In 1988, as a child, John suffered a catastrophic brain injury and spent between eight and twelve weeks in a coma following a RTA. This left him with hidden disabilities including chronic fatigue syndrome and neurological damage. Consequently, he had many challenges and limitations in all aspects of life, having to learn to walk, talk, write and feed himself again.
Embracing the challenges in equality he began working with disadvantaged people in the community as an adult championing people who didn’t have a voice. He used the strategies that had helped him recover, for example setting up table tennis sessions for disabled young people to improve their coordination and giving talks in schools to raise awareness about brain injury to give young people a greater understanding and reduce the discrimination faced. As well as facilitating opportunities for disabled people and supporting them to achieve their educational aims and objectives.
Always keeping faith close to his motivations, he set off on a pilgrimage in 2020 visiting Cathedrals, Churches, Chapels and Shrines. This has shaped his outlook and given clarity to his approach to writing as he analyses and projects for the future.
Since his experience in a coma, he has always known God and credits the prayers and spiritual input during this time for his recovery and progress. His personal experience with God stems from him having a conversation with God asking if he wanted to live and John saying he wasn’t sure because of all the negativity in the world. God said, “OK, there’s a lot of people praying for you. I’ll leave it with you”. Some years later as a teenager and altar server, a vicar and friend said to him “God is in the people.” He recognises the strength of prayer and power in belief in the world and gave this input. This is something he has explored in the poetry pamphlet ‘Hidden Depths’.
Writing the Hidden Depths pamphlet helped him get away from his shadow, his inner darkness which had restricted his freedom for so long. It has enabled him to face himself and look into himself. In writing the poems he has been able to heal. This was after a period of depression lasting about ten years. He tried talking therapy, medication and many more self-help methods, including meditation but it was only when he looked at his own supressed emotions that he could find his truth, heal and face the darkness within himself. Light only emerged when he could go into the darkness and see the pain. And so to a path of nurturing his soul which required boundaries and getting rid of toxic relationships. He can now find himself again after peeling away layers of social expectation.
After many years of trying to fit into the demands of a society John could not physically and cognitively fit into, he wrote poems that represented that and all that is part and parcel of living with hidden disability and brain injury. For him to feel accepted in a community that ridiculed anything out of the norm was important to do on his terms without the mask that he felt that he had to wear for so long. Masking is so easy to do with a hidden disability because no one knows it is there. In fear of being marginalised because of difference it is difficult especially when he didn’t fit the mold internally but wanted to so much because of wanting to contribute, fit in and do the things that society values. It was all too easy to feel like he needed to slot in, play a part and went to excessive lengths to do this because of the expectations society put on him. He found the demands put on him to work too much and they caused further illness and disability. This is why he wants to tell his story to raise awareness and to promote understanding to authority’s and people who may be experiencing challenging personal circumstance as a disabled people.
About Me
John P Hindle lives in North Lancashire. He has a degree from the Faculty of Arts and Social Science at Durham University and studied for a Post Graduate Certificate of Teaching in Higher Education at UCLAN. He obtained a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Cumbria and has published his creative works in various magazines having also spent time as a writer in residence and tutor. John finds inspiration in collaborating with painters and sculptors. Over the years he has been a member of a number of different writing groups and in 2021 he set up a writing collective at King Street Arts in Lancaster with the proprietor. 2023 saw him launch his first Poetry Pamphlet ‘Hidden Depths’ following a three year collaboration with an abstract artist. The Hidden Depths Exhibition with John Baldwin’s paintings and John Hindle’s poems is at King Street Arts in Lancaster. Since launching The Hidden Depths Poetry Pamphlet John P Hindle has worked in universities helping people better understand hidden disabilities and brain injury through research.