Friday was my seventh Rebirthday—the anniversary of the day I went inpatient for suicidal thoughts. 2019 was a year of intense loss and great anxiety, but I’m still here. That is something to celebrate, especially in these trying times!
It may seem surprising now (since I blab about it openly on here 😂), but I was initially horrified about other people finding out about inpatient. I wore my hospital bracelet as a reminder for a solid month afterward, but actively hid it from anyone who might ask questions. I told my co-workers some flimsy lie. I had a lot of shame around my mental health issues, especially—gasp!—suicidal thoughts. It felt like the suicide stuff put me beyond anxiety and depression into some other category that people didn’t know how to handle. It IS a lot. It IS scary. I get that. But at the same time, trying to protect people from my scary feelings almost killed me. I feel extremely lucky that I had a friend who listened to me without judgment and helped me to get help.
That’s not to say that I don’t still, at times, feel shame about the fact that I had a “breakdown,” and worry about having another one now that I’m in therapy and on better medication and doing all the “right” things. When I recently brought up this fear in therapy, my therapist replied with this gem:
“You can learn a lot from a breakdown, though.”
Definitely true. I learned more and grew more from the experience of falling apart, going inpatient, and then admitting my “imperfections” to people than I would have if I just had pushed through and pretended that I was okay.
Thank you for supporting my imperfect, human self in this space. And please know that help is out there, be it in the form of therapy or medication or inpatient or the suicide hotline (1-800-273-8255). Suicidal thoughts thrive in isolation—but there are people out there who will listen. In fact, that friend I mentioned above was Kristin, and our friendship was much deeper and more meaningful after we went through this experience together. ♥️
