Juniper

So, it’s been a challenging journey recently and I thought it may be a good idea to bring you all up to date. I feel like it would be too long to do in one post so I’m going to spread it out into a few. I started noticing my mental health start dipping in the Spring, I hadn’t been on an antidepressant because my provider and I kept requesting different medications and getting denied from my insurance company, which is a time-consuming process. By the time August had rolled around I was at a really low point and I was really overwhelmed, I had just gone back to school, I was juggling schoolwork, working fulltime, therapy weekly, group therapy weekly, my recovery meetings nearly daily, plus Mom stuff, there wasn’t a lot of time for me to breathe, so any time any added stressor was piled on that, I exploded. Eventually after a therapy session, which I did on zoom during my lunches at work, I got so overwhelmed, I relapsed on self-harm under my desk with a pair of scissors on my left thigh. I knew that because I could no longer keep myself safe, I probably needed to go somewhere, but I really didn’t want to go to a hospital again, they are so invasive and I never got the help I needed. So, I sought out an alternative I had heard of in a work training called a Peer Respite, a safe house basically run by peers with lived experience. I put in a referral and heard back the same day. I remember scrambling outside my work to get babysitting for Lilah so I could go, begging my mom for help, terrified I wouldn’t be able to go get help. Ultimately, She, as well as Lilah’s Grammie, Cheryl watched her. The respite, Juniper, was not what I was expecting, I was ready for someone to go through my things, tell me what I could and could not have, strip search me and make me list all my current piercings, tattoos and scars, give a generic explanation of why I was there, and none of that happened. Instead, they gave me a tour of a comfortable, clean house, showed me my room, gave me my key, and asked if I needed help with my bags. Nothing was taken from me, none of my humanity was stripped away just because I wanted extra support in a time of crisis. Everyone was nice, I attended any groups that took place at the respite as well as my Sober Faction meetings, and Alternatives to Suicide meetings online. The mental health break was much needed, but it was hard to be away from everyone, I missed my daughter a lot and I felt guilty about being away from her. I expressed feeling lonely and wishing my friend would come visit, since visits always help me when I am in places like that to my boyfriend who responded with “relax, lady it’s a week.” I felt very unheard and invalidated and after a heated conversation, we broke up the next day. I spent two weeks at the respite, focusing on art therapy, groups, a med change, adding fluvoxamine into the mix to curb obsessive suicidal thoughts, and putting myself back together. It helped immensely, but my team of providers as well as myself thought it would be smart for me to wait a few weeks to let the med get into my system before returning to work so I was set to return September 1st.