crazy people shoes.

I spent the better part of last week in the looney bin. Yup. Naturally, I'm gonna tell you all about it.

Of course, there is the fair amount of blame that I want to place... I want to blame him, but I know I can't. I want to blame the army, but I know I can't. I want to blame myself... but I know I can't. I know that it's not about blame. While certain circumstances in my life may have contributed to what I am experiencing emotionally and mentally, it's not those things that led me to do what I did.

It was a song that sent me into my emotional state, made me realize a lot of things that I didn't want to. While the song stirred up plenty of uncomfortable feelings, it wasn't the emotional state I was in that made me feel like there was only one way out. What pushed me over the edge was the feeling of hopelessness. I feel like I've been fighting my whole life against some invisible force, and I was tired. I felt like I would always be suffering, always fighting. Nothing I tried had permanently solved my problem, so I reached for a bottle of Pine Sol.

I didn't swallow any of it. The taste was enough to jar me to my senses, the way it burned my tongue. I closed it up, laid down, and went to sleep. This isn't the first time I've come close to hurting myself. I realized that night, I should really get help. Out of desperation, I went with my mother, and a friend, to check myself into the Mental Health Unit (aka Psych Ward, or Looney Bin).

My whole experience at times was surreal. At first, I was terrified. Both of my parents work in the Mental Health field, and I had developed, mostly due to my father, an ignorant concept of the system as a whole, as well as the people who are in the system. I am not proud to admit that I looked down on people who needed to get help. I viewed them as weak, or sometimes dangerous.

Sitting in my room, dressed in a hospital gown, paper pants, and crazy people shoes, watching all the Loonie's walking by outside my room, I thought to myself, "I'm not like them. I'm different. I've just been under a lot of stress lately."

I don't think that it was one simple thing that changed my mind. It was a culmination of the experiences I had while in the hospital, from witnessing my father's denial about my situation, to participating, and listening to the experiences of the other people in group therapy, to actually getting to know these people one-on-one. I came to the realization that I wasn't like the people in this place. They were just like me.

The people I met at St. Benedictine's were everyday people. Some were affected by psychological disorders, some by substance abuse, and some were just tired.... like me. I then became painfully aware of my own sad ignorance, but what this helped me come to terms with was that Depression is a sickness. It doesn't have any physical signs (such as a broken leg), and so their is still a social stigma connected to it, but it is still an illness. Illnesses can affect anyone, and everyone. Most importantly, illnesses can be treated.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a therapy that was developed to parallel Buddhist meditative practice. The therapy encompasses mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Basically, it teaches you about your emotional mind, your rational mind, and your wise mind (the balance of the two). The therapy gives you the skills you need to recognize, accept, and process your emotions in a rational way.

As I let go of my dense, ignorant ideas about mental health and the treatment of related conditions, and learned about new therapies, I was open to try new ideas. I wanted to get help, and was open to any ideas that I hadn't tried already. When my doctor prescribed Prozac, I had to swallow my pride (and the pill). My ideas about medications and people who took them paralleled my ideas about mental health facilities and the people who were in them. When I read up on my medicine, I discovered the difference between being dependent on medications, and using them in treatment. Medication, when correctly used, is used in conjunction with other types of therapy, so that the patient can eventually come off of the medication. Meds are a tool, nothing more. They don't fix the problem, but they aid in bringing you to the point where the therapy can actually do its job.

Being in the looney bin was an experience. I realized the extent of my condition, but more importantly realized that there is hope. There is a way out that doesn't include me off-ing myself. Suffering from depression doesn't make you weak. Depression can affect everyone and anyone. The real sign of strength is getting help, and that includes swallowing your pride. The only way to get over the Social Stigma that is still connected to anything mental health is to talk about it. We need to talk about it so that we can realize that it affects everyone, and that there is nothing wrong with admitting you need help, or needing help in the first place.

P.S. I also had time to read while I was in the hospital. I read this book, it's funny stories helped pass the time and pick up my day.