The After Life

A lot of people have written books about what it was like to be in a mental ward, or depressed, or just plain crazy, or what it was like in an abused childhood. They wrote about the hell they found themselves in. And then at the end of the book you learn how they healed and now have this bright future ahead of them. But what I always wondered was, what happens after? What happens after you stop being admitted to psych wards, or end your years of therapy and how you grow up after being abused. They go through that hell and then BAM! They are older and wiser and living the good life? What is it like then? What do they say to people when they ask about gaps in employment or why you have so many scars on your arms? What do they say when people ask, why did you move out here, when the truth is that you moved to out run your ghosts and start somewhere new where people don't know your name or where you came from. What happens when your mental health is no longer the focus of your life, but in the background and just in your past. I just want to know what happens after. Why? Because I now find myself in that after kind of place. And it's not like the famous people who write books. They went through some great personal tragedy and was able to write about it and either became famous as a result or were already famous and just came out of the closet so to speak. You hear about them winning awards and being featured on the TV movie of the week and they have all this glitz and glam to go with their once troubled life. But what happens in the after to the regular joe schmoe on the street who was released from a mental hospital for the last time in their life and suddenly they find themselves in this whole new world where everything is different from everything they've known.

I can't just annouce to a mother of a child I'm treating about why I have these ugly looking scars run up and down my arms. I don't know how much trust she would put into me if she knew that I once ran razors up and down my arms for kicks. And I can't just tell my new boss why I moved out here, well the real reason, because she wouldn't want to know that just months ago I was locked up in a place where I didn't have the key and how my room there was also known as the quiet room. No matter how far mental health and illness has come, stereotypes still prevail as the traditional way of thinking about people with mental illness. Once people know your ugly past, they do look at you differently and can't help but wonder that if that is your past, can it be your present and future? Famous people have the benefit of being famous and in a sense the public is okay with their sometimes horrible pasts because they can act brilliantly or write the best novel or sing about those horrors in a way people will listen and love them for it. Some people accept it because in their head it brings them down to a normal person's level. Makes them a little less above everyone else which the public likes. Then take a Jane Doe off the street who lived in mental hospitals for most her life, but who now has this nice little life carved out for herself, but people find out and it doesn't make them more human to the public, it makes them afraid. That person becomes a little unknown to them. Once crazy, always crazy? That's the question they secretly wonder about. Can't get crazier than dragging a razor blade down your arm because you like the pain and the blood exhilirates you.

So what's the average person to do in the "after" part of their life. Instead of ending a story with the prospect of "after," that is where this story begins. One glorious afternoon, a few weeks before Thanks giving, I walked out of a mental hospital for the last time in my life. I had been in and out of institutions since my teenage years and was diagnosed with many disorders, among them, psychotic depression, schizophrenia, schizoid personality, borderline personality disorder and then finally, and what I think is right, Bipolar I. I've been on most of the medications they have come up with, been through years of personal therapy and had the type of childhood most people come to expect from someone that is mentally ill- emotional, physical and sexual abuse. That was my life before.

But I walked out of that mental institution and contemplated my life. At the time, I didn't know it was going to be my last visit. Part of me wondered if I would always need a psych ward near by, just in case. Or that I would end up in a group home. In my last conversation with my mother, that is where she wanted me to be. She believed that I was not a functioning and contributing member of society anymore and just needed to be "taken care of." I have always been a little rebellious, so it occured to me that I needed to do something to steer my life course away from this.

So, a few weeks after walking out of that psych ward, I boarded a plane to move two thousand miles away, live with a woman I've never met, to a place I've never been, with only two bags of clothes, my cat and my laptop. I was beginning my "after" life.

The thing about it though, was that I wasn't real sure about what happens next. But I had made my decision to change my life for the better and for the first time in my life, I decided to just go with it and weather any storm that might develop along the way. I arrived in sunny Phoenix just before Thanksgiving. I was living with an online friend and her family. They were nice enough when I got off the plane to begin my new life. In a way, I think they saved me by giving me a place to which to start from. Within a week of moving there I got a job and her family agreed to shuttle me to that job every day until I could make enough money to get myself a car.

It was hard at first. I was utterly dependent on this friend and her family and I had never been very dependent on anyone before. I never really ever asked for help in my life except when sometimes it was too late. And my past followed me in those first few weeks when I would take apart a shaving razor and tempt myself. One night I was tempted to far and I do bare a scar from those first few weeks. But then it was done, but of course I didn't know that then.

