A Brief History of the Author
Content Warning: Self-injury, suicidal intent, sexual assault, eating disorders
As these entries are currently focused on my TMS experience (that is going to be a new show on TLC any day now), it seems a few details about my past may be helpful for those who don't know me, or don't know me well, to understand what has led me here.
I was adopted at birth and from all accounts had a normal, even idyllic, childhood. I had good friends, a big yard to play in in a safe neighborhood, and a brother, Chris, who joined our family when I was four. My dad was a small-business owner and served in the Air National Guard Reserves, and my mom stayed home with us for the first 15 years or so. Though I never doubted that my parents loved me, they were very strict, and I remember feeling like I could never measure up to their expectations, even though I was an accomplished pianist, never touched a cigarette or alcohol, and graduated from high school with two years of college completed and a 3.987 GPA.
After high school, I attended the private university where my parents had met. This was when my mental health really started affecting my classwork. I would not have graduated without the help of one Spanish professor, who saw me struggling and reached out. Somehow I graduated on time, majoring in Spanish. I immediately went on to a Master in Teaching program at the same university, which I did not complete as I was asked to leave at the end of the second term. Since then I have had a series of nannying, daycare, and music-related jobs, lived at way too many addresses, and have generally been a massive failure of an adult.
I kept my mental illnesses well-hidden until my 8th grade year. I started hearing voices when I was about seven years old. I figured out pretty quickly that this was not normal, so I didn't tell anyone. However, over the years, the hallucinations went from hearing my name whispered in empty rooms to distinct voices that told me to harm myself. The breaking point came one day at school. The voices had been tormenting me, telling me I couldn't eat or sleep or they would take over my body and make me murder my family, which I believed they could do. I broke down crying in the bathroom, told my best friend, and it might have stopped there if the vice-principal hadn't come in and heard me crying. My friend told the vice-principal what I had told her, my mom came to pick me up, and within 24 hours I had been admitted into the local psych ward.
At 13, I was the youngest person on the teen unit. I was raised in a very conservative and sheltered home. Being in the psych ward was a turning point for me. I started self-injuring while on the ward, because all the other girls did. For the first time I saw eating disorders, girls who had been assaulted by friends and family members, girls just a year or two older than me in the frightening grip of psychosis or dissociation, kids literally being locked in a padded room, kids banging their heads against the walls, kids being restrained by security and tied to their beds. I witnessed a suicide attempt. I felt completely terrified, abandoned by my parents and the god they told me would never let me down, and utterly alone for the first time in my life.
The next few years were pretty rough. The antipsychotic that I got prescribed in the psych ward made me gain 10 pounds in a week. I had lost all trust in my parents and avoided them as much as possible. The counselor I was taken to destroyed my trust by disclosing everything I told her in my first individual session to my parents the following week (which was actually illegal because I was 14, but I didn't know that at the time). This counselor, Ann, gave my parents really terrible advice about how to "help" me, including searching my room for blades when I was at camp, doing body-checks for new injuries every day, and taking the door off my room. She said I should be kept away from my best friend, who was basically my only support since I felt I could no longer trust any of the adults in my life. Ann also said things that still affect my relationships 12 years later, calling me manipulative and bratty and saying that people didn't really care about me if they never initiated contact. I still fall into patterns of "testing" people to see if they'll call me if I don't call them, even people I have known for years and who I know truly love me.
After a couple of years, we finally stopped going to Ann. I came off all my meds and was basically not in any form of treatment for over two years. There was a woman at our church named Michelle who I knew was a psychologist and I really wanted to see her because she seemed soft and kind, the complete opposite of Ann, but her office didn't take my parents' insurance.
In the meantime, I had begun a program called Running Start, which allowed me to take classes at a local university that counted for both college and high school credit, so starting my junior year of high school I was a full-time student at EWU. The freedom of college was something I loved as an introvert and someone who truly enjoyed academics. I didn't intend to major in Spanish but it just kind of happened; I had started taking it freshman year of high school and wanted to continue at Eastern. I did well in my courses, but again I was starting to lose control. Though the voices and other auditory hallucinations had faded into the background, I was struggling with a deep and all-consuming depression. I had continued to self-injure and the injuries were increasing in severity. I gained and lost huge amounts of weight all throughout high school. I had stopped eating lunch in 7th or 8th grade and continued to restrict, seeing how many days I could go without eating, usually culminating in a binge-eating session. I don't remember exactly when I started purging, but I had had disordered eating for so long that moving on to that next level didn't feel particularly monumental. I remember purging a lot at restaurants, or when we visited family for holidays.
