Niki’s Path to Peace

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about

I’m a mom of four boys and wife of 12 years who lives in Southern Indiana.
  • How I Ended Up in the Psych Ward

    How I Ended Up in the Psych Ward

    By 16-years-old, I had been self-harming for at least two years. I was a cutter. I would do it anywhere I could hide it; my arms, my legs, my thighs. I still have remnants of those scars to this day; those places don’t tan.

    Needless to say, I was seeing a therapist and I was taking medicine, but I was still severely depressed.

    One day at a therapy appointment, I told my therapist that I could understand why people would want out of life. So, she called my mom and told her I needed to be hospitalized. I had driven myself to therapy that day so I had to leave my car at the office and my mom drove me to the hospital.

    During intake was when it got real for me. I was about to be locked up in a hospital for an indefinite period of time. Because of my anxiety, I hated to be away from my house.

    I was angry because I didn’t want to be admitted so I walked outside to smoke a cigarette. At this time, my parents didn’t know I smoked, but my mom found out when we got upstairs to the unit. I called my dad hoping that he would come pick me up and take me home. He said whatever was going on was best for me. This made me even more mad. The one time that I really needed him and I felt like he was throwing me to the wolves.

    By the time I walked back in, I was mad at the world. I raised my voice to the intake officer and I screamed and told my mom I hated her. (This is the only time in my life I’ve ever said that and I regret that so much.)

    Because of this outburst of mine, I was then labeled as having an anger problem even though I was super depressed and I was just angry about being admitted. And this also required me to be escorted to the psychiatric until by not one but two security guards. Yay me!

    What I found out later was the most of the kids in the unit were scared of me because of my escorts. They eventually realized I was no one to be afraid of.

    For the first night, I was in the suicide watch room right across from the nurse’s station. I was told that if I didn’t stop crying they would keep me longer and wouldn’t let me have phone calls. Now, looking back, I know how wrong this was to say to a teenager suffering from severe depression. But at that time it scared me to pieces.

    I was in the room by myself until early morning when another girl came in. She was really combative and when she came in, she woke me up. Very little sleep was had on that first night. We would find out that she was really the one to be afraid of as this was not her first stay and she was violent to people.

    On day two, I was moved into another room with two girls down the hall. We talked quite a bit since there wasn’t much else to do. One of them was artistic and would draw us as we sat there talking. She was really good!

    In therapy, they told us what they wanted to hear in order for us to get out of the hospital so I played the game. In one week I was out of the hospital but nothing had changed with me. I was still depressed and anxious but I was out of the hospital. At this time I learned that I couldn’t be truthful to my therapist at the time because if I was, I would end up back in the psych unit. It’s really sad but I lied about how I was feeling so my medicine was never changed to help me more. Just another bump in the road of life for me.

    Like Adam Sandler sang in Billy Madison, “Back to school, back to school to show my dad (mom) I’m not a fool.”

    It was my senior year. A time when I was supposed to be thinking about prom, colleges, and the big world ahead of me. Instead, I was lost in my depression and negative thoughts. Maybe drowning in my depression and thoughts would be a better representation.

    My teachers knew why I had been out of school because the school had to be notified and the teachers had to put my school work together so my mom could bring it to the hospital. Yes, you still have to do school work in the psych unit. There’s no reprieve from that.

    One teacher took it upon herself to tell a student that didn’t like me that I was in the psychiatric ward. So when I got back to school, her and all of her friends (she was super popular) started calling me crazy.

    I was mortified and even more depressed. My only reprieve was Spanish class every day with an amazing teacher that I will never forget. She, of course, knew what was going on and would let me sleep in her class because she knew that when it came to my work, everything would be good. Bless her heart for her understanding and kindness because I didn’t get it from any of my peers.

    I told my mom that I wanted to drop out so we went to talk to my guidance counselor to see what my options were.

    We explained the situation to my guidance counselor who called the teacher into her office. The teacher, of course, denied it but I knew better. I called the teacher a liar and the guidance counselor got upset with me and had the nerve to tell me to apologize. “Absolutely not because I’m telling the truth,” I stated firmly.

    When that was all over, we found a school online that was accredited. I did the ninth through twelfth grade over again and what I did was better than when I was in school. I also finished all four years of work before what would have been my graduating class graduated that year.

    Have you spent time in a psych unit? Did you have a good or bad experience?

  • We Have to Leave!

    We Have to Leave!

