My story

At any given moment during my shift, I could be anything. I could be a priest, reading scripture from a pocket-sized bible as I hold on to confessions like keepsakes. I could be an artist, shading inside the lines with broken crayons and dull colored pencils. I could be a singer, stumbling offkey through the words of my childhood lullabies. I could be a friend, making beaded bracelets and braiding hair. Most of the time, I’m an immeasurable mix of all of the above. But in every moment, I am required, relentlessly, to be myself. I am a daughter, a sister, and a friend. A student, a writer, and a founder. And I am a therapist who struggles with her own mental illness. 

When I talk to my loved ones about my mental health, I usually receive a response along the lines of “you’re not alone.” It’s almost ironic, because I know this. I work in a private recovery hospital where, for fifty hours per week, I run my fingers over the pebbled complexion of other peoples’ rock bottoms. We see, hear, and grieve for things that we don’t get to talk about, but bear witness to nonetheless. I know I am not alone in my struggles, my pain, or my loneliness. But mental illness is like a waiting room. You’re never alone, there are people to each side of you, but this doesn’t make it easier. Mental illness and waiting rooms are some of the only places in the world where misery hates company because it doesn’t help. 

This does not make me special. My brain grabs on to terrifying images and thoughts like sandspurs clinging to the vulnerable parts of your ankles. My breathing often comes in sharp spurts, like I’ve ran a marathon even though I’ve only had a conversation. A harsh blush climbs up my neck like a kudzu vine when I think too much and, sometimes, I’m afraid of the way I think, or who I may have the potential to become. And still, this does not make me special. For the first eighteen years of my life, I was sure I was broken. For the last three, I’ve known that I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, General Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder.

The longer I spend in the mental health field, the more arbitrary it feels for me to tell others about the way my brain tells me stories. I am a substance abuse counselor, I am a graduate student studying clinical mental health counseling and will one day be a very proud, uniquely qualified counselor. I am one of my peers that have struggled, and fought, and won, although for no particular reason. Because I am no different than any of the ones who lost. I am no different than my patients, or the faces I see as I drive home from work, or peers that I lost to suicide. None of us are. And so I have dedicated my career to searching for what makes the difference, because there is no recipe for resilience. There is no cure for depression, anxiety, OCD, or schizophrenia. There is no bandaid in the world that could cure the emotional pain that is so rife in our community that it fills our streets, hospitals, and treatment centers with broken hearts and spirits. But I tell my story anyway because I have been very lucky. I have been given an incredible gift to help others in my community who hurt the way I have hurt, who share the fears that I’ve had. And I have seen kindness work. I have sung the lullabies, and braided hair, and colored pictures, and in a way that may not be explained by data and studies, I know that it works. Because I have lived, and, when I’m even luckier, my patients do, too. But there is more to be done.