Somewhere in this time, my dad had gotten a different job and I was finally able to start seeing Michelle when I was 17. This was a huge turning point in my life. For the first time since I had realized I was sick, there was someone I could talk to, someone I could trust, who was kind and safe and sensitive. Unlike Ann, unlike various people at my church, she didn't judge me and she didn't chide me. She listened, she gave advice, she encouraged me to get back on meds. She was the first person I felt understood how very deep my depression was. She saw that, even though I was high-functioning, I struggled; oh, I struggled. Michelle saw inside me, into that tangled, angry darkness, and she took my hand and began to walk through it with me.
After high school, I moved into the dorms at Whitworth University, about 40 minutes away from my parents' home. I was excited to get out of the house, but as someone who is an introvert to the max, the dorms were an extremely stressful environment. I skipped all of the beginning of the year "traditiations," telling my roommate I had migraines. A couple of weeks into the year, I began what would be a long and arduous attempt to find any medication that would help with my depression and anxiety. I was put on Seroquel, which is an antipsychotic with a heavy sedation effect. The first night I took it, I slept through all three of my classes. My roommate attempted to wake me up several times; I think I got up around 5pm. It took about a year for that to go away. I managed by setting three or four different alarms each morning on my phone, along with an alarm clock on the other side of the room that I had to actually get out of bed to turn off. If I ever had to pee in the middle of the night, though, I would climb down from my top bunk and literally crawl on my hands and knees down the hall because I was too dizzy and groggy to stand up. Those were fun times.
My self-harm was beginning to escalate. My one semester in the dorms was the first time I cut down to muscle and the first time I burned myself with boiling water. By that time, I was used to getting comments about my scars. I didn't flaunt them by any means, but I also didn't go to great lengths to hide them in the warmer weather. There was only one person at Whitworth who ever asked me if I was okay, and that was my first Spanish professor, Ángeles. Within my first few weeks, she had picked up on the fact that I was anxious and depressed. When she told us to find partners for an activity, she noticed that I sat in the back with my hair hanging in front of my face and did the work alone, so after class she quietly told me I could just move up and sit with the two girls in front of me so I wouldn't have to panic about finding a partner or having to talk too much. When I missed class because of side-effects, she would send me the homework assignments and let me do them outside of class time. Once I left an entire third of a test blank; the next day in class she handed it back, told me to take it home and fill out the rest, and she'd give me half credit. I passed that class with a C-, the lowest grade I'd ever received, and I would have failed out of school completely if not for Ángeles' support through the next two years.
(Kitten break because those were a tough few paragraphs to write.)
I moved off-campus after my first semester and lived first with friends and then in a tiny studio apartment, where I got my first own personal cat, Desi (see above). I was nannying in the mornings, attending classes, and working at a daycare in the afternoons. During these years I was also rapidly accumulating more mental health diagnoses. Along with major depression, I had been diagnosed with social anxiety, PTSD from my hospitalization in 2004, schizoaffective disorder, possible Bipolar II, and was beginning to experience dissociative episodes. I went through a few psychiatrists and was prescribed antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers, all of which caused laundry lists of side-effects and none of which lessened my depression. My eating disorders became more severe and I sometimes went up to two weeks at a time without eating any solid food. One night I cut into an artery and was taken to the hospital by ambulance for staples; I narrowly avoided being committed. I started having panic attacks every night and couldn't fall asleep without a movie playing on my laptop, which continues to this day. I wandered the streets at night when I couldn't sleep, often going to parks and climbing trees or driving down to the river to stare at it and contemplate throwing myself in. If I didn't have Michelle, I'm absolutely certain I would have killed myself during this period, intentionally or accidentally.
After graduating, I started my Masters classes and loved them. I was still in my little studio and driving to classes, which were from 8-5 each day. Sometimes I would have panic attacks and would sit in the hallway outside the classroom to take notes, but for the most part I was able to keep up despite my illnesses. It helped that Ángeles taught a class in the same building that fall, so I would stop by occasionally for a pep-talk on the really difficult days. At the end of summer term, we had the month of August off and would start part-time student-teaching in September.