    My family and I took lots of trips when I was growing up. We would go to log cabins in the mountains in Massanutten, to the sandy beaches of North Carolina, and to the dark and curious Luray Caverns.

    Of course we went to everything ON ICE and the circus when it would come into town. I would get my face painted, cotton candy, and those fun lights you could swirl around with an animal head on top. I was so happy to be able to do all of this and very grateful.

    Good times at the circus.

    However, one person who seemed like he wasn’t having fun or being happy was my dad. He had what people now call a resting bitch face, whatever the equivalent of that is for a man. It always seemed like he would find something to be mad at.

    Now don’t misunderstand, my dad was a great provider and hard worker. But he lacked feelings and emotions which was hard for me to understand for a long time.

    I always felt my dad was mad at me. He very rarely told me that he was proud of me which made me sad. I would hear from his employees that he was, but that wasn’t the same as hearing it from my dad.

    He said “I love you” like he was just required to. Hugs and kisses were intitiated by me.

    I was a sad girl at a very young age.

    When he would yell at me, or spank me to the point that I had welts, the next day I would get a new Barbie and/or candy. Needless to say, my Barbie and candy collections were vast. And no, I wasn’t THAT bad of a kid.

    When he was in a bad mood, he would wait until my mom left the room before he would start fussing at me. He did the same thing to my mom when I would leave the room. It really sucked and made me feel like nothing I did was right.

    He would come home after I got out of school and yell at me for doing homework instead of the dishes right away. He got so mad at me one day that he threw a remote at my head. Thank goodness it missed, but it did leave a dent in the wall.

    The yelling was constant whether it was at my mom or I.

    Another incident was at Christmas one year. He was angry and threw a $100 bill at me and told me “Merry Christmas.” This was despite the fact that my mom had purchased gifts for me from both of them. I know this may sound like a great thing, “Hell, you got $100, what are you complaining about?” but for me it was the way he did it and the coldness in his face. It was never about the physical items for me, I craved the emotional acceptance and love of both my parents, and I feel I only got it from one of them, my mom.

    The final straw was when he got mad at my mom and took her car keys away. She had to get rides from coworkers to and from work. This was when I was 16-years-old.

    I had enough of the nastiness and I told my mom that we either had to leave or I would run away. Needless to say, we left. It was a very long time before I would see my dad again.

    Have you had a situation where you didn’t see a family member for awhile? How did that make you feel?

  • The Start of My Anxiety

    The Start of My Anxiety

    I was an only child in a dual parent household. My mom and dad weren’t religious so we didn’t go to church. Both of my parents had great jobs but they required a lof of hours. So, at four-years-old, I started Montessori school. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically an upgraded preschool. You did work, learned concepts, did art, and played. It’s an all-day thing from about 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

    Because of going to Montessori school, I was able to skip kindergarten and go straight to first grade. This made me the youngest in my class.

    While Montessori school was good for me, I do believe this is when my anxiety started. When my mom would drop me off, I would have an absolute meltdown. At four-years-old, I did not want to be separated from my mom who did everything with me. I would become inconsolable for quite awhile, almost making myself physically sick. Hello anxiety that will become a permanent fixture in my life, you have reared your ugly head!

    Montessori School was a huge part of my life.

    At this time in my life, I spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents. I was super close with my grandpa (Papa), who always let me paint his nails, put curlers in his hair, along with barrettes. My mom always said I was his favorite and that’s why he let me do it. I absolutely adored my Papa.

    Fifteen days before my sixth birthday, my Papa passed away peacefully in his sleep. This was my first encounter with death and it didn’t go well. Usually, when you’re younger and lose someone, this is the first time you learn about death and its permanency. I became terrified.

    My grandparents and I did so many things together.

    At six-years-old I had my first, full-blown panic attack. I was trying to go to bed and all of a sudden it hit me. My mom could die, my dad could die, even my grandma!

    I ran down the stairs with tears streaming down my face to my mom. She sat on the floor by the warm and cracking fire in the fireplace and I laid my head in her lap. She stroked my head and messed with my hair until I finally calmed down.

    Pigtails and all, I ran down the stairs crying to my mom.

    This incident started the concept of death as being one trigger to my anxiety. This also lead to my first time seeing a psychologist.

    I only saw the psychologist twice but she said it was normal and would pass. It was also the very early 90s and no doctor was going to prescribe mental health medications to a six-year-old.

    Unfortunately, the two visits to the therapist didn’t help.

