I Do Not Like Bats in My Belfry (Daily Word Prompt is Unfurl)

My daughter and I just got back from a wonderful, beautiful and fun vacation,

arriving home very late last night

unkindly greeted by an awful sight.

It was only one bat, but it might as well have been ten.

One is all it took, to create my bat phobia to return again.

Bats, bats, bats and more bats,

high-flying, swooping ugly bats.

I hate and despise you,

am frightened by you.

You scare me,

and terrify me.

Your sight frightens me beyond my mind,

especially when my home is where you find,

to sneak in somehow, someway, to stay,

like you came inside my house to play.

Tortured by your sight,

causing me a huge fright.

Flying and soaring around, up high near my ceiling,

then swooping down below, with absolutely no feeling,

of how scary the sight

of your dangerous flight.

Swooping near my head,

causing the fear I dread.

You fly erratically and I do not like that,

neither does my big fat beautiful black cat.

The sight of you is grotesque and gross

my house is not yours to visit or host,

too close for comfort, my fear I show,

until I can find you to make you go.

Leave, flee, let me be,

unfurl your colossal bat wings,

increasing the fear it brings.

Fly out of here,

and don’t stay near,

then I will cheer

with no more fear.

You scare me, making me frantically scream,

beyond my worst kind of nightmare dream.

A bat is an ugly scary creature.

Not my house kind of invited feature.

Get out now. Fly out of my house.

I prefer a cute teeny tiny mouse.

One stigma related expression that has been used for years is…

“You have bats in your belfry.”

First of all…

There are no bats in my belfry.

A belfry is the top of a bell tower on a church.

I have no belfry and I certainly do not have a belfry for a head.

Bats have never lived in anyone’s head,

and if they did, the person would be dead.

Thank goodness there are no bats in my belfry.

Some terms and expressions that have been used in the past and are sadly still being used today to refer to someone who has a mental illness or as they used to call it more often in the past, insanity or “madness” are:

“She has bats in her belfry, squirrels in the attic, owls up in the loft. She’s apeshit, bughouse, batty, mad as a march hare” and sadly there are so many more.

This is stigma and it needs to stop now. Please use your words carefully and kindly. Stigma is cruel, biased and are words used from an uneducated mouth. Stigma hurts painfully and wounds deeply.

Please stop and end stigma now.

Copyright © By Susan Walz and myloudbipolarwhispers.com – All written content and personal artwork is © myloudbipolarwhispers.com and Susan Walz. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author/owner/artist is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to My Loud Bipolar Whispers and/or Susan Walz with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

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