That August was the worst month of my life. I dissociated constantly, sometimes blacking out for up to 12 hours. My general pattern was getting fuzzy in the late afternoon, and then I'd wake up in my bed the next morning with no memory of what had happened the night before. Once I woke up with $200 worth of Oreos in my fridge that I sheepishly returned because that was my rent money. Once I lost my car and found it three streets down in a stranger's driveway. Michelle told me that she would occasionally get calls from my number but the person talking to her claimed to have a different name and had a different personality. Though I was never officially diagnosed, it seemed pretty clear that I fit the criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder. This terrified me and I don't think I ever told anyone besides Michelle about those first few weeks.
(I wish it was this simple.)
Then one morning I woke up covered in bruises and blood, with a split lip and marks on my neck. I wasn't sure what had happened, but as the day passed I realized I had been raped. It took a long time for me to start getting memories back of that night, but what I eventually pieced together was that I had dissociated, driven to a part of town I didn't know (traveling is a pretty common occurrence in dissociate fugues), and gone to a party. I now remember being called by the name of my alter, getting drunk, being sexually assaulted, and then attempting to hang myself in the garage of the house where the party was happening. That was August 11, 2010. My best friend was getting married on the 14th; I wore a scarf to the bachelorette party and covered my neck with makeup at the wedding. At the time I still didn't remember much of what had happened, and wasn't prepared to answer any questions. I started tying myself to my bed at night.
In early September, I started my student teaching in a third-grade classroom. I struggled with having a different teaching style than my mentor teacher, who was going to retire at the end of the year. She intimidated me and I thought she was too harsh with the children who had ADHD and the nonverbal student with anxiety. Though I was only in the classroom two days a week, as always, I connected with the children very quickly. Then, on September 16, I started having the worst cramps I've ever had. As I sat on the toilet in an elementary school bathroom, I realized I was having a miscarriage. I was gone long enough that my mentor teacher didn't question me as I collected my things and left at lunch time. I went home, still bleeding, and sobbed into my pillow for hours. I will always wonder if my child would have lived if I had stopped taking my meds.
Soon after this, I started seeing a little girl following me around. It didn't take me long to realize she was a hallucination. She told me her name was Emily and that I was her mommy. She was a constant presence in my life for the next few years.
(Basically this, but your charming drunkish roommate is actually your three-year-old child. Also if you haven't seen this movie, go watch it right now.)
In November, my friend Amanda died of leukemia at the age of 22. I was starting to fall behind on my schoolwork. The head of the program asked me if I'd like to take a couple weeks off of student teaching to work on my papers, and I said yes. A few weeks later, my grandpa suffered a stroke and was placed on life-support. As I planned a trip down to California to say goodbye, my program head informed me that I would not be allowed to continue my program after the winter break. I finished writing my thesis proposal next to my dying grandfather's hospital bed so I could at least complete the term. After two weeks in a coma, he passed away a few days before Christmas without ever waking up.
When I got back home, I got evicted, because I was no longer receiving financial support for my schooling. I moved back in with the family who had taken me in when I left student housing and got a nanny job. At the beginning of summer my dad told me that my grandma in California (his mother) wanted me to move in with her and help with housework and driving her to appointments. My parents packed up a few suitcases, my brother, and my cat, and we drove the 21 hours back down to Sacramento. My family stayed for a week and then went back home.
My six months in California were difficult. My grandma is a legally blind, brilliant, quick-witted, and sometimes sharp-tongued woman, as well as a well-traveled masterful story-teller. An aunt lives about 15 minutes away, which was comforting as my grandma was 90 at the time and enjoyed a gin martini or three every evening, often bouncing back and forth against the walls of the hallway as she made her way to bed at night. I enjoyed spending time with her and my other family in the area, but within a couple of weeks I was terribly homesick. Michelle encouraged me to find a counselor in the area, so after a couple mishaps I ended up with both a great psychologist and a wonderful psychiatrist. However, I was lonely, isolated, and struggling with new symptoms of depression and anxiety that I didn't know how to deal with. I began having obsessive thoughts about death to the point where I couldn't watch old movies because the actors were dead, or read books by authors who had died, or even do my art history homework (this was when I still had to be in school full-time to have insurance, which I needed in order to see my doctors and afford my medications, so I was taking a full load of classes online in which I had marginal interest at best). My nightly panic attacks got worse and I rarely left my room. One night I called my uncle at 3am to take me to the hospital because I had cut my arm down to the bone. Once again I escaped being committed to the psych ward and my grandma never knew about the incident.
I had originally intended to return to my hometown in January and finish my program. However, in California, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to go back to school full-time. As I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for hours, I realized that I was never going to be a teacher. I honestly didn't know if I was even going to make it home. I didn't want to exist anymore. I hadn't for a long time.