So anyway, I got this job at a day care nearby. I did have the good sense to know that a sudden move like the one I made would cause people to ask me why I moved out here away from everything I knew. I decided I would just simply say I needed a change of scenary or that I found myself in a predicament and needed a place to live and my friend offered. I tested that answer out at my new job when they did in fact ask me. To my surprise and good fortune, that answer seemed to be enough. And so it went like this: I got up early each morning, woke up my friend who would take me to work. I worked eight hours and either someone from the family would pick me up or I would get a ride home from a co-worker. It was a nice routine. And wonderful things kept coming my way.

My co-workers were wonderful at work. I seemed to be well liked and soon I was being invited to go places and do things with my new found friends. This was wonderful. I'd never had normal, healthy friends before. In the past, most of my friends came from the mental illness community or were in some way connected to mental health. These people were just regular people. I thought it was cool.

At home, things were getting a bit rocky. The online friend who invited me out to live with her was someone I had known for several years. But we never met. And I only knew her life one-sided- from the things she decided to tell me. I was very grateful for her. But her life...was a bit different than the one she talked about online. For one thing, she had no job (and had none for two years) and was no longer a student. She slept about twenty three out of twenty four hours a day. Sometimes only up to eat or bathe or take me to work. This irked me somewhat. I have to say that no matter how crazy I was at times, I pretty much always was either a student or working (yes, even in between hospital visits). Now there were times when I wasn't either, when my mental health dictated that I be incarcerated at a local psych ward for longer than a few weeks and sometimes the weeks or months leading up to that and the weeks and some months after I go out. But for the most part, overall in my life, I have worked or been a student. I didn't like doing nothing. As my mother liked me to be, I was a functioning and contributing member of the community. My online friend was not. She had her health care paid for by the state and had food stamps and her parents paid for everything. She even missed doctors appointments and therapy appointments. And she cut, often. And wanted to die just as often. In those two aspects, she reminded me of myself. I tried talking to her, to talk some sense into her. I even went as far as to wake her up and try and do things with her (which I paid for- movies, books etc.) and tried to set up appointments at the local college to get funding for classes. She took everything for granted. Didn't want to work for anything at all.

So our relationship became strained at times. Her parents were very nice most of the time. The dad was very kind to me and the mom was sometimes off the wall. They often complained about their daughter but did nothing to try and help her at the same time. But I understood, their daughter wouldn't even help herself. I paid them rent to cover food and whatnot and even paid their daughter to drive me to work so she could make some money. But eventually Jen and I's relationship went to the point that we only wrote emails to each other sometimes to convey are discomfort around each other. Things came to a head soon enough. One morning she was driving me to work when it became apparent that she took too much of something and we were swerving all over the place. I got her to stop and jumped out of the car. It took me fifteen minutes to get her out of the drivers seat and let me drive. I got her home safely and a friend picked me up for work instead. A few more times I would wake up in the morning with a note that said she couldn't drive me to work so I had to scramble to try and find someone that morning.

While all of this was happening, I made some friends and even was working on a boyfriend through an online dating service that had helped me in the past. Things were coming together nicely. I was even on a good relationship with both my parents, now that I was far away, my mental health was in check and I was working a stable job. And so since those things were going nicely and being at home with Jen was not, I did everything I could on the weekends to not be home and crashed at many a friends house. Sometimes Jen would call me and cry and say she hated how things were and couldn't we be friends. She made me guilty, like I was neglecting her and not being her friend since she did bring me out here. So it seemed I would then make efforts of friendship afterward.

Then one night I come home and her father takes me aside. He tells me that I better lock up my phone and change my password on my computer. I'm baffled and ask why. He tells me Jen has been going through my text messages and my email messages and documents on my computer. I nearly hit the roof. See one thing about my past and all that is that trust has played a central role. In my abused childhood, I learned to trust no one. Then in therapy and through the course of things, I was being taught to trust again because no woman can be an island. So I had put my trust in this friend. And she promptly broke it.

I chose not to confront her, but I changed all my pass words and put a security code on my phone. She got the message. And I became silent. I hardly ever acknowledged her presence and I had her father take me to work even though I came to work hours before my shift. Her parents weren't happy about that, especially since it was their daughter. Plus, Jen was telling lies to them. Her father asked me one night if I would please try to make an effort. It was hard for me because I now despised this woman who I once thought of as my savior.

At work, my friends knew of my troubles and a few of them offered me a place to stay. I told them I would think about it. I also began shopping for a car (and even asked the parents for help) and for a studio apartment. I informed the people I was living with that I as soon as I found something, I would move out. At first they were not happy about this and tried to be really nice to me.

