Documenting my journey through the mental health system

Everyone knows of it – the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Everyone grieves something – lost family/friends, a lost job, lost opportunities, lost hope. No one goes through the five stages in a linear fashion and in fact, we as humans are all over the place.

I realized as we talked about this in group that I grieve many things. My father’s death 18 years ago still leaves me angry, frustrated at the order of events that day and desperately wishing I could go back and answer the phone when he called right before the wreck. I grieve lost opportunities, ruined opportunities, like my foray into graduate school and the catastrophic mental health crisis I experienced after my first year, essentially rendering me unable to go back. I don’t even want the degree anymore, it just makes me grieve for myself I suppose…grieve what could have been. I’ve accepted it, I know it wasn’t the right program for me, but I still grieve the lost time, the foolish idealism. The regret will live with me forever, the haunting feeling I’m just not good enough. That’s why I’m only a CNA right? I tried to be more, I tried to be something different and pursued what I could with the limited resources I had. I had dreams of being a PhD, a doctor, and I am still only a CNA. I try not to blame it all on my bipolar disorder, it’s more than that. But I can’t help but feel I would have done much better for myself if I just had a normal brain. If it wasn’t damaged by trauma and PTSD. If I didn’t go manic and hear voices and get crazy ideas. If I didn’t get suicidal and desperate to end an all encompassing, supremely painful despair of all that is lost and all that will be lost.

Sometimes I can’t bear the thought of another 30 years on this planet.

Those kinds of thoughts lead my down dark suicidal paths but I can’t help but feel and hear them deep inside me. Always present, lurking, occasionally popping up to remind me I’ll never truly be free.

I try to ground myself now, the new skill taught today in IOP. I focus on something external to me and notice the thing, the color, the smell, the imagery. I then focus on something I can hear, and just listen. I then feel, whatever I’m sitting on, or lying on, or touching at that moment. I just feel it.

It’s all mindfulness, in the end. Again! Trying to stay present, trying not to worry so much. I am supposed to complete IOP soon but may get more time. I’ve missed a few from work and other obligations. And I just don’t quite feel ready.