writing is a healthy outlet for Victoria's most powerful emotions, although she said putting her grief into words was not the same as dealing with it — something she learned recently.
“I have a whole box full of poems, I started when I was 12 — they’re just exactly how I feel at the moment,” she said.
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Until last week, the majority of Victoria's writing was a record of the sadness she said she had known most of her life.
Victoria lives with a physical disability, borderline personality disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and — since the death of her former partner a few months ago — an adjustment disorder.
She said her poetry would be confronting to read for the people who loved her.
But Victoria held her writing close as a precious record of her reality.
“I’ve had people tell me to burn them or rip them up,” she said. “But I think they’re priceless.”
Victoria said she wouldn’t change her history, despite the pain she had endured, and she had no regrets.
Victoria’s twin boys, Noah and Dustin, passed away in her womb in 2012.
“I held them for six hours, I was an extremely proud mother that day,” she said.
Her pop — whose health was failing and had promised to stay alive until her twins were born — died one week later.
The weight of Victoria’s grief became too heavy to hold when her fiancé died in a car accident six weeks after they lost their babies.
In the years that followed, Victoria turned to drugs and alcohol to cope, reaching a crisis point in 2019 when she attempted to end her own life.
“I was dead on arrival to the hospital, and my family came to say their goodbyes,” she said.
“One day before the life support was meant to be turned off, I woke up.”
The loss of her former partner this year strained Victoria’s mental health again, deteriorating to the point of breakdown.
Victoria spent the past fortnight in a mental health ward, something she said no-one should feel ashamed to admit.
“The ward comes across as such a stigmatised place,” she said.
“I go in there and I make friends all the time — there’s so many beautiful people that I meet through the ward, who are misunderstood and judged.”
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It was during this stay that Victoria’s poetry turned a corner, filling her with pride and a kernel of hope to hold on to.
When one of the nurses suggested Victoria try her hand at writing a poem that captured a positive feeling, she surprised herself when she rose to the challenge.
“There was so much darkness, but we had a sunny day and we moved a chair out into the sun,” she said.
Notebook and pen in hand, the words flew on to the page and Victoria completed the poem in just five minutes.
She was touched by the way staff and friends in the ward reacted when they read it.
“They made such a big deal about it,” she said.
Nurses made photocopies of Victoria's words, and another patient was brought to tears.
“She said, ‘This means you’ve got a glimmer of hope’,” Victoria said.
A doctor encouraged her to keep writing.
“They said the more that I write positive poems, the more that I will think that way,” she said.
Although she knows there will be hard times ahead, the poem serves as a reminder to Victoria that she can find a beam of light during the hardest times.
“I want to be able to pick it up, this raw piece of paper, and remember this day I was so happy that I wrote this — I achieved this . . . and I can do it again,” she said.
“I know I will come down, there’s gonna be that moment, and the poem will be my saviour.”
If this story raised concerns for you or someone you know, help is available. Contact Lifeline on 131114 or at lifeline.org.au. Contact Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636 or beyondblue.org.au/forums
Upturned Face by Victoria Hebbard
The warm sun beaming,
Beaming down on me,
Free from that cold snap,
The dark grey skies that I see,
Birds chirping all around,
No breeze to engulf us,
I can't pull myself away,
It's not love it's lust,
Why can't I feel this way?
This way about me, myself and I,
Why can't I learn to love the little girl inside?
I want to be a bird in the sky and fly,
With the sun shining so brightly,
No darkness in sight,
No clouds covering my sky,
No thunder to give me a fright,
Just the sun beaming down,
On an upturned face,
Showing some light,
On life's fast running pace.
Shepparton News journalist