Then came one fateful night. I had just gotten home and was on the computer looking up cars. Jen comes in and asks about the ride to work the next morning. At first it's decided I would ride with the father. Then I asked her, hey don't you have a doctors appointment near the time when I need to be in at work. Can't I ride with you? Innocent enough question right? I thought so. So Jen goes to ask her parents. Her mother comes barreling into the computer room and tells me I need to move out the next morning. I just stared dumb founded. Why, I asked. So she was just like, well Jen says that you won't ride in the car unless I am with you two and I'm sick of being in the middle. And then I become more dumb founded. Jen had obviously told a lie of some kind. I say back to her that I never said such a thing, all I said was could Jen give me a ride to work, not a thing about you (the mother). She then starts back pedaling and such, but finally just comes out with that regardless of what was said I needed to go. I just calmly said okay. And when she left the room I called one of my friends and told them it was time and could I please stay with them.

So, instead of waiting until the morning, I pack up my things wordlessly and in about an hour after the whole incident, I walked out of their front door and never returned, not even saying goodbye. I lived for three weeks with this other friend and then got my own car and apartment and was finally on my own.

Now I tell this story for a variety of reasons. How does this fit into the "after" you might wonder? Easy, because it illustrates a couple of points. One, something major and unplanned happened to me and instead of becoming unlglued and shipped off to the nearest psych hospital, I handled it calmly and in a pretty healthy manner. I didn't panick that something awful was going to happen to me and never once did I think that things wouldn't turn out right. And never once did I think about hurting myself and never once did I think I should die because something in my life didn't work out. Those were all things I would have done in the past for sure. So this was a part of the after. The whole staying sane even in a chaotic situation. To not turn something into a big huge drama. That even two thousand miles away from my family and my old friends and everything that I knew, I could figure out the solution to a very big problem without everything I left behind. Hell, I didn't even need to call a counselor to ask, where do I go from here. It was all on me and I delivered.

That's the other thing about being famous and crazy- they often don't have to worry about keeping a roof over their head, food to eat and a job. I had to worry about the very basic things of life. And so for the first three months of being in Arizona, in my first three months of the "after," I relied on friends to put the roof over my head and food to eat. But I had established one very key element right after I moved here: I got a job that paid money. And after saving for those three months, I found both a car and a studio apartment. Sure the car was older than I was and had many quirks, but it got me from point A to point B and back again. And the apartment- it was mine, my own roof over my head. So of course I stocked it with the cat I already had, plus another adopted cat and adopted dog. Animals are my weak point. And I sacrificed to keep that car and roof over my head. I made pretty much peanuts at my job, so it wasn't like I was living the high life. That's the other thing in the "after." I lost all my money and savings when I was manic last, so when I moved out to Arizona, I had zero dollars in my bank account. I was literally starting from scratch. And when I bought the car and got the apartment and the animals, I had no money left over for anything. That also meant furniture.

So, I slept on the floor. I lived in an apartment with a total of zero furniture. Not even a chair. Nothing. I did buy a few essentials like a towel, shampoo, soap, a pan, plastic forks, shower curtain, and laundry detergent. And I bought Ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They cost ten cents a pop, which was in my budget. So for the next two months, I lived in a furnitureless apartment and ate Ramen for every meal. No TV or internet, so I learned to love reading all over again. The library was my new home most days after work. I often thought, if this is what it takes to live a normal and healthy life, I can do it. After all, I had been homeless before- both on the street, in a shelter and in my car. I still remembered the days without eating and yes, dumpster diving when I hit a few real low spots and had lost everything. I was just happy to be paying for my own roof over my head, so meager rations of food and a car that kept me in the business of making money. I didn't see any of it as bleak. But I knew that I didn't need to be content here, I needed to be hungry for more.

I had no road map in this after life. My whole life up till then was all about survival and my map consisted of counselors who were willing to help me and many mentors I had along the way. And the road had been written about too- about life in mental institiutions or how to heal from an abused childhood and the mental institutions always had after care plans for you to follow. But my after care plan was only as good as the waiting time between institutions. I was in a different kind of after now. What do I do now? I have an outline of a life, but I was struggling. A full and healthy life did not include eating just ramen for every meal and not having enough gas to go out and do things- only just to get to work and back. So I made a choice. In my horror of a past, some good things did happen. In my turbulent college career, I had had a job. And it was a job that I loved with every fiber of my being and it both became the best of times and also led to my undoing. I was a behavioral therapist for children with autism. I worked out in the child's home. I loved those kids fiercely and did everything in my power to help them and their families. I worked an ungodly number of hours, never said no and was adored by the families. But I was under tremendous pressure. I had become quite successful pretty fast. I guess you could say the children and I understood each other in a sense. And I quickly had a large waiting list for people wanting to be my clients. And to the clients I did have, I became a miracle worker to them and it was hard keeping that up. Plus, I was in school, but sometimes it seemed only in name. But I digress. It was something that I loved and during those times, it was the one thing I knew I was undeniably good at. It was natural to me. And my ability to help these kids was unhampered by my mental illness- I could work with them and be successful depressed or manic or those short times in between. Meds or no meds, having just been in or about to go to a hospital, I was still good.

