Ann Diment
Ann came to Survivors via the NSUN newsletter. She is an interdisciplinary socially engaged artist, advocate and speaker working across poetry, performance, audio and visual arts. Ann creates spaces where people can connect with themselves, community and the natural world through creativity.
Resilient
I don’t wanna be resilient,
I’m tired and want my bed.
Instead of being resilient,
I’d like to feel instead;
recovered, nurtured, healing.
In a place where I can be
Validated, cared for.
Find my true identity.
Beyond the past old stories
ACES are not ace!
Complex trauma’s impacts
Kept masks upon my face.
I want to craft a future
of calm and feeling safe.
To nurture all the scattered parts
hidden all over the place!
To gently call them back
into my loving arms
Forgive but not forget all those
that caused us so much harm
As carrying the anger,
the sadness and the pain
has only made life harder
It’s time to start again.
With lightness, ease and gratitude
For every day survived.
Coax out joy and happiness
that’s hidden deep inside
Celebrate incredible strength
of all my younger parts.
Gift to them a future
With a loving open heart ❤️
I don’t wanna be resilient
I’m tired and need to rest
But when I rise up
watch out world,
You’ll see me at my best!
An Unseen Friendship
Hello old friend.
You have walked alongside me my whole life.
Yet I only recently got to know you.
As you’ve been lurking in the shadows.
Unseen, unknown and misunderstood.
For over five decades.
Your comrades also walk with my family, they too were invisible yet, it’s now apparent, they were present in many ways.
For too long I have ignored you, yet cursed you vicariously for the struggles I faced;
Isolation
Rejection
Confusion
Impulsively
Restlessness
Procrastination
I just thought I was the one to blame,
and everyone else agreed because they didn’t see you either.
On the darker days, when I thought the world would be better off without me,
you saved me with your remarkable ability to find solutions and create connections,
pointing me to places where I could find sanctuary and support.
Your curiosity and enthusiasm for all things shiny and new helped me see the world through a different lens,
kept me learning and craving for more ways to create and grow,
And then, as I helped my daughter understand her own hidden friend,
I recognised you in me and wanted to know you more.
Our reconciliation’s been a painful path,
filled with grief, regret, guilt, loss, and shame for all those lost years of missed opportunities.
Sadness too, that we didn’t do this sooner.
Live in harmony with all the quirks and differences instead of hiding them.
Painful endings have happened with people and spaces that choose not to accept us.
But, this shedding, and adapting to living with you in plain sight has led to joyful new experiences in places that embrace us however we are.
I want you to know I am so grateful that you are here,
and the more I get to know you, the more blessed I feel that you chose me to be your companion.
I’m learning to fully embrace you and accept you into my life,
as you are me and I am you,
my beautiful, brilliant, brave (and sometimes befuddled) ADHD brain!
Witnessing Presence
It’s not something I ever though I would be doing,
Lying shaking on the floor in a room full of strangers
But that afternoon when I learned to release
Viscerally from my body
Years of stored tension and stress-
Simply by tuning in and letting go.
Like a wild animal would do,
Shake it off,
Shake,
Shake
and shake some more!
Allow, release, breathe.
Trust,
shake,
breathe,
allow.
First the legs,
Then the shoulders,
shuddering like I was on a vibrating plate.
Then full body tremors
Gentle, not scary,
Calm mind
Clear emotions
Then the head rush
Oh! The blissful feeling.
Blood and endorphins flooding the brain as for the first time in years,
Blockages are cleared.
Slowly the shaking subsides.
Now rest,
recover, curl up into a ball
and allow the body to stop.
There is nowhere to be, nothing to do.
Process and feel gratitude.
Then, when it feels right
Start again- release round 2
Lift, tense and release,
Set the tremors in motion and feel the flow of energy
to places that have been cut off for too long
Shake, allow, tremble,
release, shudder, breathe.
Recalibrate to a level of softness and lightness not felt in decades.
Slower, slower, spent.
Roll over, curl up, rest,
Allow rest, notice calm mind
Calm mind that is unfamiliar to a busy brain.
Primed to be hypervigilant from decades in freeze mode.
Sirens outside – no response,
Where is the jumpiness gone?
Feels good, notice shouting, tune out,
focus on what’s inside the room,
feeling safe, feeling calm,
allowing, resting, releasing, safe.
Witnessing presence.
…. Using insights from her lived experience of surviving cPTSD, depression and a late ADHD diagnosis, and her professional career supporting health and wellbeing over three decades, Ann brings poetry into conversation with landscape, visual art and participation, to challenge stigma and creating shared experiences and opportunities to express responses to place, memory and belonging.
The poems featured here are:
• ‘Resilient’ : about being tired of having to be resilient and not wanting to carry on living that way,
• ‘An unseen friendship’ : As I processed my ADHD diagnosis at 52 and realised that I could finally accept myself instead of feeling like I wasn’t good enough all the time.
• ‘Witnessing Presence’: Describing a trauma release workshop i attended and how it felt during and afterwards.
LINKS
All my Creative links here
Here’s how you can work with me: https://bio.site/resilience.rebel
Get my bestselling book ‘Turning the Tables on Burnout’ here
Redefine resilience, create calm and beat burnout here
Want to talk about how I can support you? Book a Call here
Buy Art Card and Prints here
Listen to the Creating Resilience Podcast here
I use Funnel Sketchers to manage my business- find out more here
Instagram: @anndimentartist, @resiliencerebel
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/resiliencerebel.bsky.social
Ann is a member of Artists’ Union England, the trade union for visual, applied and socially engaged artists www.artistsunionengland.org.uk @ArtistsUnionE