back where I started

So…I am home from residential treatment, and in many ways, it feels like I’ve landed right back at square one. The strange part is that I’ve changed a lot, but home hasn’t. The same stressors, the same environment, and the same pain that sent me to treatment are all still here waiting for me.

I came home with new skills, new insight, and the beginning of healing. I’ve started to work through some incredibly difficult things. But something still feels off, like a piece of me hasn’t caught up yet. Maybe that missing piece is simply learning how to exist outside the safety of treatment.

The adjustment has been harder than I expected. With that, difficulty has come intense anxiety, and when my anxiety gets high, it often brings persistent thoughts of self-harm and suicide along with it. A really terrible combination.

This week, I started a new Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) focused on trauma. I think it will be a good bridge between residential treatment and outpatient therapy. It gives me structure, support, and a place to continue doing the work. Still, I’ve found myself minimizing how bad things really feel.

On my daily check-in sheets, I note that I’m struggling with these thoughts, and I’ve already had a couple of conversations about safety. The staff means well, and I know they care. But I’m terrified that if I fully tell the truth about how often these thoughts show up, I’ll be sent right back to inpatient or residential treatment. So I soften it. I downplay it. I say enough to be honest, but not enough to feel dangerous.

At home, we’ve taken steps to keep me safe. My medications are locked up, and there are no sharps in the house. But today I had to pick up a prescription refill from the pharmacy: a bottle with 130 pills in it.

I sat there staring at that bottle for an hour.

Part of me wanted to take them, and admitting that fills me with shame and guilt. But I didn’t do it. Somewhere inside all the noise and fear and pain, there was still a small part of me fighting to stay. Right now, that small part feels worth holding onto.

More later…