Having that in mind, I knew that somehow I needed to find my way back to that. Day care was becoming boring to me and there was too much drama. Lots of stuffing going on beaurcraticly. And I was used to working with kids one on one, not one on twenty. Plus I wasn't really teaching- I was a glorified babysitter. I thought it was a waste of my talents. And plus I didn't make much money. But I thought long and hard about making the move back to autism. I was afraid. Part of me wondered if I was throwing myself in to something I was not prepared for. After all, my life was divided into the before and the after. Autism and my ability to treat autism was something in the life before.
 

I feared that it would send me spiraling down back into the world I came from. I feared that it had been a year and a half since I used my therapy skills and what if I was not as good as I used to be. Because…I know I was damn good at it. I was. Was I still? I was afraid of slipping back into my old mode of having to save the world. That it would consume my soul like it used to. Before, all that mattered was that I get very good at doing therapy so that I could be the best I could be to the kids and produce the miracles the parents suddenly expected of me after some success with some of the children. I gave up friends, boyfriends, good grades…I gave up a lot. I immersed myself in roles. The only thing that saved me was my therapist who saw to it that I was more than my job. She exposed me to music which also consumed a great deal of me. But she always got me thinking about what else I could do besides work. Too bad I threw it all away that one summer when I got the high paying job with autism and worked over eighty hours a week. With college done, I then could devote all of myself to my work, screw everything else. And I had the save the world mentality…in everything. I was huge in mental health advocacy at the time too. I just had to save, save, save…everybody but me.

But when I came to Arizona…it was about saving me, finally. So did I do it? Did I save myself enough that I won’t lose myself again. I wanted to go back to treating kids with autism. It was the one thing in my life that I knew without a doubt that I was good at. That I made a difference in this world, one small child at a time. But it was something that was my undoing at the same time. It wasn’t the main feature of the problem, though, I supposed. It was my life at the time. I was willing to cling to anything to survive. But I was not in survival mode anymore. I was in live mode. So maybe it’s okay to go back to that.

I thought it might be good to go back to that. It did make me happy. And I got to witness a miracle every day. There is something special about that. And things were different now. For one, instead of the very personal aspect of doing therapy in a person's home, I would bedoing this at a center. Plus, I had friends, a very active dating life and I had things that I want to do. Join a book club. Start karate class. Maybe find an art class. I was interested in doing things, outside of work. I wanted to write again, but not necessarily about me. I had thought about some form of fiction. Yes, I wanted a life outside of work. But I wanted a hell of a working life too.

So after all that thinking, I stopped. I took my sleeping pill one night and felt that a new day could change my life again. I would face my fear and prevail. I was in a new life and I was a new person. But I wanted to think that I took my strengths of my old life and applied them to my new self. I did what I needed to do to save myself. So then it became about filling in the pieces of my life and right then I was in unrest about my working environment. So I decided that I should solve that problem and I would go back to something that even kept me alive at the worst moments of my life. That was good. I feared, but in a way I was not afraid. I looked forward to the challenges that awaited me. Somehow I knew that I would not fall prey like I once did. This would just be something to make me happy, to do my small part ot save a child's life. And there is nothing more important than that...except to make sure my life had been saved and I'm okay. So I wouldn't be using work as a crutch to keep me alive. Now I would get to do it soley because I love the work that I do. It became clear to me in the end that that is what was best and most important.

So I pulled up an old email that had all of the local behavioral therapy providers listed. An email I had sent to myself at an ealier time when I was thinking that I might make this kind of move way in the future. And one day, after a particularly bad day at work, I got online at a coffee shop and filled out some applications and sent my resume out. A few days later, I got a call from a place, that out of all the names in the whole wide world, this seemed the most perfect: L.I.F.E.

