Ok...

...since I cannot remember right now most of what I wrote earlier, this one's good enough for me.

 

I am lucky and grateful to have adult people in my life. After my last episode of breakdown, they became more attentive to me and sincerely extended their love and understanding toward me. When I'm down, they helps lift me up. When they know I'm not myself sometimes, they helps me get out of it. I know that not everyone is lucky to have what I have as far as having family nearby to pull me out of  the dark.
I've seen it. I saw these people who were alone. I was at this place between January 29th until February 5th and there I saw how many people suffers from different kind of diagnosis.

 My first night there, sitting in the farthest corner of the couch-- I asked myself: "What on earth am I doing here?"

I didn't cry from the time I was told I needed to get checked-in. Everyone was crying around me. I remember having no emotion. All I keep saying to myself was "I need to do this for my kids. I need to break the chain."

Then when it was time for me to go, I talked to my mother in law and that's when I cried. That's when I felt I won't be around my kids for a while. That's when I felt this is better than not being here entirely. That's when it hurted me. That's when I am getting the sense that something was wrong and I needed to do this.

During my last day of staying there, I was at this group meeting. When it was time for me to talk, somehow one commented that my first night there, I was very quiet. Though the people there came up to me and introduced themselves, I was not engaging. 
Those who were active at the meetings agreed that they slowly saw me emerged from my shell. I was smiling by Wednesday noon of that week. And that same day, I confessed to someone that on my first night, I was wondering why some people looked happy. I said: "I thought you're not supposed to be happy.." and then I added: "now I know it is ok to be happy even if you're in this place..."

When it was time for me to go back home, I looked forward to it. but a some others I met who were going home too didn't express "excitement" of going back home. I was wondering then. They wanted to go home yet at the same time, they don't. I can see in their eyes they were afraid. again, asking myself, why are they afraid to go home?

I realized later on why.

Because whilewe were at "that place", we were protected. Protected from the harse world. We were this one group of people who understand each other because of what we were going through. No one judges us. Even if there's someone, we basically just did not paid attention to that person. Even if that person cause trouble or was annoying, we were just quiet and kept to ourselves. We engaged with those who wants to be around people even if it means just sitting in the lounge area.

Going home means facing up to reality....it'll now test our strength.

The one thing that I've enjoyed while I was at "that place" the most was doing the collage. We did that late Thursday afternoon. The moment the staff/nurses told us what we were about to do, my mind started working. I started feeling very excited as I sorted through the magazines to cut out as we wish. By the time we finished the activity, I realized how much fun I had putting it together. And there it was a big cardboard of collage-expressing my thoughts and feelings through pictures. I explained to those who'd listened what my collage meant (why I picked that certain pictures.)

When I came home, I knew I found a new hobby.

:-)