The human brain is an intricate, complicated place to be trapped in or to be the one to study it. It can convince you of things that aren't true, keep you awake over things that haven't happened, and somehow make you feel guilty for things you couldn't control. And that's before we even get into psychiatric diagnoses.
To understand why I created Unwell, Actually, I have to tell you the whole story. Not just the clinical version, the diagnosis, or the neat little summary of what happened. I mean the messy, uncomfortable, sometimes heartbreaking, occasionally absurd reality of how I got here. Because my relationship with mental health didn't start when I became a nurse, and it certainly didn't start when I learned the terminology for what I'd been experiencing. It started long before I understood what was happening to me. And to explain why this matters so much to me now, we have to go back to the beginning.
Part One: The Beginning of the End (Sort Of)
Trigger warning: This post discusses sexual assault, mental illness, and suicidal thoughts.
Mental health became very important to me, very quickly.
At 13, I had my first panic attack. I couldn't breathe. No matter how I tried, I couldn't get a full, deep breath. Which, naturally, made me panic even more.
My mom drove me to the ER, where they quickly determined that I was, in fact, NOT dying. I just had anxiety.
They gave me a shot of Valium and told my mom that if my anxiety was severe enough to land me in the ER, I probably needed medication.
My mom said a big, fat HELL NO.
“I want her to learn to manage it on her own, not rely on medication for the rest of her life,” she told the doctor.
At 13, I didn't advocate for myself. Hell, I probably didn't even know what advocate meant at that time.
So, we went home.
Age 16: A Breakup, Celexa, and a Lesson I Didn't Understand Yet
Fast-forward to age 16. First boyfriend. He dumped me two weeks before prom, and I flipped shit.
I went to my PCP on my own, and he prescribed citalopram (Celexa). I took it for a couple of months, but it made me “careless” to the point of being reckless.
I know now, having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, that I was likely experiencing mania.
I quit the medication cold turkey and went about my life.
Because, obviously, that seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do at 16.
The Thing I Didn't Talk About
A few months later, I was raped at a party by someone I knew.
It was my first-ever party, and the first time I’d ever tried alcohol — or gotten drunk. It was also the last.
The assault affected me mentally (obviously) and physically. There was a lot to process, and I was just a teenager trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
I didn't have the language for everything I was experiencing. I just knew that things had changed.
Pregnant, Depressed, and Confused as Fuck
Jump ahead to age 20. I'm pregnant with my baby love, Nora.
About 10 weeks into the pregnancy, I found myself deeply depressed and crying constantly. I was confused, lost, and devastated because, in my heart, I was happy, excited, and ecstatic to be having a baby.
But my stupid fucking brain was like, “Nah.”
I met with my OB-GYN, and we weighed the risks and benefits of taking an antidepressant during pregnancy.
Which, in my mind, looked something like this:
Potential risks: Low birth weight or slightly premature birth.
The alternative: Suicide.
I'm still alive today, so what do you think I chose?
Zoloft it was.
And it worked. While I was pregnant, anyway.
Postpartum? Not so much.
I quit cold turkey. Again.
And for a while, I seemed okay.
I Thrived in Chaos. Until I Didn't.
You see, I've always thrived in chaos.
I LOVE being busy. I love having a million things on my plate. I love having somewhere to be, something to do, and approximately 47 things to think about at any given time.
It took me a long time to admit that, but I know now it's true.
I've always been high-functioning, regardless of what was going on with my mental health or how much shit I had going on. From the outside, I could keep going. I could work, show up, get shit done, and keep moving - and I could do it all well.
But being functional doesn't always mean being okay.
And in 2022, my life did a complete 180.
2022: The Year Everything Fell Apart
It happened fast. Suddenly. Without warning.
One day, I was fine. The next, I was in crisis.
I remember I had just downloaded TikTok for the first time. My husband and I had avoided it because we were convinced it was Chinese spyware. (I mean, were we entirely wrong? That's a conversation for another day.)
I came across a true-crime video about a brother who had stabbed his little sister to death and said some pretty heinous shit about it.
For some reason, it sent me into a spiral.
The intrusive thoughts started pouring in with a vengeance, like I had somehow done something to these thoughts and they were coming back for revenge.
I couldn't work. I couldn't eat. And worst of all, I could NOT sleep.
I was sleeping one to three fragmented hours a night.
My husband told me he would wake up and find me lying there, staring wide-eyed directly at him.
I lost 20 pounds in two weeks.
I almost lost my job.
My daughter was around 18 months old and had been staying with my mom most of the time because I was struggling so badly.
How was I supposed to care for a tiny human when I couldn't even care for myself?
My husband had to shower with me to make sure I didn't intentionally hurt myself.
I was barely functioning, terrified of my own mind, and completely lost.
And then came the incident that made me realize I couldn't keep going like this.
The Morning I Asked for Help
One morning, I got up and got ready for work. My husband did the same.
He had recently purchased a handgun for protection. At the time, he wasn't particularly careful about storing it, so it was sitting on his nightstand.
He left for work without it.
All I remember is him coming back for the gun.
And there I was, holding it.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing. I-I realized you forgot it and was fixing to bring it to you,” I replied.
I was lying.
He left for work with the gun, and I immediately drove to my mom's house, shaking the entire way there.
All I could think about was wrecking my car and killing myself.
I walked into my mom's house and said, “You have to take me to the Crisis Stabilization Unit. Now. Today.”
Now, isn't it funny how, in the middle of a serious crisis, life sometimes throws one more fucking thing at you?
I walked in to find that Bella, the dog my mom and I absolutely adored, had died in her sleep the night before.
So there I was, watching my mom grieve and try to take care of our dead dog while I was fighting for my own life.
I couldn't even grieve Bella. I was too busy trying to focus on not dying myself.
An hour or so later, we were on our way to the CSU.
My daughter was in her car seat in the back.
I was heartbroken, ashamed, scared, and confused. I knew I needed help, but I was terrified of what would happen when I finally told someone how bad things had gotten.
And the entire drive, my mom kept saying:
“DO NOT tell them about these ‘thoughts’ you're having. They will take that baby away.”
Thanks, Mom. Just what I needed.
I was already terrified. I was already struggling to survive. And now I was being told that being honest about how bad things had gotten could cost me my daughter, too.
I had no idea what was going to happen when we walked through those doors.
I just knew I couldn't keep living the way I had been living.
And that was only the beginning.
Keep an eye out for Part Two.
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