The past couple of weeks have been quite interesting. On the 25th of March, I ended up checking myself into a psychiatric hospital because I needed help and I needed help fast. It was to the point where the night before a friend had to come home with me for a couple hours so that I could stay safe and not hurt myself because I was in such rough shape. So I agreed to sign myself in and try to get some help that I needed. Let me tell you it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I have been involuntarily committed multiple times before and hated it but it was still not as hard as this stay was. I had multiple opportunities where I could have signed myself out, where I could have lied to get myself out sooner or where I could have said screw it and not done the work and not cared about getting better. But I didn't. I had friends behind me, who came to visit me every and I mean EVERY chance they got and answered almost every phone call they could and spent countless times on the phone with me crying and begging them to just let me give up and let go.
One conversation I specifically remember and I hope that I will remember it the rest of my life is the conversation that changed my viewpoint on a lot of things and changed my mindset about the whole thing was the conversation we had about me just wanting to give up and end it all. She told me about her experience about losing a loved one to suicide. She told me that her and her friend (who also was constantly visiting me) could not lose another person to suicide. She told me that "Just because you are told it's not your fault and that there was nothing you could have done doesn't mean that you don't sit there and blame yourself and ask yourself how did I mess up? How did I screw up? Why wasn't I good enough to keep this person on the planet?" And it was this conversation that really hit me. Not right away. But after sitting with it and sitting with it and sitting with it, things started to change. My thinking started to change a little bit.
Luckily, with this hospital stay I was able to get a fantastic doctor who was able to switch up a couple medications which have helped a TON in managing my condition. The doctor was really helpful in challenging my thinking about my situation and how I handled my situation overall and how I handled situations that took place while I was in the hospital.
Another big thing that I learned while I was in the hospital was how crucial it is that I ask for help. I am horrible when it comes to asking for help about things like mental health or even with simpler things. I have started to learn that I need to ask for help before things get to a crisis stage and that this can help me prevent getting to that crisis stage. I have friends that can help me stay away from that point and my therapist is back now and can work with me. I have learned to ask questions when I need to ask them and reach out when I need to reach out. This has been a tremendous learning experience. I made a couple new friends through it and hope to slowly gain more friends as time goes on. I hope I can remain stable for a while and make things okay for a while as the medication begins to start to work in my system and things level out.
I started back work last week and LOVED it and got back to fostering kittens which has been an absolute blast to get back into.
Recovery is a process and this was a huge bump in the road. But it helped me move forward. And hopefully things will continue to move in an upward direction. We shall see. More details about the hospitalizations to come..........
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