Lost along the way

It's funny, the things you take with you and the things you lose along the way. 

For instance, the food in the hospital was so terrible that the only thing I would eat was the yogurt parfait. I'd pick out the fruit and just eat the yogurt and granola. Since I've gotten out of the hospital, two of my three meals a day have been vanilla Greek yogurt with granola. It's all I've ever wanted to eat since I've been out. I won't make anything else for myself, and even if offered other food, I usually turn it down. I have no idea if this diet will make me gain or lose weight or drop dead from malnutrition, but I don't care at this point. It's all I'll eat.

On the other hand, my favorite memories of my childhood were playing Uno with my dad's family, packed around my grandmoother's kitchen table, it was so much fun. When she died mad they divided her possessions, my only request was a deck of uno cards.

In the psych ward, we had about 70% of a deck of Uno. One of the first nights there, I taught the other patients. It didn't quite work perfectly, we were missing some cards, but it was something to do. And at every opportunity - between meetings with the doctor and group therapy - someone was begging me to teach or play Uno. All I wanted to do was read and write, but I obliged, because there wasn't much to do anyway. We played again and again, me and the other patients, a revolving door of bipolar and scichzohrenics, recovering alcoholics and patients going through drug detox. Sometimes it was 2 of us and sometimes it was 10. But we played a lot.

I tought I would forever have fond memories of Uno with my family, of my cousins sitting next to my dad to hit him with all the Draw 4 Wildcards. But the game has completely changed for me. It's no longer what we did for fun on those Kentucky holidays. Now it's what I did when I was at my craziest, surrounded by other crazy people, barely hanging on. Gone are the happy memories.Well, not gone, but tucked away deep in my mind, locked away where no one else can harm them. In their place, a feeling of dread, of fear, of anxiety and hopelessness. Because that's what I felt every time I played with these people.

Somehow, I doubt I will ever play Uno again. And yet even now, I want a yogurt with granola.

The mind is a funny thing. 

It gets worse before it gets better

You've heard that saying before, haven't you? It gets worse before it gets better?

At what point does it stop getting worse and start getting better?

I had another breakdown on Christmas Eve after W and I exchanged gifts with my parents. I was in bad shape. I survived Christmas morning but by the evening, I was a mess again. Woody took me home to rest and take meds. The next morning I attacked myself with an x-acto knife again. Woody called the cops on me and even though they didn't take me in handcuffs to the hospital, W told me that if I didn't go back and get admitted, he would quit his job because I couldn't be trusted to be alone during the day. Ironic, actually, because most of my problems happen at night. But either way, he made it clear: I was voluntarily admitting myself to the psych ward... Against my will.

And so began the worst few weeks of my life. 2013 really, really wanted to go out with a bang, I guess. I haven't been very open about my experiences in there- partially because they were so traumatic. Partially because I don't want to make Woody feel worse for taking me in. I do understand that it was my own actions that landed me there - what with the cutting and the suicidal thoughts - but I never would have gone in if it weren't for him. I don't blame him - he was scared and didn't know what else to do. He did what he had to do. That doesn't change the fact that it was the worst time of my life to date, and I think more than anything, he blames himself for that.

It's definitely effected our relationship. We're having trust issues. He doesn't trust me not to off myself and I think every time I cry or have a bad day, he's going to take me back there and leave me for good. When they say the first year of marriage is the hardest, I don't think they're taking into account those of us who are truly crazy. I feel very bad for Woody because even now, weeks after my release, I'm struggling. He came to visit me every day, he brought me clean clothes and Harry Potter books. He's a better husband than I deserve. Things are already getting better between us, but anyone knows broken trust is hard to rebuild. I have to prove to him that I'm recovering every day. And every day I spend at home, the less scared I am that he's going to take me back there. I've never once worried about our compatibility or our resilience or our love. But I'm scared to death of losing him. I believe that we will be a stronger couple because of this.

I am usually an open book about my life - But I can't bring myself to open up about the things that I witnessed in the hospital. I kept a journal, and wrote in it obsessively, because all I could think about was that I could use this as material for a story. I've already got it outlined, and I'll probably try to write it when I finish the first draft of my current manuscript.

But I don't know how it'll go. I don't know how to put into words the absolute dispair that hung from the walls. They strip search you when you're admitted to the psych ward, did you know that? It's absolutely humiliating. I don't know if I'll ever forget my first night there - I was inconsolable, until they gave me atavan, which made me stop crying but didn't make me sleep. Someone down the hall was getting dialysis and the machine beeped 310 times before it shut off. I know, because I counted. Later that week, I was in the room when a doctor told that patient -who was probably 20 years old- that he would need dialysis for the rest of his life and needed to be put on a transplant list. There is zero privacy in the psych ward: your naked body, your diagnosis, it's all fair game.

I don't sleep anymore. I have nightmares when I do, of being back there. Of never getting out. I told my mother I felt like I was in prison and she scoffed at me like I was being dramatic. What she didn't see was that I was pressured to give my food to the other patients in a way that I felt I couldn't refuse, because many of them scared me and had a tendency to get violent. My roommate would get in my face and yell at me and I was constantly worried about my safety. Two of the men in there with me affirmed my suspicion - having done actual prison time - by saying it was pretty much the same, except here they just pump you full of drugs.

If you read my journal from my stay in the hospital, you can actually witness me start to lose it. My writing becomes less lucid and more paranoid. The drugs they gave me didn't help and they were going to make me stay until they figured out my meds. After speaking to a young man who had been there over two months, I realized I had signed myself into the Hotel California. There's no getting out.

But I had a psychiatrist appointment already set up, and I have been seeing a psychologist weekly since July, so I did the only thing I could think of to do: I lied. I told them I was better. I'm an excellent actress, I was surprised how easy it was to convince the nurse practioner (I never once saw a real doctor) that she had cured me. She was a bitch and I hated her, but I smiled and said I was better. They let me go.

I won't talk about my experience in the hospital, not the worst of it. I told Woody to forbid anyone from asking. But maybe one day I'll write about it. Until then, I'm taking every dose of the medication my psychiatrist prescribed, trying to keep writing the novel that I feel I will one day describe as having saved my life, and learning to believe that I won't be taken back to the hospital every time I have a bad day. Oh, and I'm still not riding Patrick, but that's a story for a different day.

2013 showed me how bad things can get, in every way. Injury, guilt, death, hospitalization, barely scraping by from tiny paycheck to tiny paycheck. On top of that, the gradual realization that my lifelong dream of having a 10-15 acre horse farm is probably unreachable. Ever.

I believe, with all my heart, that 2014 will show me all of the good things life has to offer. I have to believe that things get better than this. I believe that Woody and I will be stronger for having weathered this storm. I believe that my story is good enough to be published. I believe that we will find a home for Patrick and I can have a new horse that won't break his leg, or my heart.

Mostly, I believe that I can get through this in one piece. It's time for things to start getting better.

"Go backwards? No good at all. Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do. On we go."

On we go.