Tag: psychiatric hospitalization


  • “Everyone Has A Plan Until They Get Punched In The Face.”

    “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” For me, that punch was destabilization. Over the past year — and especially in recent months — my bipolar disorder stopped responding to insight, therapy, distance, routines, and sheer effort. Innocent moments triggered near-death levels of anxiety, sending my nervous system into overdrive while…

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  • My Zero-Return Recovery Manifesto: I Burned the Bridges on Purpose

    Zero-Return Recovery isn’t a rebrand. It’s a controlled burn. I didn’t drift away or take a break, I deleted everything, cut the cords, and walked straight into the wreckage of my own patterns. On purpose. I burned bridges to stop myself from going back to what kept hurting me. No negotiating with addiction. No romanticizing…

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  • What the f*ck is IFS (Internal Family Systems) and why should you care?

    I didn’t fix myself—I learned how to drive my bus again. Internal Family Systems gave me a language for what was already happening inside: a system of parts, each trying to protect me the only way it knew how. Addiction, anger, fear, and chaos weren’t personal failures; they were passengers fighting for control because they…

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  • 28 days into a psychiatric medication change.

    On paper, I’m “stable.” My mood is steady. No swings. No spirals. But underneath that stability is a brutal reality: crushed energy, flat dopamine, and relentless akathisia. For years, one side effect quietly dictated my life and drove me to self-medicate with alcohol and kratom just to function. I finally named it for what it…

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  • No glimmer in my eyes

    Six years ago, that smile wasn’t real—I was flat, numb, and buried under a stack of psychiatric medications that dulled everything human in me. I was surviving, not living. Hospitalizations, psychosis, loss after loss followed. Then, unexpectedly, a research trial changed the trajectory. A Vagus Nerve Stimulator didn’t save me overnight—but it gave me a…

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  • Three Years Ago

    Three Years Ago

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    Three years ago, I publicly declared I was thriving—healthier than ever, fewer meds, solid friendships, my kids doing better. Four days later, I was drunk, high, manic, suicidal, psychotic, and locked in a psychiatric ward. That cycle repeated until I finally told myself the truth: sobriety wasn’t a preference, it was the only way forward.…

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