I was thrilled. And worried about the interview. It had been almost two years since I practiced. Did I even remember everything? So I gave myself a crash course in behavioral therapy. I looked up all my old power points from when I was the trainer doing the teaching. All of my paperwork and old textbooks were still in Virginia at my mother's house, since I had left one night in a mania fit and had pretty much left everything of mine behind for my parents to clean up. So I looked online too, to try and remember terminologies. And then there was my resume to consider. I had done therapy work, but it was almost two years old. Since then, only day cares. Would they wonder about the absences of work time, when I wasn't working at all for months on end or why I had stopped doing autism work. So I came up with a few half truths and out right lies. I would say I stopped doing autism work when I got fired from one of my jobs because I got in a car accident and was in the hospital for a few months recovering. That was a half truth. I had gotten fired but not because of a car wreck- it was one of the times I was institutionalized. And why did I go to Alabama and work at a day care for some months? Oh, I needed to recuperate after the hospital visit and my father offered and I needed something low stress. And why had I returned to Virginia, but worked as a nanny? Oh, well I was getting better and wanted to go back "home" but I didn't have a car at the time so I was working up to it. But why did you move to Arizona? I needed a change of scenary and didn't want to do the nanny work anymore and a friend offered me a place to stay, so I thought what the heck.

Those sounded like good answers huh? In the after life...one must think of these sort of things. Who would hire a woman who spent half her life in a mental institution and saw things that weren't there and did things because voices told her to. No, they want some steady, stable employee and not some nut job. So, the truth had to be skewed a little bit to make me sound stable and steady. Because, after all, I was now stable and steady. It's just, like I've said before, the past can color a person's view. More about that later. So I had all of these answers lined up and I made sure I wore my lucky blue shirt to the interview.

The interview went like a dream. They looked past all the recent day care work and saw my five or more years as a therapist, plus the published research (did I mention in the height of some of my mania's I managed to publish some work on both autism and what else but, self injury?) and all my advocacy work. They didn't ask me technicle questions, just the kinds of kids I worked with, the program guides I used and things like that. They were very impressed they kept saying. They did ask why I moved out here, but my nice answer was okay by them. No mention about the gap in work times or anything like that. And they offered me a job on the spot, with twice the salary I was making at the time. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. When I was driving to my current job after the wonderful interview, I kept playing Patty Griffin's Heavenly Day. I had landed one hell of a job and I could start in two weeks. Suddenly I was happy again after a few weeks of low morale. I had to drive a little extra to get to the new job, but I was being paid so much more, so gas was no longer a problem. I suddenly saw possibilities again. Schooling again in my future to finally finish my degree (I had a suicide attempt two months before graduation and failed my last semester, oops), and then go on to get my behavior certification and then maybe move up in the company and become an expert on autism again. And then I thought, STOP!! SlOW DOWN! My brain was moving too fast and at a speed I saw only as self destructive. I got this new job and it was great and the pay was better, but I had to be careful. I needed to not blow my money like I used to and I need to do things at a nice even pace. And so I slowed and decided to take each minute as just that, one minute at time.

I suffered through the next two weeks at my day care job, swore I would stay in touch with my friends from there, and then started my new job.

So this was after? You go through some bumps and maybe get a few bruises, but it's okay. Things happen. Doesn't mean your world has to go to shit or you need to sit in therapy and have everything analzyed but never actually do anything about it. Life does not have to stay in constant chaos. These are the things I wish they had shown me in all the books I ever read that only ended with a hint of the after life. That there would still be hard times, but you can preservere. Just hold tight to a strong foundation. And take everything you learned from years of therapy and years of lessons from the mental hospitals and apply them. That's what I was doing really.

In my before life I lived in a constant state of fear. I always feared I would go crazy or I was crazy and the truth was I did always go crazy and I was crazy. I made lists- lots of lists. Warning signs, medication, what to do if I'm having a bad day, daily schedules and all kinds of schedules and lists. I lived and breathed them, or at least always for a little while when I was inspired after a journey through a psych ward. These lists were meant for me to stay on the straight and narrow. I thought I would never remember all the healthy things I needed to do to be well, healthy. I thought my brain just didn't understand how to live life and be healthy and happy. I had to have something to constantly reference. So instead of posters of movie stars or rock bands in my apartments or dorms, the walls had lists that I filled out constantly. They were supposed to keep me well, but somehow I always ended back in the hospital.

