The first time I was hospitalized was through outpatient at Meier Clinics in October 2006. It's an intense program filled with education and challenges. On the first day they give you your therapist who will be working with you as you're in the program. I remember that morning very clearly when this woman who was very confident and strong taught one of our sessions. I asked God to not have her be my therapist because she scared me. As you may have already guessed Carol Davis-Serpas, LCPC, became the best gift and friend I could've ever asked for during my three years of recovery work.
After a suicide attempt in December 2006 I was admitted to Good Shepherd Hospital where I stayed for 10 to 14 days. I would return to that hospital another three times after having suicide attempts and no desire to live. But each time I walked out of there I had a little bit more hope because the therapists really cared and spent time with me. We also got to do a lot of art, exercise and classes that were educational and informative. I miss that environment even to this day.
At Alexian Brothers, God brought a very skilled and insightful team of professionals to help me learn how to not self injure or overeat. They did this using cognitive behavior therapy and dialectical behavior therapy.
Dialectical behavior therapy taught me how to use mindfulness, emotional regulation and distress tolerance. Those are not easy to master because the opposite often took over thus making me susceptible to destructive behaviors inflicted on myself.
In my words, cognitive behavior therapy taught me how my thoughts lead to feelings which then led to behavior. This can be perceived as good or destructive. Since I was in the hospital I had obviously used destructive behavior in order to cope with negative thoughts and intense feelings of sadness and loneliness.
While I was in treatment for those 10 days I was blessed to have Dr. Erin Terada as my therapist. I had been released after 10 days then went to outpatient for about two weeks before I began to have more emotional and mental breakdowns in my mind. I was becoming increasingly aggressive in my thoughts toward people that were in charge of the outpatient program. And then I became homicidal with suicidal thoughts. So they put me back into inpatient and back with Dr. Terada.
I was disgusted with myself because I worked really hard the first time to get what I was supposed to learn because I didn't want to come back. But evidently there was something that I missed. What I missed was not just a medication adjustment but Dr. Terada wrote several poignant questions, about five or six sheets of paper, that she wanted me to really spend time on and get to the root of what was causing all this turmoil.
I finished those papers and I still have them. I refer to them from time to time when I need a reminder about why I'm trying to not self injure or over eat. I need to remember that these feelings I have, even though they are so intense, are still manageable based on the choices that I make. My choices are simple but are not easy. I need to talk to somebody, I need to talk to my therapist, I need to keep myself safe in my own home by not playing with razor blades. I have not cut since sometime in 2014 but I still self-insure inside of my mouth.
Today God showed me why I do the things I do. It's not to hurt or destroy the beautiful creation that he has made. Overtime God has shown me that everything I survived as a child to the age of 21 was because I had the will to live. Even though my first suicide attempt was at the age of 11, I know that he saved me from myself.
I knew from that day forward that even though I failed at my attempts I really didn't want to leave. I didn't want to leave my sisters and I didn't want to leave my mom and I didn't want to leave the few friends that I did have.
I definitely wanted to kill my dad and I wanted to kill that boy and I wanted to kill the others who had sexually abused me but I did not want to go to jail as a juvenile or as an adult because I knew that I would be very scared.
God continues to show me that all the abuse that was dealt to my little body and my adult body will not be in vain. I've often said that God doesn't waste pain - he uses it for his good. He allows it to pass through his hands because he knows my faith is strong in him and I know how much he loves me.
And if I ever have any doubts about that all I have to do is look at my arms or my shoulders or parts of my torso and say to myself, "I did not cut bad enough to kill my body but I did it hard enough to be able to feel."
God must have a plan for my life.
Just hang in there.