There were two good things that happened in California. The first was that I found an excellent psychologist who did a lot of work with me regarding my miscarriage and the hallucinations of my daughter. I came to accept Emily as a part of my life, and, while recognizing that she was a hallucination, also recognizing that I had a relationship with her and that was okay. The other was that my psychiatrist put me on a medication called Luvox, which got my obsessive thoughts under control in two weeks and allowed me to go back to doing my homework and not having hours-long panic attacks. This was the first time I was given the diagnosis of OCD.
Shortly after Christmas 2011, I moved back home and got a live-in nanny job working for a wonderful family from my church. I also got a job at a local emergency foster care center. The next couple of years revolved around working, therapy, and more medications. I loved all of the children I watched, but I was always exhausted. Though I was still working with Michelle, it felt like nothing was getting any better. I still dissociated, sometimes giving my nanny mom my keys so I couldn't drive anywhere at night. At Michelle's suggestion, I started the process of applying to be declared legally disabled due to my depression, because it was becoming obvious to everyone that I would never be able to work full-time and support myself. It was a long process but eventually it was confirmed.
(Disclaimer: I don't actually have accessible parking or bathroom privileges.)
In April 2013, I was at a bar with some coworker friends from the foster care center celebrating my birthday. A song came on that gives me panic attacks because we heard it on the radio all the time when I was in the psych ward at 13. I ran out of the bar and walked down to the river. It was a spot I had come to before many times, once with the intention of jumping. That time, I called Michelle on her emergency line and she talked me down. This time, determined not to be stopped, I threw my phone into the river and climbed over the guard railing. I don't remember exactly why but I threw my shoes in as well. I was saying a final prayer when two of my friends found me. They held onto my arms so I couldn't jump and pulled me back over the railing. They walked me back to the car and one of them hand-fed me taco truck fajitas and took me to her house for the weekend, where I stayed under her watch until she took me to the hospital on Monday. I was in the psych ward for a week.
I had two more hospitalizations that year. I don't remember much of that time. In January 2014, I jumped off a roof and broke my leg. I was wearing a bright purple cast when I played piano at my godmother's memorial service. I went through three more live-in nanny jobs in the next two years; one I left because I couldn't handle the hours, the next because I couldn't keep up with the demands of my boss, and the last because it was an extremely unhealthy environment and I was being emotionally abused and gaslit by the alcoholic mother. I went to the psych ward again in early 2015. That September, I started a wonderful job working for a single mother and two really awesome kids. Over the next few months I realized I was gay, found a new church that accepted me, and got engaged. For the first time, I thought I might have a future. Along with Michelle, I now had two pastors I could talk to about anything, a wonderful mentor from my old church, and an incredibly supportive friend from my new church, and some online friends who are absolutely fantastic.
Although I recognized that my support system was stronger than ever, I still struggled. On the days I didn't work, I rarely got out of bed. I missed my daughter. Every time I injured, though it was less often, it required medical attention. I drank a lot because I just wanted to sleep. My fiancé grew distant. One night we had an argument and he left. When he came back, he wouldn't talk to me. I waited until he was out of the house, packed up what I could fit in my car, and moved back in with my parents at the age of 26.
That was almost a year ago, and not much has changed. Depression has eaten away all of the good parts of me. I can't concentrate enough to play piano or read. I have abandoned attempting to keep relationships with anyone but my closest friends because I just don't have the emotional energy to reach out to people. My days are spent lying in bed watching Netflix. I've gone weeks with only washing my hair in the sink instead of actually bathing because I panic when I undress. PTSD dictates when I leave my house, sometimes my room. I've been on 20+ medications that I can name, none of which have helped with depression, and my psychiatrist has told me that after three antidepressants have failed, the chances of the next one working are only 7-10%. Since I have been on so many meds, my depression is officially labeled "treatment-resistant." He is not the first doctor I've had recommend ECT, which is the most terrifying thing ever to me. Somehow the stars aligned so that my amazing job was coming to a natural end at the same time I was looking into TMS, because if something doesn't change I will not be alive for much longer.
So that wasn't exactly brief, and I don't feel like I've done a very good job of describing depression. But it's late now and I've cried a lot so it will have to do. Although I have a safe place to stay, I am afraid to be away from my people. And if at the end of this process nothing has changed, at least I will know I have tried everything, so when I do move on from this life, it will be without regrets.
