Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I have not been very present. Trying to combat that with mindfulness. Christmas came and went and as per usual, my brother never came with the wife and kids, but it was my mom who canceled and postponed this time. Now they are slated to come end of the month. I will be at work.

My fourth quarter of grad school began right after Christmas. It’s been very hard to stay motivated. To keep up on the reading. I have learned a lot, but some of it is tedious. Sometimes I just feel too old for this. But as I have always maintained…I always wanted to finish my masters.

I might finally be getting a bit of a handle on some of my worst triggers. Notably, my Sacred Heart job and all the myriad ways my memories are triggered and that still haunt me. I found some ways to cope – don’t look at the signs on the doors, the hallway that leads to the site of some trauma. I don’t get to float to psych, just like at the VA. I’ve been a patient too many times.

Things like ambulances and the police trigger the fuck out of me, even still. I drive like an old lady most of the time because I’m genuinely afraid of getting pulled over and the cop thinking I’m up to something because I’m hyperventilating and of course he escalates things…my imagination is vivid and runs away with me.

The worst is driving by the mental hospital. To this day it sucks, it makes me remember too much, and it isn’t just the physical place. It’s the mental memory too. Remembering who I was, and how fucked up I was, still fucking hurts.

But I’ve rolled through a lot of it. I have to.