But, then I hit this after life. In this life, I need no lists and I have none. I have everything I need to know, right here in this little brain of mine. I know the warning signs of depression inside and out, along with mania, and psychosis. I can now tell automatically when something is off or I'm having an off day and then I adjust my life accordingly. And thus far, I haven't ended up in the hospital. And I am always doing little things to improve my life. Okay, job is getting boring and every day I'm a little less happy. What do I do? Go back to doing something I love. And I did. And it helped. Okay, your eating habits suck, but you are getting more money now, so what do I do? I go out and buy the healthy foods I know my body needs to stay healthy. I didn't need a list to tell me to do that. Okay your life is lacking a bit outside of work. So, I am getting signed up for a book club and karate class. I need to make sure I buy things like furniture and basic needs things. So I made a monthly budget and stick to it. No list told me to do that, I just knew I needed one. My medication. I know I need to take it, so I take it every day and no list reminds me. Just some in the morning and some at night and I'm done. And I don't need lists to tell me when to shower, wake up, go to bed, eat, get dressed, work, play etc. I just do it. I go to bed at around the same time every night and wake up the same time every morning. I make sure I almost religiously get eight hours of sleep no matter what. I just know now that sleep is extremely important to my mental and physical well being.

So the point being, in this after life, I don't need lists to keep me straight. Step by step, brick by brick, over time people have imformed me of how to live a well life. I took all that knowledge and finally applied it. So now I live a well life, though I have to keep it in constant check and I make small adjustments when needed. In some books and movies they do show you how people are led up to the after life- these lits and after care plans and daily mood logs and so forth, but I never saw what happened after you didn't need them anymore. Most of the time I thought that was how it was going to be for the rest of my life. And I think some mental health professionals thought I might need them the rest of my life too. But, you grow up and on without them.

Back to this new job. I started it on April 21st, pretty much exactly five months after I had moved to Arizona. And it was glorious. I met the eight kids who would be my clients and fell in love with all of them. Their families were pretty cool too. But I had some checks in place- I was no longer working in a families home so I was not privy to the daily routines and drama of their lives. It kept me at a professional distance, which was nice. But at the same time, I could add some touches that come from being an in-home therapist. After I tweaked all my kids programs to how I thought they should be run, I held meetings with the parents after my assessments and explained it all to them. I also gave each one a notebook to keep at home where they would have a list of all the programs I was running, plus the mastered targets, so they could follow the kids progress along at home and not just go by the five to ten minute conversations I have with them when they pick up their kids. With the new money I had in my pocket, after I bought the all important futon to get off the floor and a book case and a few other essentials, I began building my treatment needs. I ordered text books I liked to draw programs from and materials that I liked better than what the center provided. Sure I probably could have spent the money on more furniture, but I now had the essentials and I wanted to get the kids treatment started on the right foot. And the parents and my bosses appreciated it. If I was going to do this again, I would do it right.

And technically my hours were ten to six, salaried. But, since I filled pretty much seven to seven and a half hours with kids and then a half hour lunch break, it didn't leave much time for paperwork, or research or reading up on methodolgoies. So I admit, I worked more than eight hours a day, forty hours a week. I generally came to work an hour to two hours before I saw a client and took work home with me for an hour afterward. So all in all I worked fifty to sixty hours a week. So I thought about this one day, to kind of check myself. And what I thought was this. In my before life, it was nothing for me to work eighty to a hundred or more hours a week. That is a lot of work. I had no play. Now, I worked maybe, at most, sixty hours a week, probably more like fifty. Rome wasn't built in a day, and certainly I can't make the leap to a hundred percent healthy in one bound either. I had to be flexible. And I thought about it some more. Maybe my goal would be forty hours a week, but you know, I know plenty of really healthy people who work fifty and sixty hours a week. Maybe forty was just a number, but really it depended on how you spent your hours. I worked those long hours, but I was now in a book club and starting a karate class soon and I alwasy spent the weekends with my friends. So, work was not my only thing in life. Unlike before. And so I worked it out just fine in my head. Besides, most of my extra work was in the morning, when I wasn't doing anything any way. And I didn't cut sleep, I still got eight hours of sleep. So all in all, I decided this was okay. Within the normal bounds of life.

This was what after was like too, a little I suppose. Always checking yourself and making sure you weren't going to take a path that would lead you to before. I had to make sure I wasn't making a u turn. And since I didn't have any particular road maps, I had to just double check sometimes. It wasn't like I was in constant fear of going crazy again, but I think a little fear was perfectly healthy. It was the way I handled the fear that needed to be different. Before I ran from fear. I avoided it like the plague. If I feared something, I would do what I could to avoid it. Didn't like a particular class or had anxiety about it- I skipped it. Didn't want to make a phone call- made it when it was too late. Didn't have the money for a payment, waited until it was too late and late fees accumulated until it really was too late. Needed to make a tough decision- well not making a decision was also a decision. I avoided fear and blamed other people when things didn't work out. But now, now I took responsibility. When something needed to get done- I did it. If something anxiety ridden came up, like an important phone call, I made it then and there, no waiting. I learned to master my fear. I learned that action was my most valuable tool in the after. It was all about the doing. In the before I would do a lot of thinking. I would research a lot about how to do something, but then I never did it. So I accumulated a lot of knowledge and it felt good to finally use it. You only see a little bit about that in books and films that end with the beginning of an after life. The character finally does something courageous and overcomes some huge thing, but then it ends. They don't show what happens next, if it is truly about action and how to keep going after you make that first step. But I was learning.

