In the End Is the Beginning

“There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.” -Louis L’Amour

A year ago today, I voluntarily admitted myself to a mental hospital’s inpatient care. The Psych Ward. It was all I had left. It’s difficult to think back on the emptiness, the loss of self, the loss of belief in a loving God.

Am I better off having gone? Ask a cancer survivor if chemo and radiation are worth it. The answer is most likely, yes… but…

It took me to a much lower place than I ever thought possible. I thought I had already hit bottom. When I thought there was none of me left, they took my skin.

When I thought all I had left were tears, they took the freedom to express pain in that way when pain is beyond words. When I thought I still had some semblance of sanity, they took that too. All freedoms gone, all choice taken. When to rise, when to lay down, when to eat, when to medicate, when to watch my back (always), when to look away, when to hold my tongue because my words could be used against me. Everything regimented.

With everything stripped from me, all I had was the present, where I was in that moment. My only reality was that pain and suffering are real. Clinical Depression is real. And I only have two choices. To deny the pain, in any number of ways, or to accept it…