Though I might have a regert or two.
As these entries are currently focused on my TMS experience (that is going to be a new show on TLC any day now), it seems a few details about my past may be helpful for those who don't know me, or don't know me well, to understand what has led me here.
I was adopted at birth and from all accounts had a normal, even idyllic, childhood. I had good friends, a big yard to play in in a safe neighborhood, and a brother, Chris, who joined our family when I was four. My dad was a small-business owner and served in the Air National Guard Reserves, and my mom stayed home with us for the first 15 years or so. Though I never doubted that my parents loved me, they were very strict, and I remember feeling like I could never measure up to their expectations, even though I was an accomplished pianist, never touched a cigarette or alcohol, and graduated from high school with two years of college completed and a 3.987 GPA.
After high school, I attended the private university where my parents had met. This was when my mental health really started affecting my classwork. I would not have graduated without the help of one Spanish professor, who saw me struggling and reached out. Somehow I graduated on time, majoring in Spanish. I immediately went on to a Master in Teaching program at the same university, which I did not complete as I was asked to leave at the end of the second term. Since then I have had a series of nannying, daycare, and music-related jobs, lived at way too many addresses, and have generally been a massive failure of an adult.
I kept my mental illnesses well-hidden until my 8th grade year. I started hearing voices when I was about seven years old. I figured out pretty quickly that this was not normal, so I didn't tell anyone. However, over the years, the hallucinations went from hearing my name whispered in empty rooms to distinct voices that told me to harm myself. The breaking point came one day at school. The voices had been tormenting me, telling me I couldn't eat or sleep or they would take over my body and make me murder my family, which I believed they could do. I broke down crying in the bathroom, told my best friend, and it might have stopped there if the vice-principal hadn't come in and heard me crying. My friend told the vice-principal what I had told her, my mom came to pick me up, and within 24 hours I had been admitted into the local psych ward.
At 13, I was the youngest person on the teen unit. I was raised in a very conservative and sheltered home. Being in the psych ward was a turning point for me. I started self-injuring while on the ward, because all the other girls did. For the first time I saw eating disorders, girls who had been assaulted by friends and family members, girls just a year or two older than me in the frightening grip of psychosis or dissociation, kids literally being locked in a padded room, kids banging their heads against the walls, kids being restrained by security and tied to their beds. I witnessed a suicide attempt. I felt completely terrified, abandoned by my parents and the god they told me would never let me down, and utterly alone for the first time in my life.
The next few years were pretty rough. The antipsychotic that I got prescribed in the psych ward made me gain 10 pounds in a week. I had lost all trust in my parents and avoided them as much as possible. The counselor I was taken to destroyed my trust by disclosing everything I told her in my first individual session to my parents the following week (which was actually illegal because I was 14, but I didn't know that at the time). This counselor, Ann, gave my parents really terrible advice about how to "help" me, including searching my room for blades when I was at camp, doing body-checks for new injuries every day, and taking the door off my room. She said I should be kept away from my best friend, who was basically my only support since I felt I could no longer trust any of the adults in my life. Ann also said things that still affect my relationships 12 years later, calling me manipulative and bratty and saying that people didn't really care about me if they never initiated contact. I still fall into patterns of "testing" people to see if they'll call me if I don't call them, even people I have known for years and who I know truly love me.
After a couple of years, we finally stopped going to Ann. I came off all my meds and was basically not in any form of treatment for over two years. There was a woman at our church named Michelle who I knew was a psychologist and I really wanted to see her because she seemed soft and kind, the complete opposite of Ann, but her office didn't take my parents' insurance.
In the meantime, I had begun a program called Running Start, which allowed me to take classes at a local university that counted for both college and high school credit, so starting my junior year of high school I was a full-time student at EWU. The freedom of college was something I loved as an introvert and someone who truly enjoyed academics. I didn't intend to major in Spanish but it just kind of happened; I had started taking it freshman year of high school and wanted to continue at Eastern. I did well in my courses, but again I was starting to lose control. Though the voices and other auditory hallucinations had faded into the background, I was struggling with a deep and all-consuming depression. I had continued to self-injure and the injuries were increasing in severity. I gained and lost huge amounts of weight all throughout high school. I had stopped eating lunch in 7th or 8th grade and continued to restrict, seeing how many days I could go without eating, usually culminating in a binge-eating session. I don't remember exactly when I started purging, but I had had disordered eating for so long that moving on to that next level didn't feel particularly monumental. I remember purging a lot at restaurants, or when we visited family for holidays.