    Unfortunately, the psychologist was wrong, it didn’t go away, and instead got worse. I still struggle with the concept of death daily, even so far as not wanting to celebrate my birthday because it makes me a year closer to death. However, I am stable on meds for anxiety now so I manage a lot better. It does still sneak up on me from time to time though.

  • Supplies I Use

    Supplies I Use

    This post contains affiliate links meaning I earn a small commisson for purchases made through my site. I only recommend products I use and love.

    The first time I started journaling I had just learned how to write. I was an 80s baby so we had the diaries that had locks on them with keys. And if you lost your key, well… you were pretty much screwed.

    As a teenager I journaled but not a lot. I should have with everything I had going on. I mean that’s the point, right? To get your feelings out of your head and onto paper so you don’t ruminate about things. Boy would that have helped.

    Then, later in my teenage years, when I took myself off my medicine because I knew I was better (yeah right), I journaled off and on.

    I avoided journaling in my 20’s because I was too afraid that husband #2 would find my journal and it would make my situation even worse. We’ll talk about this in detail in another post.

    It wasn’t until my late 30’s when I started seeing my therapist “S” that I picked journaling back up and started journaling daily.

    It’s become cathartic to me and I couldn’t be happier that a big assignment from “S” was to start a self-esteem journal. It’s made a huge impact on my life and I think it will to yours as well.

    I journal four different ways. I bullet journal, journal, self-esteem journal, and gratitude journal. I’ve linked descriptions of each above. They each serve a different purpose and, as such, I use some of the same and some different supplies for each.

    1. Bullet Journaling

    This is where I keep up with a monthly calendar, appointments, medication, birthdays, holidays, habit tracking, no spending, no drinking, daily to-do lists, brain dumps, etc. I touch this journal many time throughout the day. All you really need is a notebook and pen to get started but I decorate my pages.

    The supplies I use are:

    Bullet journaling can keep you on track so you don’t forget anything.

    2. Journaling

    This is where I empty my head of anything that is bothering me, write stuff I want to remember, and inspirational quotes that I want to break down the meaning of.

    The supplies I use are:

    Journaling allows the release that we need at times.

    3. Self-Esteem/Gratitude Journaling

    Self-esteem journaling is where I list things that I’ve accomplished for the day, things I’ve done for other people, things I’m proud of, etc. Since I have such a negative view about myself, this helps me focus on the positive things I do or that happens around me.

    Gratitude journaling is where I list things I’m grateful for. These include people, physical and non-physical items, thoughts, emotions, etc.

    The supplies I use are:

    Thinking about things that you’re grateful for and that you’ve done can turn your day around.

    Of course all of these things can be done with a simple notebook and pen, I just like to spruce things up since I’ve done it for awhile now.

    What kind of journaling do you do? I’d love to hear it in the comments below!

  • Why am I starting this blog?

    Why am I starting this blog?

    I’m starting this blog because, like you, I’ve struggled. I’ve felt like the only one going through things and that really sucks! I’ve struggled with:

    • My relationship with my Dad
    • Depression
    • Anxiety
    • Domestic violence
    • Bipolar I Disorder
    • Late diagnosed ADD
    • And a whole host of other things that we’ll dive into.
    The struggles are real, but we’ll work through them.

    I’m hoping for two things with sharing my story and other’s stories:

    • You will feel less alone.
    • We can work through topics we’re struggling with TOGETHER.

    If this sounds like something you would be interested in, I’d love for you to join me on my journey. I hope you’ll also feel safe enough to share parts of your journey as well whether it’s in the comments or an email to me at cnallen@outlook.com.

    Email me so that we can talk.

    I’m going to take you through good times and bad, the past and the present. I’ll throw in some research about certain topics and some book reviews of books I come across that have helped me. I hope you’ll share book and podcast recommendations with me as well. I’m always looking for new information I can devour!

    My posts won’t be in sequential order. I’m writing them as I feel comfortable with the topic. Journaling has helped me so much and that’s what I use to work through my ideas and which topic I’m going to next. If you haven’t tried it or don’t really know where to start, check out the link above to see how it could help you.

    Journaling can help in so many ways!

    I’m not perfect, I’ve made mistakes, which I’ll share with you too. So jump aboard this crazy train. My next post with dive into all the supplies I use for bullet journaling, journaling, self-esteem journaling, and gratitude to help me get through my days both good and bad. Then, we’ll start digging into the challenging stuff!