what do you do when it all falls apart?

In April of 2023 I had multiple psychiatrists tell me in no uncertain terms that my life was over.

I was encouraged to file for disability benefits once I was discharged from the psych ward, because my file officially read “gravely disabled”.

Diagnosed bipolar with psychotic features. A danger to myself and others. Delusions of grandeur, unpredictable emotions, a flight risk, I was the whole package of a broken person. The professionals ultimately decided I should just be thrown away.

Back at home as this was happening, my husband - who had convinced me we should be a polyamorous couple the week after our wedding day - was fucking another woman in our bed. When he wasn’t cooking DMT from scratch in our kitchen, he was on social media, harassing my friends to come over and sleep with us. I didn’t know about it until my girls came to me one by one saying, “uhh, hey dude, what the fuck?!”

Just this last month, a good wise friend taught me that I must have been tripping balls for all those months I was living in the fumes of his homemade psychedelics. I had never considered it before, but when she suggested that idea, it all suddenly made sense to me.

Pushed past my ability to cope, my consciousness was unhinged, and I simultaneously celebrated my liberation from the matrix while I watched the life I had worked so hard to create for myself crumble before my eyes.

It wasn’t all bad. I know, yeah, that was pretty fucked up to say the least. But in the end I got my fire back. I had made myself too small and allowed myself to be taken advantage of by a dangerous man in the name of what I thought was love. I lost all my friends because they were afraid of him, and lost my job because I had imposter syndrome about working in a fulfilling environment and coming home at the end of the day to a living hell.

How did I manage to get out of that? I am obviously still a functioning person… Some may still call me insane, but I have plenty of proof that my psychotic break and subsequent downfall was at the hands of someone else.

There’s only one thing I can credit for my recovery, and that is: the company of women.

Now that we’ve lost the judgemental freaks and the men looking for shock value from this piece of writing, and it’s just you and me girl, let’s get into it for real…

I would not be here if it weren’t for the love and support of the strongest women in my life.

My mom. My grandma. The women I worked with at the job I started right after my divorce. The friends I made in the middle of my dark night of the soul. Even the distant connections with girls I knew in high school, or mutuals on social media I have never met in real life… all of them angels, wise mentors, and pillars for me to rest my weary soul against. And once I fully embraced this, I watched as my potential blossomed again.

It didn’t happen overnight. In fact, it took way too fucking long for my liking to get back to the level of consciousness I had previously enjoyed. After I was discharged from the ward, I was taking so many prescription antipsychotics that I didn’t even experience an internal monologue anymore. I was a zombie, completely numb to life and unable to speak.

I quit those meds cold-turkey when I moved back in with my mom, and was finally able to cut ties with my ex-husband. My symptoms - the mania, the paranoia, the hallucinations, the speaking in riddles, the derealization - all completely subsided. I can proudly say I have been medication-free AND symptom-free since then, for a year and a half as of today.

This experience taught me that the environments we put ourselves in are very, very, very important - and it’s not worth it to live in discomfort. I put up with so much during my marriage… to the point where I was literally enabling drug dealing, fraud and sexual harassment (all of which came back to haunt me, and I learned huge lessons from my complacency, by the way), that I am completely unable to stand any kind of uneasy feelings today. Even in the midst of warnings from my friends who I loved and trusted, I stuffed down my intuition and tried desperately to fit a messy disgusting disaster of a shape into a neat square hole.

For the love of God, babe, listen to your friends. Let them hear you and trust them when they say shit to you. If you can’t do these things, it may be time for a rude awakening. Because the only thing that ever got me through the shittiest times of my life has been the strong, intelligent, experienced women who I have been blessed to call my friends and family.

Humans are social creatures, and therefore isolation is the mother of suffering. We all feel alone and bothersome to people. The trick is to get over it. Find yourself some wacky creative friends who don’t mind that you’re having a bad day - they just want you to be okay. These people are out there. They just don’t know you exist if you don’t ever come out of your fear zone and say “hi, I really need a friend right now.” How would they even know???

If you don’t have anyone in your life like this, start by finding a therapist. No, just because I had a traumatic experience with the psych ward and medications and diagnoses and stuff doesn’t mean I am anti-psychiatric care. What I am wary of though, is going to see a psychiatrist who listens halfheartedly to your story and responds by writing you a prescription for something that will “help you relax”. No bitch. You don’t need another pill to relax… you need real life support.

I am not a medical professional but I do know that I am smart. And if I have learned anything from my personal research into the world of psychology, it is that sometimes doctors just don’t know what the hell they are doing. And the trial-by-error design of modern psychiatry has done more harm than good in many, many historical cases. Don’t believe me? Just google it: “the history of psychiatry”. Lobotomies, anyone?

Thank god we live in a time period where it’s not really that common anymore to lobotomize your disobedient wife. At least, that is my personal relief. It could have been so much worse. To the women who were brave enough to speak their minds even when they were scared of losing me to that man: thank you. Especially to my mom: having you close to me saved my life.

What do you do when it all falls apart? Call out for help. Vulnerability-equals-weakness is so last year. We’re over that. Let your friends care about you, and give them something to fight for. Most people just want to make a difference in general, and helping someone scientifically rewires your brain for increased happiness and fulfillment in life. So what if you let someone make a difference for you?

Life is too short to suffer in silence.

Much love,