Somewhere in this time, my dad had gotten a different job and I was finally able to start seeing Michelle when I was 17. This was a huge turning point in my life. For the first time since I had realized I was sick, there was someone I could talk to, someone I could trust, who was kind and safe and sensitive. Unlike Ann, unlike various people at my church, she didn't judge me and she didn't chide me. She listened, she gave advice, she encouraged me to get back on meds. She was the first person I felt understood how very deep my depression was. She saw that, even though I was high-functioning, I struggled; oh, I struggled. Michelle saw inside me, into that tangled, angry darkness, and she took my hand and began to walk through it with me.
After high school, I moved into the dorms at Whitworth University, about 40 minutes away from my parents' home. I was excited to get out of the house, but as someone who is an introvert to the max, the dorms were an extremely stressful environment. I skipped all of the beginning of the year "traditiations," telling my roommate I had migraines. A couple of weeks into the year, I began what would be a long and arduous attempt to find any medication that would help with my depression and anxiety. I was put on Seroquel, which is an antipsychotic with a heavy sedation effect. The first night I took it, I slept through all three of my classes. My roommate attempted to wake me up several times; I think I got up around 5pm. It took about a year for that to go away. I managed by setting three or four different alarms each morning on my phone, along with an alarm clock on the other side of the room that I had to actually get out of bed to turn off. If I ever had to pee in the middle of the night, though, I would climb down from my top bunk and literally crawl on my hands and knees down the hall because I was too dizzy and groggy to stand up. Those were fun times.
My self-harm was beginning to escalate. My one semester in the dorms was the first time I cut down to muscle and the first time I burned myself with boiling water. By that time, I was used to getting comments about my scars. I didn't flaunt them by any means, but I also didn't go to great lengths to hide them in the warmer weather. There was only one person at Whitworth who ever asked me if I was okay, and that was my first Spanish professor, Ángeles. Within my first few weeks, she had picked up on the fact that I was anxious and depressed. When she told us to find partners for an activity, she noticed that I sat in the back with my hair hanging in front of my face and did the work alone, so after class she quietly told me I could just move up and sit with the two girls in front of me so I wouldn't have to panic about finding a partner or having to talk too much. When I missed class because of side-effects, she would send me the homework assignments and let me do them outside of class time. Once I left an entire third of a test blank; the next day in class she handed it back, told me to take it home and fill out the rest, and she'd give me half credit. I passed that class with a C-, the lowest grade I'd ever received, and I would have failed out of school completely if not for Ángeles' support through the next two years.
(Kitten break because those were a tough few paragraphs to write.)
I moved off-campus after my first semester and lived first with friends and then in a tiny studio apartment, where I got my first own personal cat, Desi (see above). I was nannying in the mornings, attending classes, and working at a daycare in the afternoons. During these years I was also rapidly accumulating more mental health diagnoses. Along with major depression, I had been diagnosed with social anxiety, PTSD from my hospitalization in 2004, schizoaffective disorder, possible Bipolar II, and was beginning to experience dissociative episodes. I went through a few psychiatrists and was prescribed antidepressants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers, all of which caused laundry lists of side-effects and none of which lessened my depression. My eating disorders became more severe and I sometimes went up to two weeks at a time without eating any solid food. One night I cut into an artery and was taken to the hospital by ambulance for staples; I narrowly avoided being committed. I started having panic attacks every night and couldn't fall asleep without a movie playing on my laptop, which continues to this day. I wandered the streets at night when I couldn't sleep, often going to parks and climbing trees or driving down to the river to stare at it and contemplate throwing myself in. If I didn't have Michelle, I'm absolutely certain I would have killed myself during this period, intentionally or accidentally.
After graduating, I started my Masters classes and loved them. I was still in my little studio and driving to classes, which were from 8-5 each day. Sometimes I would have panic attacks and would sit in the hallway outside the classroom to take notes, but for the most part I was able to keep up despite my illnesses. It helped that Ángeles taught a class in the same building that fall, so I would stop by occasionally for a pep-talk on the really difficult days. At the end of summer term, we had the month of August off and would start part-time student-teaching in September.