Then of course, at my new job, there were eventually questions. It is HOT in Arizona, so I wore short sleeves and my scars are prominent. Even the children, who could talk, would ask me what happened. The old me was a huge advocate and felt like she needed to hide nothing. I went on national television even, and told my story with no shame. I didn't feel the need to hide that I was crazy or did crazy things. But, I learned a few things in the after. That I didn't need to be a champion of causes and I didn't need to feel ashamed that I couldn't always tell the truth about my past or my scars. Sometimes the world just isn't ready to learn about such horrors. And I wanted to be taken seriously at my new job and not thought of as a nut job, so I chose to deflect questions and come up with, well, basically lies. So either my cat scratched the hell out of me or I fell through a window. Both would make those kinds of scratches, but if you were cognizent enough to know otherwise, you might raise an eye brow with that kind of story. Some people bought the story well, others I thought, perhaps knew the truth, but knew enough not to talk about it. I think one day I would tell the truth again out right, but before anything, I needed people to know that I was a nice and stable woman now. That I was not my past. But I had to build up to that. I had to prove myself first. Because once you let that cat out of the bag, there is no going back. I wanted to build a firm foundation and have people see me perform my work very well so when the time came for the truth, they would see past the stigma of mental illness and the things you did to survive in that world.

That leads me to another thing about the after life not depicted in popular media. What do you tell people about your past? New people when they meet always exchange things about their past, where they lived, what they did, why they moved out here or if they lived here all their life. All of that. For a while new people bought my story about a change of scenary and I didn't talk about my life before much and if I did, it was just the good things. Eventually, my good friends knew the truth but loved me anyway. I made some very good friends. But, then there were always a few people who felt I was veiled about my past and were curious. Especially a few male suitors.

So, how do I explain my past? It’s like when I moved to Arizona my previous life ceased to exist. I stepped into a new person and have fully become her. The only signs that I was previously crazy is the medication I take every day and the scars that adorn my forearms. Otherwise I look and act like a normal, healthy human being. I quickly made a life for myself here and enjoy it immensely. I may be on the poor side of things, but life is looking up for me. But still, I was stopped in my tracks when asked about my previous life.

It never occurred to me that I would be so different from my once crazy self. That one day there would be no more hospitalizations, no more therapy, no more manic or depressive episodes. No more harming myself in any way. No more preoccupation with death. Just a love for life and living now. I didn't feel pain every day anymore. I was not scared that another mood episode will claim me in some way. I was not scared of my mental health period.

I had read a lot of books about people afflicted with mental illness and knew that recovery was possible. But those people were basically famous people and so they could afford to have their past spoken about and not be harshly judged. But what about regular people? When they finally recover from mental illness? How did I talk about my past? When people asked, I didn't want to lie, but at the same time, I knew the judgments that people make. I knew the stereotypes people have in their head. I knew the stigma attached to being crazy. Once you tell someone about the institutions and therapy and medication, stereotypes overcome them and your present self is overridden with your past ghosts. People think once crazy, always crazy. And I just wanted to scream, I’m not crazy anymore.

And how do I describe the phenomenon about how I was in and out of hospitals for months right up until my move to Arizona and then suddenly I was fine. I couldn't even describe it to myself, I just knew the change that had happened and trusted in that change. I just knew when I moved and left the past behind I became someone new, someone better, someone well. It’s like I needed the change of scenery to put all the bad stuff in a box and lock it and throw away the key. And it was a box I never had to open again. Plus, I did receive a lot of help from the time I was a teenager to my mid twenties. And when I moved I put to good use everything I learned in those years. All those years of accumulating information served a purpose. I finally acted on everything I knew and it worked. Here I am happy and healthy. I just needed something drastic to jar my system.

Instead of analyzing why my life suddenly turned around, I had just gone with the flow, which I think has served me well. For once I had accepted goodness instead of wondering what could go wrong or how I didn't deserve it. And life hasn’t been perfect since I moved out here, but the difference is, I had dealt with that stress in a normal way. No cognitive distortions ruling my brain, or past trauma coloring the way I thought or felt. No moods jumping around. It has been nice.

