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My Recovery Foundation

My mental health recovery journey started when I was jailed and hospitalized back in 2007. I was 20 years old. Taking a break from the university. Something had to explain why I was locked up without a cause in my mind. That truck I took was my blessing to escape the demons which spied on me, followed me and aimed to attack and kill me. 


My Trek to the Airport

    One day I got up and went to church and abruptly left the church building because their eyes appeared black and that meant they were demonic. Scared, confused and seemingly alone I strived to return to the familiar back in Atlanta. I already cashed my check from work. I traveled to the airport by the trolley. I got confused on the way which I thought was strange because I knew the public transportation system backward and forward. 

    I was a reality show celebrity and the cameras focused on me, strangers watched me and magazines and newspaper stands read my name across the front pages. Afraid I steadily kept going to the airport. That big rig making a U-Turn symbolically in the spiritual realms meant I should go back. There were multiple female and male voices talking, shouting, cursing me. At one point I cried because they wouldn't stop and I could function.

    I continued to walk in the direction of the airport and eventually took a taxi. When I arrived to the airport everybody looked at me in a strange matter which alarmed me and made me feel like they were out to get me too. The clerk at the airport counter looked at me eerily- I got scared. 


My Blessing and Curse?

As I walked the grounds of the airport I saw a large pickup truck. I knew that everybody wanted me dead but I knew that sitting truck with the keys in the ignition was my blessing and escape to save myself. Without a roadmap or GPS I was on the road to Atlanta from San Diego. Suddenly, the blue light special was on my tail. The devil spoke to me through the radio trying to get me to take myself out. I didn't want to die. I wasn't suicidal and I didn't want the police to catch me either because they were in on it. 

    We drove on the opposite side of the road into flow of traffic. Moving fast. Abruptly the chase came to halt. I tried to start the vehicle up again. Nothing. I had crashed the truck head-on into a building. 

    They spoke to me through the loud speaker guiding me on how to surrender. I followed the instructions the police gave. They picked me up and slammed me to the ground which was worse than the crash. In the back seat of the police car I recited the Lord's Prayer. Our Father who is in Heaven... The police car had a bomb. I whispered my seemingly final words to my mother. I was dying for them. I thought I was Jesus Christ. Then I was in jail. 


The Legal Interventions

    There in jail for a while. They transferred me to the psychiatric ward. I went from a unit of about 40 women to 16. The meals were predictable everyday. We got up early. Couldn't stay in our cells. 

    My symptoms got worse. I sat in a daze. Nurses and doctors checked on me. They took me to the emergency room a few times because I wouldn't eat- they tried to poison me. Finally, they transferred me to the state psychiatric hospital in southern California. I stayed there for a few months. Forced medicated. Forced to participate in classes. Learning my court rights and potential pleas. The importance of medication and a lot of other classes.

    After I returned back to jail to go to court hearings for the truck I took. The jail social worker Elaine told me about filing for disability and recommended a housing program. I went into a group home for women with mental health conditions. We went to the same outpatient program. 


Healing and Recovery

    The program recommended I take therapy and attend their classes and activities. There I learned about the benefits of therapy. I took classes such as Mary Ellen Copeland's Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP). It was an informal crisis plan. After about a year I moved back to Atlanta. 

    At first I was isolating. I didn't interact with people outside of my family. At home I started blogging. My sister encouraged me. I liked to journal. The Overcoming Schizophrenia blog became my outlet. I blogged anonymously. My family and I went to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) meetings. That was in 2009. I've been a part of NAMI ever since and I eventually attached my name to this blog when I learned I shouldn't be ashamed of my diagnosis. That was how my recovery journey began- my recovery foundation.


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