That August was the worst month of my life. I dissociated constantly, sometimes blacking out for up to 12 hours. My general pattern was getting fuzzy in the late afternoon, and then I'd wake up in my bed the next morning with no memory of what had happened the night before. Once I woke up with $200 worth of Oreos in my fridge that I sheepishly returned because that was my rent money. Once I lost my car and found it three streets down in a stranger's driveway. Michelle told me that she would occasionally get calls from my number but the person talking to her claimed to have a different name and had a different personality. Though I was never officially diagnosed, it seemed pretty clear that I fit the criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder. This terrified me and I don't think I ever told anyone besides Michelle about those first few weeks.
(I wish it was this simple.)
Then one morning I woke up covered in bruises and blood, with a split lip and marks on my neck. I wasn't sure what had happened, but as the day passed I realized I had been raped. It took a long time for me to start getting memories back of that night, but what I eventually pieced together was that I had dissociated, driven to a part of town I didn't know (traveling is a pretty common occurrence in dissociate fugues), and gone to a party. I now remember being called by the name of my alter, getting drunk, being sexually assaulted, and then attempting to hang myself in the garage of the house where the party was happening. That was August 11, 2010. My best friend was getting married on the 14th; I wore a scarf to the bachelorette party and covered my neck with makeup at the wedding. At the time I still didn't remember much of what had happened, and wasn't prepared to answer any questions. I started tying myself to my bed at night.
In early September, I started my student teaching in a third-grade classroom. I struggled with having a different teaching style than my mentor teacher, who was going to retire at the end of the year. She intimidated me and I thought she was too harsh with the children who had ADHD and the nonverbal student with anxiety. Though I was only in the classroom two days a week, as always, I connected with the children very quickly. Then, on September 16, I started having the worst cramps I've ever had. As I sat on the toilet in an elementary school bathroom, I realized I was having a miscarriage. I was gone long enough that my mentor teacher didn't question me as I collected my things and left at lunch time. I went home, still bleeding, and sobbed into my pillow for hours. I will always wonder if my child would have lived if I had stopped taking my meds.
Soon after this, I started seeing a little girl following me around. It didn't take me long to realize she was a hallucination. She told me her name was Emily and that I was her mommy. She was a constant presence in my life for the next few years.
(Basically this, but your charming drunkish roommate is actually your three-year-old child. Also if you haven't seen this movie, go watch it right now.)
In November, my friend Amanda died of leukemia at the age of 22. I was starting to fall behind on my schoolwork. The head of the program asked me if I'd like to take a couple weeks off of student teaching to work on my papers, and I said yes. A few weeks later, my grandpa suffered a stroke and was placed on life-support. As I planned a trip down to California to say goodbye, my program head informed me that I would not be allowed to continue my program after the winter break. I finished writing my thesis proposal next to my dying grandfather's hospital bed so I could at least complete the term. After two weeks in a coma, he passed away a few days before Christmas without ever waking up.
When I got back home, I got evicted, because I was no longer receiving financial support for my schooling. I moved back in with the family who had taken me in when I left student housing and got a nanny job. At the beginning of summer my dad told me that my grandma in California (his mother) wanted me to move in with her and help with housework and driving her to appointments. My parents packed up a few suitcases, my brother, and my cat, and we drove the 21 hours back down to Sacramento. My family stayed for a week and then went back home.
My six months in California were difficult. My grandma is a legally blind, brilliant, quick-witted, and sometimes sharp-tongued woman, as well as a well-traveled masterful story-teller. An aunt lives about 15 minutes away, which was comforting as my grandma was 90 at the time and enjoyed a gin martini or three every evening, often bouncing back and forth against the walls of the hallway as she made her way to bed at night. I enjoyed spending time with her and my other family in the area, but within a couple of weeks I was terribly homesick. Michelle encouraged me to find a counselor in the area, so after a couple mishaps I ended up with both a great psychologist and a wonderful psychiatrist. However, I was lonely, isolated, and struggling with new symptoms of depression and anxiety that I didn't know how to deal with. I began having obsessive thoughts about death to the point where I couldn't watch old movies because the actors were dead, or read books by authors who had died, or even do my art history homework (this was when I still had to be in school full-time to have insurance, which I needed in order to see my doctors and afford my medications, so I was taking a full load of classes online in which I had marginal interest at best). My nightly panic attacks got worse and I rarely left my room. One night I called my uncle at 3am to take me to the hospital because I had cut my arm down to the bone. Once again I escaped being committed to the psych ward and my grandma never knew about the incident.
I had originally intended to return to my hometown in January and finish my program. However, in California, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to go back to school full-time. As I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for hours, I realized that I was never going to be a teacher. I honestly didn't know if I was even going to make it home. I didn't want to exist anymore. I hadn't for a long time.
