RealMental

Once, the first time I was in a mental hospital, I remember sitting in a group of women who were all discussing their situations, the gravity of them, and feeling quite out of place. One mentioned how her husband threatened to leave her. Another told how her kids were afraid of her and had never been the same after the morning they found her on the bathroom floor in her own vomit and blood. And yet another talked about how she didn’t think she could manage life on the outside and she hoped they never sent her home.

I remember looking around the room at these women who were sharing their secrets and fears and feeling like a fish out of water. In that moment I saw no connection between myself and them. I could find no similarities between me and the woman who had just intentionally crashed her car into a tree and had been brought in, tied up in a straitjacket, just the night before. And more than that, I didn’t want to.

It’s a scary thing to open yourself up to the possibility that you might be the same on some level as the people locked in a mental facility. But I’m still amazed it took me over a week to realize that I was locked in there with them. If someone had something in common with them, it was me. I just hadn’t dared realize it yet. I’m not suggesting everyone’s reality is that extreme but to some extent, most of us keep hiding from ourselves until our Selves demand to be seen. Read more »