part 22

Sometimes people tell me that I should be careful about what I write on my blog, that I should take my future into consideration, and think about whether or not what I write here may have any negative impact on my desired career choices. I mean, it’s a good point – on the one hand, I’m putting all of my crazy out there for the whole world to see and judge.

But on the other hand, I’m not crazy. I am someone who has experienced a lot of really bad shit that was not in any way my fault, and I have to wonder – would I even want to have a career that judged me negatively based on the fact that I was abused as a child? At this point in time, I really don’t see that happening.

One of the things that really bothers me about mental health issues in the United States is the negative stigma attached to them. Here’s the thing though: everybody is fucked up. There is no such thing as “normal,” but there is such a thing as “healthy.” “Healthy” takes a lot of work, though, especially considering negative life experiences.

Everybody has negative life experiences: some experiences are worse and cause more damage than others, and some people are more resilient and can continue to independently function on a healthy level despite the negative experiences. But a lot of people can’t do that – because we’re people, and that is just how it goes.

Which brings me back to the negative stigma attached to mental health issues: I have come across a lot of people who will not consider going to therapy because they cannot conceive of the very notion that they may in some way be someone who could benefit from therapy. I’m really glad I’m not one of those people.

Yeah, going to therapy sucks. Having to acknowledge that the experiences I have had are real sucks. Getting diagnosed with something listed in the DSM (the “official” book of mental health issues and disorders) sucks. Carrying around the knowledge that, according to society – and for a long time according to myself - that I am somehow broken and unworthy really, really sucks.

I mean, what am I supposed to do with that? How can I put all of my experiences out into the world and not expect to be treated negatively and as somehow mentally deficient in return?

At this point, I don’t really give that much of shit about how society or future employers might negatively view me because of my past experiences. At this point, I give a shit about living my life. I’ve been told to shut up since the day I was born, and that I was crazy and bad and wrong and unworthy of love or acceptance.

And I am still told that today – it is not wise to “advertise” the state of my mind, the past, present, and possibly future ways I cannot fit into this world.

But I’ve never fit into this world anyway, and by sharing my experiences and my pain with others, I am at least able to fit into my own skin.

Who knows? Maybe one day I will seriously regret putting all of this out there, but for now I am definitely okay with not shutting up and not sitting down. Putting it all out there has so far been immensely empowering, and so I’m going to keep doing it for now.

Having said that, back to my story…

So arrangements were made for me to go into the mental hospital as an in-patient for an undetermined amount of time. The idea of not knowing how long I would be there or how long it would be before I could see my kids again was terrifying. I knew Jonny could visit me, but the kids were not old enough and it ripped me up to leave them. I was very concerned with missing school, as well. I was also very concerned with the cost of this type of treatment.

But none of that could counteract the pain I was experiencing. It was pain I had been experiencing for my entire life, and it was finally – FINALLY – going to be safe to let it out.

I had this analogy in my head that everything my dad had done to me, and what the conscious acknowledgement of all that encompassed, would crush me. It was a big wave – a GIANT wave – that I had so far been able to hold off from crashing on top of me.

I could have times when I would not be thinking or feeling what that huge wave meant to me, but it was always there. As time went on, it just got bigger and bigger, and by the time I went into the hospital, it was a tsunami.

And I was tired. I was so, so tired of trying to hold it up. I was terrified of what would happen once that wave came crashing down. I didn’t really have any idea what might happen, just the absolute and complete terror of whatever it was that would happen.

I was very aware, though, that I had been waiting for someone to cart me off to the loony bin for as long as I could remember. But no one ever had. That was hurtful – I felt that there should have been at least one person in my life who loved me enough to do what needed to be done in order to allow me to get better. I had been waiting – literally – for my entire life for someone to step in and say, “enough,” and to scoop me up and put me somewhere safe.

As long as I tried to keep it all together myself, though, there was no way anyone could possibly even get close enough to me to be able to see how much pain I was in, how much my mind was torturing me, how much I hurt from knowing that my dad – the one person I had always wanted to love me and accept me – had done these things to me.

I mean, my DAD. Dads are supposed to keep their little girls safe, and to love them and to adore them and to make them feel like they can get through life without all of their skin being peeled off in the process.

But my dad didn’t do that. He didn’t even have the decency to abandon me – he stuck around. Instead of keeping me safe, he was the one who hurt me, and who allowed others to hurt me. It was all I meant to him – a toy, a device for his own amusement.

My god, that just HURTS! It is devastating, debilitating, CRUSHING. There is no room for any concrete thought or logic or anything else because that pain just consumes every single part of me and shuts me down.

I really thought it would kill me. But it didn’t.

The thing about the mental hospital that gave me some hope was that I knew they had straightjackets and syringes full of sedatives. Well, I never really saw a straightjacket – or a syringe, but I knew that if I came all undone, there would be people there to hold me down and dope me up before I could die or go permanently insane.

Additionally, it was a MENTAL hospital. People expected things like that from patients in a MENTAL hospital. I just couldn’t imagine a better place to finally, FINALLY, let it all go that would be more appropriate than a mental hospital.

So as terrifying and heart-wrenching as it was to go there (voluntarily – something I am truly amazed at and for some reason proud of), I knew that it would be safe. It was the safe place I had been waiting for someone to take me to. I was a little surprised, and as I mentioned before, hurt that I ended up having to pretty much instigate the process myself, but it was not so hard for me to get over that.

As much as I had wanted someone to scoop me up and take care of me – as much as I longed for someone to do that – I ended up being okay figuring out it had to be me who got the ball rolling. I guess I had to become willing to be that vulnerable, to allow someone else to help me.

And by that point I hurt so badly it was easy to take apart my pride and do just that.

And that wave came crashing down hard – and I was very surprised to find that it hadn’t even knocked me over. I mean, it really knocked me off balance, but I was still standing.

And after that, I believed that I could survive this. And that’s what I have been busy doing ever since then.