There were two good things that happened in California. The first was that I found an excellent psychologist who did a lot of work with me regarding my miscarriage and the hallucinations of my daughter. I came to accept Emily as a part of my life, and, while recognizing that she was a hallucination, also recognizing that I had a relationship with her and that was okay. The other was that my psychiatrist put me on a medication called Luvox, which got my obsessive thoughts under control in two weeks and allowed me to go back to doing my homework and not having hours-long panic attacks. This was the first time I was given the diagnosis of OCD.
Shortly after Christmas 2011, I moved back home and got a live-in nanny job working for a wonderful family from my church. I also got a job at a local emergency foster care center. The next couple of years revolved around working, therapy, and more medications. I loved all of the children I watched, but I was always exhausted. Though I was still working with Michelle, it felt like nothing was getting any better. I still dissociated, sometimes giving my nanny mom my keys so I couldn't drive anywhere at night. At Michelle's suggestion, I started the process of applying to be declared legally disabled due to my depression, because it was becoming obvious to everyone that I would never be able to work full-time and support myself. It was a long process but eventually it was confirmed.
(Disclaimer: I don't actually have accessible parking or bathroom privileges.)
In April 2013, I was at a bar with some coworker friends from the foster care center celebrating my birthday. A song came on that gives me panic attacks because we heard it on the radio all the time when I was in the psych ward at 13. I ran out of the bar and walked down to the river. It was a spot I had come to before many times, once with the intention of jumping. That time, I called Michelle on her emergency line and she talked me down. This time, determined not to be stopped, I threw my phone into the river and climbed over the guard railing. I don't remember exactly why but I threw my shoes in as well. I was saying a final prayer when two of my friends found me. They held onto my arms so I couldn't jump and pulled me back over the railing. They walked me back to the car and one of them hand-fed me taco truck fajitas and took me to her house for the weekend, where I stayed under her watch until she took me to the hospital on Monday. I was in the psych ward for a week.
I had two more hospitalizations that year. I don't remember much of that time. In January 2014, I jumped off a roof and broke my leg. I was wearing a bright purple cast when I played piano at my godmother's memorial service. I went through three more live-in nanny jobs in the next two years; one I left because I couldn't handle the hours, the next because I couldn't keep up with the demands of my boss, and the last because it was an extremely unhealthy environment and I was being emotionally abused and gaslit by the alcoholic mother. I went to the psych ward again in early 2015. That September, I started a wonderful job working for a single mother and two really awesome kids. Over the next few months I realized I was gay, found a new church that accepted me, and got engaged. For the first time, I thought I might have a future. Along with Michelle, I now had two pastors I could talk to about anything, a wonderful mentor from my old church, and an incredibly supportive friend from my new church, and some online friends who are absolutely fantastic.
Although I recognized that my support system was stronger than ever, I still struggled. On the days I didn't work, I rarely got out of bed. I missed my daughter. Every time I injured, though it was less often, it required medical attention. I drank a lot because I just wanted to sleep. My fiancé grew distant. One night we had an argument and he left. When he came back, he wouldn't talk to me. I waited until he was out of the house, packed up what I could fit in my car, and moved back in with my parents at the age of 26.
That was almost a year ago, and not much has changed. Depression has eaten away all of the good parts of me. I can't concentrate enough to play piano or read. I have abandoned attempting to keep relationships with anyone but my closest friends because I just don't have the emotional energy to reach out to people. My days are spent lying in bed watching Netflix. I've gone weeks with only washing my hair in the sink instead of actually bathing because I panic when I undress. PTSD dictates when I leave my house, sometimes my room. I've been on 20+ medications that I can name, none of which have helped with depression, and my psychiatrist has told me that after three antidepressants have failed, the chances of the next one working are only 7-10%. Since I have been on so many meds, my depression is officially labeled "treatment-resistant." He is not the first doctor I've had recommend ECT, which is the most terrifying thing ever to me. Somehow the stars aligned so that my amazing job was coming to a natural end at the same time I was looking into TMS, because if something doesn't change I will not be alive for much longer.
So that wasn't exactly brief, and I don't feel like I've done a very good job of describing depression. But it's late now and I've cried a lot so it will have to do. Although I have a safe place to stay, I am afraid to be away from my people. And if at the end of this process nothing has changed, at least I will know I have tried everything, so when I do move on from this life, it will be without regrets.
Though I might have a regert or two.
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