‘I Still Get Sad, But I’m Going to Live’ | Your Story

Your Story is a series in which you, the reader, are invited to be a guest writer on Your Friend Jane and share your own story, relating to mental health and personal growth.

O.G.B.

(Trigger Warning: The following story discusses rape, suicide and substance use, which may be triggering to some readers.)

Someone once told me, “Everything will be okay in the end. And if it’s not ok, it’s not the end.” 

I hold that with me wherever I go. And oddly enough, that quote is presented to me everywhere. Whether I see it on a little sign in a bookstore or as the ‘Quote of the Day’ in that cozy coffee shop across the bridge (both of which are true accounts), God or coincidence, whichever you believe in, it reminds me that it’s not the end.

I wish someone had told me that earlier — that it wasn’t the end yet. But I had to learn that for myself. 

You know, I am not going to go into my entire life story here, because I’m still coming to terms with my mental illness and addiction. I don’t mention my childhood or the beginning of my college experience in this writing, because everything is interwoven. This small glimpse of my life is connected to every experience that I have ever had. This is just a snippet of my journey. But it may be one of my most important pieces of my life. 

I believe that what is important right now is the de-stigmatization of mental illness and the healing process, as I saw it for me. 

In the late winter of 2019, I walked right into my therapist’s office and told her that I was going to die. And she called the police. They wanted to take me to the hospital. I did not want to go. 

But they brought me anyway and I ended up in the psych-ward. I say psych-ward because I think it’s kind of a funny bit of terminology. It has such a heavy stereotype compared to if I had said the ‘psychiatric hospital.’ But instead I used the big, bad, scary term PSYCH-WARD. Because you need to feel it, feel the weight and pain of those words. Maybe in your mind you see straight-jackets and restraints. Or maybe you see people sitting in wheelchairs speaking incoherently and staring out the window. 

But after spending a month there, I can tell you that there is none of that. 

Instead, there are shots of Haldol for people who are screaming down the hall. There are “classes,” where they screen episodes of the MTV show “Intervention” to try and get you to stop using, cutting, binge eating or whatever they choose for that day. There are phones hooked up to the wall that ring once in a while during breaks. No one knows who is calling until a patient answers and yells into the other end, asking who is calling. 

Now, it's not all bad. Because in the psych-ward I got sober and I was safe — safe from myself and safe from drugs and alcohol. 

I had no idea that I would be going back in just three short months, because sometimes, healing takes more than one try.  

By spring of 2019, I was coming off an alcohol and drug addiction and fresh out of the psych-ward. I was not in school, but I was planning to go in the fall. I was staying in sober living. I was working, and I was visiting friends. I was going to AA meetings. I was taking my medicine. 

But I was also hurting myself and falling apart. I experienced a slow decline into what felt like madness, and it was painful.

Then last June, I wanted it to be the end. So, I tried to end it. (You get where I’m going.)

And back to the ‘psych-ward’ I went. Where I ate uncrustables in a cafeteria and took up a nicotine habit because the three-times a day smoke breaks were the only chance we got to go outside. Where the nurse recognized me because I went to high school with his daughter. (She was a year younger than me and he said that he knew she remembers me being crowned the Homecoming Queen.) Where I did puzzles on plastic tables during free time. 

After two weeks, my social worker told me that she was sending me home. I looked her dead in the face and said, “If you send me home, I will die. Please help me.” I was depressed, anxious, suicidal, recovering and afraid.

So she suggested that I go to rehab. I went to Tennessee and then California to a Co-Occuring Treatment Facility. Basically a place where people with substance abuse disorders as well as mental health issues went for rehab. 

And let me tell you that I wanted to get better so badly. I wanted to heal. I wanted to recover. And I worked very, very hard to try and make that happen. 

Because becoming suicidal does not just normally happen out of the blue. Pain makes it happen. Pain from trauma, grief and loss, conflict and cocaine (in my case). 

I had to address all of that. So every week, three times a week, I went to trauma therapy, where I explained my rape and suicide attempt in great detail for an hour. It was supposed to desensitize me to it. And on some level it did. Someone can say the word “rape” to me, and I don’t run out of the room crying, most of the time. 

Rehab saved my life. Did I cry everyday? Yes. Did I get angry and scream into my pillow at night? Definitely. Did I gain weight and hate my body? 100%.

But I was also put on new medication. I was trying a new type of therapy. I was going to AA and NA meetings. I was healing. And for that I am forever grateful. I stayed in rehab for five months. Then, I flew home a changed individual and left California behind. 

This spring, I went back to school. Where I made new friends who loved me for who I was. Where I sat in the dining hall with my housemates and ate burritos that got cold before we could get back to our table. Where I had dance parties in the common area to “Come on Eileen.” 

Now, things are not magically perfect. I have days where I can’t get out of bed. Sometimes, I cry for no reason in public or while I’m driving my car. I get lonely. I get sad. And I still get lost. 

But the difference now? I know that I can handle it. I am taking my medicine. I am going to meetings. I am in therapy. I am going to get through the day with one foot in front of the other. I am going to live. And that feels like one heck of an accomplishment.

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