And I have found new purpose in my life. Before it was all toward trying to get well anyway I could. And everything revolved around mental health and illness. Literally my whole life was colored by everything mental health related. Now, it’s different. For a while I had no real ties to anything mental health related except the medications I took. I even stopped running my online support group for a while. So I was able to reconceptualize my life. I did eventually realize I wanted to continue to help kids with autism, so I found a job to do just that. So part of my old self is still with my new self, but just it seems the good parts. Like another part of me wants to go back into advocacy, especially now because I’m well and sane, which is important for a mental health advocate. But it’s different now. Before I was searching for answers and now I have them, so my drive and purpose is different.

It’s just weird. I read about recovery and longed for it in the deepest recesses of my heart but never did I honestly think I’d get there. That’s the plain and inelegant truth. Recovery was this abstract idea that was out there at the end of a road, but I just couldn’t figure out how to get there. And the more I tried and failed, the more I thought I was just destined to not get there. Good ole stinkin’ thinkin’ there. But then, at the end of my rope I made a decision. And that decision included a lot of things I have never done before. I had never moved so far away or so far away from family and everything I knew. I had never reached out to a friend and taken what they had to offer me. I had never been without a vehicle of my own. I had never considered letting a friend help me like that. And when I got here I considered letting friends help me, like my new friends helping me when my old friend turned out to be rather toxic to stay with. I had never dared to dream about being anything more than my disorder and past. So I did what I needed to do to get by until I could make it on my own. And now here I am making it on my own. I may have slept on the floor, owned no TV or internet and eaten ramen noodles every day for lunch and dinner, but I have my own roof over my head, vehicle to go where I please, two cats and a dog, a phone and a new kickass job doing what I do best. And I continue to surprise myself which is nice. I’m discovering who I really am inside. Without the constraints of my disorder.

It's not that I don't want to talk about my past and what I went through and all the help I did recieve from the mental health community. I’m grateful for all the help that I did receive. I got to tell my story and that was important. I had to get it out because it consumed me and turned me into someone ugly. But once my story was out there, it was all about picking up the pieces. But I was always looking to someone else to tell me how the pieces went together. Like I didn’t own any part of my life. But all along, I knew how the pieces fit. It was just about making the leap into the unknown to put them together. And looking inside myself to find the answers to questions like, how do you live life? Please…I seriously had to ask people that, particularly one counselor I had. I didn’t get the concept of how life went. Which seems stupid to me now. Life is what you make it, not what someone else makes it or how they make it. Everyone’s life is different from one another, sure there are similarities, but you can’t just model your life after someone else’s. You are uniquely you and the only one who can tell you how to live your life is you. It’s up to you to figure out what you like or don’t like. It’s nice though when people do offer you choices and then you can pick out what you do or don’t like. But you can’t keep yourself limited to that because then you are just going off what someone else likes or doesn’t like. I had to learn to like to explore and try new things. That’s how I know I like sushi now ;-) I just decided to try it. I swore on everything that Virginia was my home and it was the only home for me. But then I left it all behind and discovered this wide, wide world out there. And that home wasn’t necessarily a place. I feel perfectly at home right now sitting in my empty apartment with no tv or internet and just my animals and books. And I’m a million miles away from Virginia and my family. But I’m home. Not that this will always be my home. Home is where I decide to make it. Home is wherever my heart decides it needs to be. I could get a hair up my ass one day and decide that I need to move my home to California. Or Iowa. Or wherever. Home is a concept but does not have to be permanent. At least I don’t have to stake all my beliefs in one place. I will always have a soft spot for Fredericksburg in my heart and would love to visit several times a year…but it’s not a place I want to live. At least right now and at least not in the foreseeable future. My home right now is here where I have made friends, have a nice job, animals and a whole host of things I want to experience. Home is where I decide to make it.

So when people as me about my past? That’s what this began as right? You know, fuck ‘em. My past is my past however inelegant and messy. But it’s a part of me and has helped forge who I am today. They want to know about my past? I used to be lost but now I am found. That’s what I can tell them. I struggled and tortured myself trying to find any path that led to some form of a normal life. And I found the answers when I moved here, to Arizona. The important thing about my past is that it led me here. So it couldn’t have been all that bad…because ultimately I got here, body and mind in tact and happy. And that will always amaze me. That I went through a lot, though I did not have the hardest life by any means, but I went through my own private hell but found myself in tact and healthy and happy. Ain’t that the damnest thing?