A Healing Place

It has been a long time since I have been here to my little blog, a long time since I have written about myself and for myself and felt the need to share it with the known world. However right this minute, I need to do just that. 

I have been in and out of therapy with a variety of therapists for about 10 years. I have taken medicines and rubbed essential oils, lost and gained weight, changed careers many other things trying to regulate my moods and my energy and stabilize my general health and state of mind. A few years ago it was suggested that I might benefit from a stay at an inpatient facility. I thought about it, but put it at the very bottom of my list of priorities. After all, I had way too many other people to take care of and too many other responsibilities to walk out of my life for 30 days. 

Last November, that suggestion became a necessity. 

My amazing friends and family rallied around me. My workplace and co-workers made sure I had the time, and away I went, deep into the forest of Florida. 

I cannot possibly explain all the ways this experience changed my life for better...and for worse. But tonight, as another piece of exquisitely shiny mica is chipped off the granite of my foundation, I have to speak out about the truth that is my experience with inpatient mental health treatment. 

True to my mind's preferred way of teasing out the complicated thoughts and feelings that push and shove each other around in there, I have made a list. I have written two lists actually, which speak to my messy and confusing experience during my search for healing.  

Each person's experience with this kind of care is different. I understand that. So I share this information knowing it may not be understood or embraced. Nonetheless, like me, it is here. 

THE HEALING:

• For the very first time, I felt like I was not alone or unique in my unhealthy thoughts and feelings. This was truly a revelation which immediately began to bring peace and hope to every circuit of my brain and every string of my heart. 
• I gained a much deeper understanding of how I became who I am and how I can reclaim a truer, happier, healthier self. 
• I began to let go of shame which has controlled my every decision and subsequent actions for most of my life, and live in a whole-hearted way. 
• Creativity returned to my life as a powerful tool for self-expression, self-confidence,  and self-care. 
• Under the shiny leaves of an ancient magnolia and from thumbnail moon to thumbnail moon I felt reconnected to the Universe, to the God of my understanding. I laid in the dark with my skin to the grass and dirt. I stretched my arms and face to the sky and stars. I bathed in the smoke of burning sage. I once again felt the power and love of knowing I am a child of the Universe, truly made of elements, of star stuff. 
• I was able to save important relationships and come home to loved ones.

THE WOUNDING: 

• Wounds laid open, literally. Seeing young, smart, beautiful girls from all walks of life scarred with the marks of negative feelings so deeply rooted the only choice was to slice them out.
• Unimaginable horror listening to all the ways human beings can hurt one another. Women and men being splintered into the tiniest pieces by other people resulting in bottomless self-hate and fear. 
• Leaving support behind. Having created trust and hope among people who trust no one and never dare to hope, you promptly leave those people and are tossed back out into a world of unknowns. While many of those people are close in theory, keeping in touch by Facebook or email or phone, the day to day, face to face, immediacy of truly meaningful interaction is gone. It is hours and hours away in every possible direction. 
• News that someone has relapsed. News that someone wants to die. News that someone tried to die. News that someone succeeded. 
• Bills left unpaid because of time out of work. Medical debt which will take me many many years to get under control, and refusal by immoral health insurance providers to help in any way.

I am truly thankful for the once in a lifetime opportunity provided to me. I am truly proud of myself for the work I did while I was there and am continuing to do for myself and for others. 

Most days it is that healing that has my attention, but today, today my thoughts are of the wars being waged. Today I miss my people so badly I can hardly breathe.