The last bed... and how to shake it like a dog

The importance of completing the stress cycle

When the voices began to take over and the world around me became mine no longer, it was time to go in. It was time to admit myself to the psych ward.

There was only a short window to make it to the hospital in those moments — one entirely dependent upon the lucid sliver of my psychotic existence — the rapidly shrinking part of me that was aware enough to know: I was in danger. I was about to hurt myself. And I needed help to safely make it through.

Sometimes in these moments, the window of opportunity closed before I could ask for help and I was lost to a fugue state only to find myself a day or so later in the woods of Vermont. But other times, I made the call — the call I dreaded, the call that broke my heart, and my parents' entire being — the call that told them my mind was hellbent on killing me and I couldn’t trust it or myself any longer.

Although the horror of my psychosis was brutal in its entirety, the true fight began after I made that call to my parents. This was the fight t…