Come back to 2023 with me. There I was, riddled with anxiety, depression, and PTSD. There was so much electricity in my body, that I felt like I was on fire at times. I called my Primary Care Physician who under-treated me and told me to, “think about nice things and don’t think about the bad things.” Here’s a piece of advice: if you are struggling and your health care provider says this to you, find someone else to help you. This person may be good for some things, but not good for your mental health.

Luckily, I knew that I needed medications to turn down the noise. I was not sleeping much. I was running. A. Lot. It was like I was trying to run away from my past. I am sure my neighbors thought I was a psycho because I would run and just start to ugly cry. Sometimes if I didn’t want to cry on my run then I would blast my music in my head to drown out my thoughts. I had my appointment to see my psychiatry NP, but it would be another month. I was in therapy, but it was only an hour a week.

I was working and luckily, it was a very low number of patients and acuity. My life was still moving forward. I went with my sisters and daughter to see Taylor Swift. It was a great concert and a nice distraction. My oldest was getting ready for the last year of High School. I still had a soon to be 16 year old and my youngest that was gearing up for kindergarten.

There was no time for this. To top it off, my therapist was finishing up her studies and would be leaving the state. I would have to start all over with someone new.

My supportive husband didn’t understand. He also is great when he has something to fix, but didn’t understand how he couldn’t fix this. He was great with just being there for the hugs. I would call for him from the shower floor when I could stand. I would call for him from the bedroom floor when I couldn’t peel myself up. It was like the damn had opened up. The guttural cries wouldn’t stop once they had started. All the pain and anguish from my entire life started to come out.

I don’t know exactly what I was grieving. Probably everything? My loss of innocence? My lack of childhood? My stolen life? Finally being free, but realizing that I held the key this entire time? The fact that there is so much still missing from my life? Was I grieving his death? That can’t be because isn’t he a monster?

God would step in again at the beginning of August. I worked at a very small hospital. They closed their doors. I lost my job. It was devastating. Don’t get me wrong, it was terrible at the time. It is still terrible for the community. Please don’t confuse me saying that God closed the hospital is good. God did me a solid by placing me in the hospital during that time. There is no other situation where I would have voluntarily stepped away from work for 9 weeks to work on my mental health, well, until later.