recovery
Your illness does not define you. It's your resolve to recover that does.
The arduous but sweet journey.
So it all started with a bit of curiosity that me as a good kid began following through my instincts in something I could not ignore. I found a love that I knew I couldn’t pass up. I was in high school with my mind geared towards a bunch of political and historical interests. In a time where history was being made it was hard for me to keep my feet on the ground. I was growing up with two siblings (one brother and one sister) in a 3 bedroom house. I carried throughout my days with what I could say was a very active mind. You could imagine late nights with hardly any sleep to carry myself with the next day. I remember it took me hours in the morning to wake up before I was fully awake. A funny habit I kept through my high school years that I found later to actually be taking adverse effects on my grades and body altogether. I was a quirky individual who liked to dress to impress. I had braces and as you could imagine and was very prone to falling into different scenes. I was a dancer who took to nightclubs and parties to show off my moves. The realities around me slowly began colliding and as you know I began experimenting with drugs as a young teenager.Not the healthiest choice but the funny thing about is that I always told myself I would never fall to this type of negativity. But my thoughts then were somewhere along the lines of; hey what do I got to lose? Except a few brain cells. But anyways the point is that I myself could not believe that I somehow fell into these drugs that were pretty mad now that I think of it. I was taking MDMA/ecstasy about every month with major events. As a side note I always kept the strange truth floating in my head that MDMA was the first drug I ever tried and it being one of the strongest too. (Talk about a leap into the deep, BIG.) Carrying on, I was big into the EDM scene. I had caught a fever for the music and dancing altogether. Along with it the drugs followed. I and my friends had gathered a group of dancers who surprisingly became internet famous through our dancing aka shuffling. That was rare back then and boy was I happy to know we had caught steam. Our videos were gathering thousands of subscribers and even more viewers from all over. But the beautiful thing about it was the fame itself opened my eyes to what was truly happening. In my heart I knew I had to be responsible about what was taking place. It was drugs, music, and a whole lot of temptation that I luckily had caught onto. I wasn’t a heavy user at all in fact I was the least subject of focus amongst my friends. Altruistically, I became the leader of our dance crew sort of the eyes of the group and what we called the “Main Head” of EIU. One of the most talented crews in all of OC. You can even look us up on YouTube our videos are still there. Everyone called me Acidoser which is funny because I never tried acid in my life and still to this day I haven’t touched the substance. Moving through the years from where this started to when it ended between the years of 2011-2014 now aged 17 at the beginning of 2011.I found myself in one of the happiest state of minds I had ever been. I made a ton of friends and met tons of people through my days and everyone knew my name. It was strange times for me. Imagine walking out in public and having dudes and girls alike calling your name out. This was very striking to a humble person like me. It was like the world was screaming for me to break out of my shell. One side would scream dancing and drugs and the other half of me still trapped would say no stay down. Guess which one I chose? It payed itself in respect down the line but further down that road I started trying other drugs to go along with what I called “experimenting”.
By Gabriel Nieto6 years ago in Psyche
Almost Conquered
Here we go again, another relapse. Why is it so hard to be good and so easy to spiral out of control. 8 months after going to my first Holiday Inn rehab, 28 days, really? Just an extended vacation to curb the withdrawal and start mixing the concrete that you will use for your foundation and then graduation! The excitement of being whole again, the gratitude for friends and family. Inspiration comes back, laughter comes back, and what is this..... Emotions..... why does it feel so good to cry and why are they so elevated? Why am I all of a sudden this easily read open book to whomever would like to read it? Actually you know what, I don’t care because this is my fresh start, my new beginning. I was once a prisoner in hell that suddenly escaped and now I am running as fast as I can away from it all.
By Christoph W6 years ago in Psyche
How I've Recovered from My Suicide Attempt This Time Last Year
From October 2018, my mental health began to deteriorate following the passing of my grandfather on 30th September 2018. Grief is different in everyone. Some know how to cope with it, whereas some don’t. For me, I’d never fully experienced grief. I’ve lost loved ones in before my grandfather passed last year, but I wasn’t old enough to understand grief overall.
By Lewis Jefferies6 years ago in Psyche
DBT and Me
*Trigger warning—Talk of Suicidal Ideation I was sitting on the hardwood floor of my bedroom. I felt the room spinning. No, not the room. It was me, spiraling out of control into the blackness of my depression. It felt like mental quicksand, because the more I struggled against the despair the faster I was pulled under, until all I could feel was the overwhelming need to end my suffering.
By Becca Willson6 years ago in Psyche
The Day Hospital and Beyond
Once upon a time, in the days before Uber, I took a cab from my glitzy corporate job where I drank designer coffee drinks and carried designer, overpriced handbags (which I still do because they are AWESOME), and was dropped off at one the premier hospitals in Chicago. I was there because my then husband called a psyche intake meeting for my botched suicide attempt.
By ToriAnne Brinsley6 years ago in Psyche
Healing
Lately, I have been having a lot of things weighing heavy on my mind. Weighing in on the scale at one million pounds is my childhood trauma. When this weight takes over, I begin to think about how life never really gave me the chance to dwell on my pain because it does what it’s good at doing, “it moved on.” I started to think about how my sisters went through a lot of traumatizing things as well, and they never got the chance to dwell on the pain, we never got to heal. After other thoughts, I began to think about how people go through so many things in their lives. Whether it’s from your childhood or adulthood, and they never get the chance to heal from it. The process of healing takes time, whether you are improving alone or with a support system. Regardless healing must happen; one of the reasons I feel like it is hard to heal is because of life. Many different versions of life happen for people; some people’s trauma is distracted by moving away, new job, new additions to the family, new friends, or even new relationships. When all these things happen, the trauma is pushed back, and the wound is still open. In my situation, after my trauma was acknowledged a big move occurred for my family and me, then at the age of 16 only two years after my ordeal ended, I was pregnant with my son. All the horrific things I had gone through were pushed back, and although it was still affecting me every day, I was so busy I was never able to bring it up again. Another reason I feel like people push back their trauma is that other people aren’t supportive of their healing. Both family and friends have a role in the healing process. Being supportive starts with communication, reaching out to someone and asking them how they’ve been doing after various situations is a start. There are adults now that have been through things as children, and they never healed from it because family members or friends weren’t supportive of their healing. Their mother, father, grandma, or uncle, etc. never talked to them about things they’ve been through, so they felt like it didn’t matter. The process is even worse when you’re an adult because you’ve been carrying the pain forever and other’s might not take what you’ve been through as traumatizing as it was then because it happened so long ago. As an adult, I can honestly say if I would’ve got the acknowledgment of what I went through in my past from a healthy support system I would be more healed at this point in my life. It is not okay to hold in the things you’ve been through because you feel like it is a waste of time talking about it or it happened so long ago that it doesn’t matter. It does matter, any pain that you’ve experienced matters when you haven’t healed from it. Whether it’s trauma from abuse, neglect, losing a job, finances, being robbed, it matters. A lot of people push their mental health to the side based on how people react to what they’ve been through.
By Maelyn Jeffers6 years ago in Psyche
Bitters & Soda
Bitters & Soda is a raw, honest and sometimes embarrassing perspective of what modern sobriety looks like outside of an organized program. This is a first hand account. It is not a step-by-step guide to getting sober nor is it a sermon on alcohol abstinence for one and for all. I am an alcoholic and this is my personal experience.
By Lalie Kavulich6 years ago in Psyche
