Major Depressive Disorder, Major Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Bipolar Disorder. These were my diagnoses after staying 9 days in the inpatient ward of McLean Mental Hospital in Belmont Massachusetts. This was my explanation for years of self torture, apathy, and an unwavering pit in my chest. When I arrived at McLean, it was by ambulance. That drive in the back of the ambulance, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever come quietly too. Strapped down to that thin cot. The chill of winter air seeping into my flesh from the gaps in the doors. Every bump on the road pushed me into the straps of the cot, reminding me that I was trapped. Even the yellow street light peeping in through the rear windows, had a lonely shadow to it. It felt like my heart was going to burst.
Have you ever sobbed without making a sound? It’s really hard. And so painful. You have to grit your teeth until the enamel grinds against each other making a fine powder. Poison you wish would take you now. Your hands are locked in fists, nails digging into the flesh in your palm. The blood that drips down reminds you you’re alive. Tears stream silent and steady down your face. The salt burns, they’re fat, heavy with the weight of your distress. Your lips are trembling, so you press them together, and suddenly your face is an earthquake, tremoring and breaking with each haggard inhale. The back of that ambulance is where I learned to sob silently.
When I arrived at McLean it was 2:00am on a Saturday. The outside of the building, dark red brick and mortar, formidable and cold. They took my vitals, something I would become quite used to at McLean, and sat me in a break room as I waited for my interview. It was cold and quiet save for the soft voices of the two nurses on duty, who were waiting outside the room. I was finally called in by a short asian nurse and gentle black social worker. For the second time in the last 24 hours since my hospitalization journey began, I explained why I was there. It’s never easy telling someone you tried to kill yourself. You don’t want to seem like a robot but sometimes robotics is the only way to survive. If I let the emotions wash over me that made me want to die in the first place, I’d never stop crying. Then you wouldn’t learn anything.
The whole process took about 30 minutes. Another 30 minutes of waiting. Then I was being led through back tunnels to my new home for the next 9 days. Not that I knew it at the time. I was so tired. Physically and mentally. I didn’t even think to ask. I just followed. That night was hard. I cried again. But thankfully tears have always tired me out, and I fell asleep. I was awoken at 8am by a swift knock and a dry “good morning. vitals and medication please!”. I didn’t know what those phrases meant, and once again followed the crowd. At McLean every morning and evening they take your vital signs and you receive whatever medication you’re on. I wasn’t on any yet. Another thing they do at McLean is check to see if you’re alive, every 15 minutes, 24/7. Reason number 1283092 why I wanted to get out as soon as possible. If only so I could fall asleep without a flashlight in my face.
The next couple days were hard. No one was around and I didn’t know anything yet. I’ve never been one to handle having no control over things. There’s only a certain extent I can wait patiently until the wheels of anxiety start turning in my mind, putting every possible negative outcome that exists into my field of vision. Life is so much harder when you’re living it through a lens of regret and shame. What’s worse is when you can’t even pinpoint the shame. It just builds, starting in your lower back until your whole spine curves with the weight of it. With the weight of hating who you are. I walked around McLean with my head bowed. I would have put my hoodie up if I was allowed, but McLean staff must be able to see your neck at all times. I can’t even see my neck so why do you need to?
But in all seriousness. I understood. The gravity of the situation that landed me there. But because of the nature of that situation, because it was my desire to die that landed me here, it was impossible to make me care about anything. I just wanted my freedom for the last few days I graced the earth, and then to pass swiftly and quietly onto whatever is next. Even now, two weeks after my discharge, I have no strong desire to live. But I have no strong desire to die also. Let me tell you how I got here. To this, middle ground of sorts.
For Sunday I went to group therapy. My first time ever. Let me tell you, it was something. Something powerful. There’s nothing more powerful than a sense of validation. And I have never truly felt validated until I walked into that room. When I told my stories, shared my opinions and had people say yes to me. And mean it. Something in my heart kind of broke. A shield, a place holder, a dam of sorts. I wanted to cry right then. For once. I did not feel alone. My eyes grew hot and started to burn from holding back my tears. But what came out was a smile instead.
I didn’t have any expectations of McLean. I didn’t think it could do anything for me besides give me drugs. I didn’t think talking would do anything since I’ve already talked so much. To friends, to family, to myself even, in cyclical mind conversations that landed me in an even darker place than I began. But having someone understand what I meant when I said at times I felt removed from my body. Numb and watching from above as it did things I didn’t tell it too. A cool removal and a blanket of apathy over my mind as I thought about the world. I thought I was going crazy. I was losing myself. I didn’t even know who I was losing because I didn’t and still don’t know who I am. And to just have someone say “Me too.” That lifted a piece of the heaviest weight I’d been carrying. The weight of loneliness.
When Monday came, I met my team for the first time. Composed of a social worker, a psychiatrist and a therapist. Their job was to figure out my plan for after McLean, so I could leave. This meant dealing with school, a treatment plan, a place to live. None of these things were anything I wanted to think about, ever again. Just drops in a bucket creating tsunami’s of stress to wash me away. My team was kind. Practiced. The had the air of ‘I’ve done this before, just let me help’. So I did. It was with them I decided to take a medical leave from school, to do a two week outpatient program upon my release and to move in with my boyfriend(a decision no one in my life liked). They gave me back my confidence, even if it was unintentional. They questioned my decisions in how to make them stronger, not how to make them right as so many others in my life had said and done. They made me feel in control even without me being in control. Gave me the ability to be confident and thorough in my decisions, and I will always be grateful to them for that.
My time at McLean was ultimately quite short, though on many days it felt eternal. One thing that I took from there and will use everyday is a simple check-in exercise the group therapy leader, Anthony taught us. He said, picture the inside of your mind and body as the sky. The sky is vast and beautiful. Weather happens to it all the time. Storms and sunny days. But the sky itself is always clear and vast and beautiful. Think of your emotions as the weather. Emotions happen to you, but you are not your emotions. It’s your natural reaction to outside stimuli or internal stimuli brought on by how you were raised and what you’ve experienced. The same way weather happens to the sky, not because of it. So every morning ask yourself, what’s the weather like today?
Every day at McLean I did that and wrote it in my journal. Every morning I’d wake up, and picture what my sky looked like. Some days it was stark and gray. Some days a torrential downpour. And finally some days, you could see some sun. All it is, is a reminder to check in with yourself(and with others) and just see how you’re doing. McLean was nice, but I never want to go back. Scratch that. I never want to have to go back. So each day I ask myself, and I implore you to ask as well, how’s the weather today?