Christmas in California

I boarded a plane to California a couple days before Christmas, I was alone, terrified, and desperate. I was going to miss the holidays with my family this year for the first time, but with any luck it would be the last time.

I checked into the office, they took my weight down on a sheet of paper, along with all sorts of other details about my life. I was 96 lbs. After a few more questions, a bit more humiliation and an increasing level of fear they told me I would be entering a rehabilitation center for dual diagnosis.

I cannot be sure which two diagnoses I was really there to treat, was it the addiction to anxiety medication, the anxiety itself, the chronic pain I had been suffering with for over ten years, the eating disorder I had picked up along the way, the extreme depression I was going through after losing my mother, the self deprecating way I treated myself after being involved in a six-year emotionally and physically abusive relationship, the burn scars on my body because I just couldn't feel anything, or was it that I sometimes felt too much and tried to end it all?

I don't know the answers to the above questions, but what I do know is that this was not where I had intended to be. Not how I intended to spend Christmas and definitely not where I had intended my life to take me. I felt like a worthless failure, and I was so ashamed.

In a rainstorm, its not one raindrop that is responsible for you feeling drenched, it is the combination of all those little drops. I was not only in a downpour, I was drowning, I didn't know where I could go for help or if anyone could help at all. So I checked in and gave them the next thirty days of my life, besides, whats thirty days when you were supposed to be dead already?

The first two weeks were miserable, and I thought I was dying. I thought that this was some sort of further punishment for being me, I had done something so wrong, somewhere in my life that I deserved this. I repeated over and over, in class after class and group after group that I thought hope was the most devastating word they could use. They all kept telling me to have hope that things would be better and that I could get through this. At that point I hated the word hope. I had no hope, I thought I was destined to be a prisoner in my own body, to feel this excruciating pain forever, the pain of being me. I made myself a deal, do the thirty days, get this poisonous medication out of your system and see if you can handle the pain that is left over. If that doesn't work out, you can always devise a new plan for checking out again.

After the initial two weeks was over, and the medication had mostly worked its way out of my system I was left with the physical pain I had been suffering through for years,  but without the medication I was acutely more aware of it. The emotional damage that scarred me was still there, and with all the classes and therapy sessions I was not able to escape them or dull those feelings any longer. There were serious things plaguing me and all I could do now was face them, head on.

For the years leading up to this pivotal moment I had lost all hope. I didn't plan for a future because I didn't see one, nor did I want the one I thought I would have. Every time I thought about my future it was immediately followed by this dark cloud, the raging physical pain I had, this learned self-hatred, and this unworthiness I taught myself to believe.
If you asked me about dating, why I don't date, I would give you a reason such as "I'm happier alone or I just haven't met the right person". In reality I was thinking, "Who would want to be with me? I just don't feel well, no one wants to be with someone who never feels well, I don't want to have to make excuses to anyone or disappoint more people than I already do".
If you asked me about having children I would say "Yes, I think I would like to, I love kids and my nieces are my favorite people in the world". In my mind I'm already scolding myself, "Why would you do that to a child? You barely have enough energy for yourself to get out of bed each day" "How could you have a child when you take medications and you cannot stop taking medication because you depend on them to get you through the day".

In the remaining days of my rehabilitation, I started to feel like there was a chance for me. Was this hope? I still don't know if I had that yet, and to be honest, I have questioned it many times since then. I don't know if what I was feeling then was hope, but what I do know, is that I was feeling. I was feeling lots of pain, anxiety, loss, and just all together basic human suffering, but for the first time in years, I was doing it clean. I didn't start suffering because of the medication, I took medications to numb the suffering. When that didn't work, I found freedom in this, if what you're doing isn't working, find a new way.
I want to share a quote with you that I really love and am trying to live by,
"Do the best you can until you know better, and then when you know better, do better" - Maya Angelou