Invictus
Did I ever tell you about the time I was in a mental hospital? Or maybe the time after that, or maybe another?!? I know what you must be thinking…this chick is one crazy bleep! BUT, if you saw me walking down the street, you wouldn’t be able to pick me out from anyone else. I’m just your typical mother, wife, daughter, niece, employee, etc. Okay, maybe with some fun twists thrown in there. When I was 16, my dad completed suicide. I probably should mention that I found him too. So that’s a bit about my history so you at least know where I’m starting from. Obviously, my dad was mentally ill, my brother and mom struggle with mental illness too, so I basically come by it honestly. The goal of this blog is to normalize the struggle…even when it hurts to be so blunt and honest…even when it hurts to keep going to therapy…even when it hurts to be me. You might think I completely lost my sh*t when I found my Dad…and I did to a certain extent, but not in the way you might think. I very much struggled with complicated grief around the whole thing, plus was plagued by the trauma of what it does to not be able to do CPR on your daddy to save him from something I just couldn’t save him from. I struggled immensely when he first completed it, as anyone can imagine a person would. I dropped out of high school (I was previously on track for med school), I moved in with a boyfriend that was abusive, and the story gets ridiculous from there. Maybe I’ll share that another time. I was very much in shock when he completed suicide, and my 16 year old brain could not process that kind of trauma right away.
So fast forward about 5 years. I met my now husband, dated him for 6 weeks, and married him in Vegas. We’re still happily married almost 20 years from then so I’d say it was a great decision. When I married my husband, we got pregnant during the honeymoon stage, and I lost my…I guess you could call him a step dad…during my pregnancy. He had a massive heart attack and lived for about 3 months then passed. In that time, my mom completely fell apart (rightfully so), and I had to pick up the pieces during a pregnancy I was not emotionally prepared for in the first place. I developed perinatal depression, and I was sick with nausea the entire time I was pregnant. Not unlike so many other women out there, but I was also dealing with the loss of my “step Dad”, and my mom falling apart too. Plus being a newlywed, and learning how to live together with someone I’d only met 6 weeks prior. I know, I know…you think I’m a whacko…but I promise, I’m not. I just have some deep dark demons…like your neighbor to the left and right of you, maybe even yourself, I don’t know.
Anyway, my intent on this blog is to normalize mental illness and spotlight how I’ve crawled my way out of the darkness. But first, the mental hospital. After the baby was born, I struggled even harder with depression. Postpartum depression hit me in a severe manner. I was trying to be the best mom I could be, I was trying to feed my child with my new maternal body, maintain an apartment and the household chores that go with it, and all on sleeping for 2 hours at a time at night, only to have to wake up and pump and feed the baby all over again. Recipe for disaster at its finest. So, I was not faring well, but was lucky and blessed to have access to the best medical care that I could find, or so I thought. I did have insurance, which I know is a luxury that not everyone has, so when I say that I’m thankful and blessed, I wholeheartedly 100% mean it. So, I went to my OB/GYN and told them something is not right with me. They put me on an antidepressant, which caused all kinds of side effects (yay for those which are NOT uncommon unfortunately), so my OB/GYN referred me to a psychiatrist. I also joined a postpartum depression support group, which was such a godsend for me to realize that there are no such things as perfect mommies, and the disconnect I was feeling from my child, was not normal per se, but definitely was a symptom of a very serious condition. Flash forward to a psychiatrist putting me on a different medication, and I developed suicidal thoughts very quickly after starting the new medication. Now, because I am a survivor of my dad’s completed suicide, this scared the ever loving day lights out of me, truly. So, we (my husband and I) talked to my support group leader, who guided us into the Emergency Room because my thoughts scared me so deeply. I didn’t necessarily want to complete suicide myself, I knew what that did to me and was not about to do that to my own new little family. I had so much to live for, a brand new husband, a brand new baby, a whole brand new life. I just had thoughts like “maybe you should kill yourself”, or “I wonder what would happen if I just drove my car into the side of the freeway wall”.
You know, thoughts…very unsettling, curious but drastic and dark thoughts. So, off to the ER we went. I will never forget how that experience shaped my future. The first thing they did when I entered the ER and they roomed me, was take my baby away from me. I didn’t want to harm her!!!!!!!! I desperately love her and she is the joy of my life, but they took her away for “safety precaution”, and it was the absolute most dehumanizing moment in my life. I went in there looking for help, they treated me like a criminal. Now, please know this experience and my speaking out about it helped pave the way for great change at this specific hospital and how mothers with PPD (postpartum depression) are now treated. I don’t want my story to scare anyone away from getting the help that all of us deserve and some of us desperately need. As mentioned before, I’ve been on the inside other times too, and the experiences were not bad at all.
And, to put it into perspective, taking my baby away temporarily was difficult, but it paved the way for my healing journey, so I wouldn’t change it for the world. What I will say is that I was then ushered up from the ER to the fifth (I think it was the fifth) floor where the mental hospital is inhabited. Before I went, I had to say the most awful gut wrenching goodbye to my husband and this new sweet baby that I have ever had to say. It tore my soul from the inside out….my sweet husband’s too. The next 24 hours were terrifying and I was told I was going to be forced to stay there against my will. They put me in a room with other extremely mentally ill individuals, I was young, naive, and just knew that I was sad. Meanwhile, my roommates were talking to people I couldn’t see and talking about illicit drugs I’d never taken before. To be clear, I am not judging, I wear my mental health diagnoses with pride, and I’m here to normalize what is not, at this point in time, normal. So, please do not misread me and my intentions. My roommates are human, just like me, and I mean no ill will toward anyone suffering from ANY degree of mental illness, or not. I just want to set the stage that I didn’t sleep that whole night because there were constantly people in my room that only certain individuals could actually see. That alone was terrifying to me. Plus, as mentioned before, it was all against my will, after being already terrified and reaching out for assistance. I ended up being released the next morning by the psychiatrist that saw me in the morning. She didn’t know me from Alice or John, but thankfully, she released me back home after extensive discussion on why I do not want to take my life, and I never took that medication again. Unfortunately, the new trauma was digging deep into my psyche, and I couldn’t stop the next 20 year journey that I’ve been on ever since. My goal in telling my story is again, to normalize something that, unfortunately, is not normalized yet. We as a society are beginning to become more accepting of mental illness, but not near what I think is required of us. My hope, is to shed light on suicide, and what it does to the growing brain to find your daddy lying in death at the cost of a decision he made. I want to share my story of healing and growth, and hope of making it through the darkness, even when it hurts. My honesty is brutal, but my heart is soft and full of love and light. I am a mental health warrior queen, Invictus at its finest. I’d love for you to come along my journey into mental health and wellness, but I understand if you can’t as well. This journey, these stories, are not for the faint at heart. I will be sharing brutally honest excerpts from my traumas, from my journeys through medications, from my soul and the light that shines from within it. Even when it hurts…
