April 23, 2024
Since I was twelve years old, I dreamed of having a flat stomach. Not in the way of “oh, she looks so much slimmer now”, or “wow, have you lost weight?” but in the very literal sense, I want my spine straight and my stomach flat. Among other things, this desire is what landed me in the inpatient unit of Berkeley hospital last month.
I spent an indeterminate amount of time in the inpatient psychiatric unit of Sutter Health in Berkeley. It was either a 72 hour hold or maybe a 5250, depending on how long I stayed awake. I cried a lot. They took everything away from me and I was left with nothing. And somehow, I survived.
I write this as if this wasn’t an intensely painful experience, as if I had the benefits of years of hindsight and thousands of rough drafts. But no. This is my shitty first draft, and I am writing it sitting outside near Peet’s coffee, with Carl the Berkeley fog keeping me cool and a fuzzy teddy bear jacket from my mom keeping me warm.
This all happened less than a month ago. And it had been a lifetime in the making.
In 2019, I lost my best friend and my soulmate. I say “soulmate” like it was a romantic relationship, but it was not. Arielle Davis was the best thing to happen to me, and she was the strongest woman I’ve ever known. We met when I was 17 as we prepared to begin college together, and our journey together ended when chronic illness finally stole the end pieces of her life. She shouldn’t have died, and yet, now she is gone. I miss her every single day.
On December 5, 2023, I lost my paternal grandmother. This was Lenore Levy Dollinger, a healer with a lifetime behind her before I ever laid eyes on her. She nursed me into this world, and I sang her songs as we said our goodbyes. Her death felt poetic, but it remained a loss— a hole in my world, a shiny piece of something missing.
Grief is a hell of a drug. So is sleep deprivation. As I spent nights awake and days asleep, I froze into stone. I got up to use the bathroom, I ate when they told me to eat, and then I went back to sleep. I had no dreams. I cried and I quietly screamed. I had nothing.
My parents visited me, of course. My mom helped me shower when it had been days without water touching my skin. I was so scared. I didn’t know where I was, I didn’t know who was around me, and people kept walking around the unit, saying words I didn’t understand.
“Group time.” “Lights out.” “Time to eat.”
I knew some of these words. I tried to sleep when the lights were out, but the darkness was scary so instead I cried. I tried to eat when it was time to eat, but I was scared of all the people around me and I wasn’t allowed to take food into my room because of the bugs and rats. I was scared of bugs and rats.
So how did I end up back here, writing this? How did I make it out?
That’s once again a loaded question, and I wish the answer were simple. I grieved, a lot. I grieved not only for my grandmother and my best friend, but I grieved for the lives I didn’t live. I grieved every moment I didn’t share with them. I wrote them letters, called “empty chair letters”, an art therapy exercise I learned during “group time”.
The short answer is: I didn’t make it out. I made it through.
I made it through the dark nights when I was scared to sleep. I made it through the bright days when all I wanted was to sleep. I made it through the quiet days and the loud nights, I made it through the fear and the shame. I made it through. It’s not over, it’ll never be over. But I made it another step in the journey.
I made it through.
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