I Almost Admitted Myself to the Psych Ward This Week

and it was for the most unexpected discomfort

Aug 01, 2026

Waffle walking me home to myself — on top of a mountain, no less — a practice I am struggling but determined to learn.

Good morning, beautiful human,

It’s been quite a week. And before I get into it, I want to offer a human warning — my version of a content warning.

This piece contains explicit mentions of self-harm and suicidality. Please DO NOT read it if engaging with this story could cause you harm in any way. I care about you. Deeply. So if this statement or piece brings up feelings of crisis, self-harm, or suicide, please call a friend, call or text 988, or reach out to the Wildflower Alliance Peer Support Line.

This week, I came closer to admitting myself to a psychiatric ward than I have in thirteen years. The most confusing part — at least at the time — was that listening to myself and choosing what was right for me was what brought me to its door.

Since I was a little girl, I have falsely believed that being me—being all of me—would feel good inside. I thought that when I finally listened to myself and honored that self, it would feel safe and cozy in every single inch of my being.

This week, when I did that, one part of me wanted to die, and another part of me wanted desperately—so desperately—to self-harm. It was excruciating in every single way, from the headache that pounded in my skull to the vision that bent and blurred, all the way down to the violent clench deep in my belly.

Finally, after I trembled and shook for a good hour in bed, I got myself up and into an ice-cold shower. Mood follows action, Kate. Mood follows action. Get yourself in the goddamn shower.

There, as my full mind and parts came back online, I realized how wrong that belief was. I realized how absurd it is that we are taught that becoming ourselves should feel good.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I do believe that when we have finally unshackled ourselves from the broken systems of the world and untangled ourselves from the many layers of conditioning we were raised beneath, we will find a peace of sorts. At least I hope thats the case.

At the same time, the idea that becoming ourselves is a comfortable thing is downright absurd. Becoming me, after all, is re-wilding myself. It is the act of fighting back on every single front and stepping, absolutely terrified, into the unknown in pursuit of a self I haven’t even met yet.

Scribbling in my journal, naked on my closet floor as Tug lay beside me, a light bulb finally went off. Or maybe I should say that a light bulb turned back on, because I could swear I’ve come to this truth many times before:

Becoming myself is not about growing into a place where there is no discomfort.

What a lie we’ve been told—that discomfort is the enemy when instead it’s the very currency of evolution. Yes, it’s not about being comfortable. Discomfort is a guarantee.

Instead, it’s about which discomfort I choose. It’s about whether I feel discomfort in the act of self-erasure or in the act of self-reclamation.

This clarity got me up, clothed, and safely to my parents’ house, where I wept and broke down for a few hours as I talked about how deeply I wanted to meet my full self—to actually know and trust who that is—and also how deeply I knew I could not do that within the current paradigm of my existence or employment.

I wish I could tell you my parents and I found a neat and tidy answer and that, after I landed on standing in my truth—the truth of what this season of me needs—it was pretty or, at the very least, peaceful.

But oooooohh baby, it was neither whatsoever.

It was simply more grueling and more brutal—so much so that parts of me experienced both suicidal ideation and the impulse to self-harm multiple times after I found my truth.

But unlike when I was younger, I didn’t give in to these inner requests for salvation from the discomfort. I didn’t avoid or cut. I didn’t people-please or fugue. I felt the discomfort fully. I leaned into its absolute fuckery and used every single resource that I had ever put in my toolbox.

I wrote. I called friends. I drew. I talked to Dave obsessively. I sought repeated, daily counsel from my best friend. I set up multiple emergency therapy appointments. And, of course, I took all the cold showers and kept Tug on my lap, bribing her into a nearly permanent deep-pressure-therapy position with all the cookies.

With that help—with that immense privilege of support—I found the truth within myself:

Discomfort is always there.

It’s either living the discomfort of self-erasure as I bend or break myself into a human I am not—one who meets society’s standards, values, and expectations instead of my own.

Or it’s the discomfort of becoming myself—the discomfort of defying society’s standards, values, and expectations as I bravely choose to live by my own instead.

And holy hell, what a discomfort this is. What a discomfort indeed.

It is scary. It is terrifying. It is new. And it’s finally for me, so that makes it worth it.

With the incredible support of my family, friends, and care team, I was able to stay the course and make the choice my whole body was revolting against:

I left my job entirely.

Yup, I did it. I left the work that had structured and supported my entire life because I could no longer meet myself inside it.

I left my job to meet me.

And as I did — as one part of me screamed for a razor blade and another yelled, “We just have to die, we just have to die and be done” — I did the bravest thing of all.

I turned toward my younger parts, the ones screaming for our end, still lost in an era when obedience to the world had been demanded of us in order to survive. And I did what my best girl — my one-in-a-billion best girl — used to do for me.

I took my own hand, chose not to abandon my adult self in the name of my younger truths, and said:

“You’re right, little Kate. Everything you feel is valid and true. The world doesn’t want us to live this way — it doesn’t want us to live our truth and become who we truly are. And you’re right: for decades, the world told us it would lock us up if we did and that we would lose people we love.

“And you’re also right. The world did lock us up, and we did lose people we love.

“But little Kate, I’m not the world. I’m you — decades later. I’m you after fighting tirelessly to build the world where we do actually belong.

“And little Kate, we actually did it. we actually did it.

“So here, take my hand, and I — yes, I — will walk us home.”

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