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There’s a Crack in Everything: Therapy Camp and Avoiding a Real Shit Show
CHAPTER 12
My main goal for admitting myself to inpatient mental health care, the only one voluntarily on my ward, was to get myself back on a good med regimen.
I had taken myself off my meds in fall of 2019 because I foolishly thought I could make it without.
It’s like if I’m out in the rain long enough and my umbrella has never failed to keep me dry, I can fool myself into thinking that since I’m dry, it may not really even be raining. I may not need the umbrella.
I had had nineteen good years on my meds and was thriving. I had ups and downs, but they were natural emotional ebbs and flows, appropriate for my life’s circumstances. Marriage troubles, career stalls, sicknesses and deaths, successes, newfound joys and interests. What any mentally healthy person calls life. I was among the mentally healthy on the planet. I had gotten to where I didn’t think I needed the umbrella.
I had just forgotten that my brain has a chemical imbalance, and without my meds, there was no way I could stay dry.
There are people with diabetes or high blood pressure who must stay on their meds to live and thrive. No shame, it’s a medical necessity.
But mental disease isn’t seen that way. It’s too often thought of as weakness. But it’s not.