Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I am in recovery. That is what the doctors say, the IOP therapist. They say it can take time to recover from a mental health crisis. I should know this, I’ve had severe crises in the past and barely survived some of them. But sometimes I’m not sure what recovery even means.

Does it mean functional? Does it mean motivated? Does it mean free of symptoms?

I’ve been out of the hospital a couple months now. Almost three months.

I will always have symptoms. Whether they range from mild to severe will depend on the environment, brain chemistry, medication, and other factors I can’t even think of right now. Does it mean normal?

Dr Black doesn’t like the word normal. Everyone’s got something, everyone fights a battle. Humans are on a spectrum, human behavior varies widely, and I’m somewhere on the more unstable side. A friend called me “eccentric.”

I will listen to the same song over and over again, just because I like it. I have been fascinated with death, the macabre, and the disturbed since I was a child. I have been extroverted, introverted, and robotic. My recovery is a mixture of all three.

Hypomanic symptoms persist. My recovery means functionality despite ongoing mild symptoms, something which appears to be a permanent state for me. Symptoms on one side of the spectrum or the other. My thoughts flit and fly faster than my typing can capture, and certainly faster than my mouth can say. I often speak before I think. Sometimes this results in terrible consequences, other times I am considered witty and maybe a little bizarre.

Recovery is attending to mental health with renewed focus. That is half the battle when I am giving up, ready to die, suicidal. Or manic and ecstatic, believing myself to be practically cured, with intense focus and energy. And voices and delusions who tell me to keep on what I’m keeping on, don’t listen to doctors, don’t listen to anyone but us, we are all you can trust.

I am hearing buzzing, ringing, and crackling frequently, right in my ears. No voices lately. My brain is buzzing, reverberating womp womp womp womp….

There is electric tingling up and down my spine. It feels rather invigorating. Sometimes it is so strong I have to stop and breathe a minute.

IOP in the morning tomorrow. Already week five? I can hardly believe how the time is moving, with time dilation constantly reminding me of our time trapped nature. It’s an illusion, a measurement to make sense of entropy, but entropy and time aren’t the same thing.