Weighted vs Weightless.. the Truth of Choices

In life, I have narrowed my choices down to two categories. There are the choices that I will immediately forget and then there are the others that I will always remember.

Although every decision is permanent, only some decisions hold the weight to actually make us feel that way. Waking up in the morning and choosing to eat ice cream instead of cereal is a permanent decision and probably a bad one. However, nine times out of ten, those unneeded calories or that sugar rush won’t even cross your mind later on in the day. You could even go through a horrible break up and end up totally distraught because of it; and in hopes to find some sort of closure or healing, you cut all of your hair off. Now, that! That is a permanent decision. However, once you’re staring in the mirror and realizing that it will probably take months, maybe even years to grow your hair back to it’s previous length; a couple of solutions will come to mind. One, the 2000s have been some extremely progressive and pro do whatever the hell you want and be called free or open minded for it. Bald is like the new black. If you wanted to just rock a bald head, whether it actually looks good or not would be totally irrelevant, people would support you strictly because of following the current wave. Two, you could easily buy a wig because everyone is doing that anyway. Even people with extremely long hair will braid their hair up, just so that they can put a wig made of someone else's hair on their head.

Everything in life is essentially a reaction to something else. Because of that, every choice that we make, whether it be waking up in the morning and eating dessert for breakfast or spontaneously cutting off all of your hair, is important. However, some choices create more than just a reaction. Some of our choices hold the weight to create an entire sequence of reactions and mishaps. Those choices also often create the type of reactions, outcomes and situations that leave you powerless. The only thing in life that you can control is yourself. The second you lose control of that, you lose control of everything.

Those are some of the moments to be never forgotten.

I remember sitting in that cold, stiff recliner like it was yesterday. It was the very first moment that I realized I had released all of my power. The room was extremely cold and quiet. Although I was sitting in a unit that was in the middle of the hospital… It felt eerie like a graveyard at midnight on halloween. It felt like I was sitting in a room with a bunch of dead people. With chills on my arm, I sat there…. Quiet as the room, not wanting to stand out…. Although we were all alive... in that room, nobody in a recliner was really living. We were all there for the same reason… and maybe… maybe that’s what created the energy of that room. Our energy itself.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. What time is it? I need to get out of here. I should not have been drinking so much. If only I hadn’t been drinking so much. I shouldn’t have freaked out so bad.

Over and over again, I kept saying the same thing to myself in my head. At this point, it had felt like time had stopped moving because no matter how much time went by, nothing was changing for anyone in that room. Not until someone on the outside of it came in and told one of us differently.

When am I going to be able to get out of here?

That is one question you do not want to ask. Why? Because no one really knows. Whenever you are admitted to the hospital for any psychological reason, there has to initially be a 72 hour hold starting from the second you reach the hospital. This is just to make sure that you are not going to go out and kill yourself or someone else. Or if you do, the hospital and everyone else’s ass will be covered when whatever happens. So if you think that you are going to act an ass, end up admitted in the hospital and just be able to shake back and go home the same night…. Think again. Once you are there, you are there for THREE DAYS AT LEAST! You figure that out the second you talk to the first tech that takes your weight and blood pressure but trust me, you’re still going to ask multiple people over and over when can I get out of here.

I don’t say this just because of my own stubbornness but I say that because of the facts. Every other person admitted there with me at the same time, I have heard ask multiple times about when they could go home. Even if you think it is a place that you need to be in, it is not a place that you want to be in. Its not that the concept of mental institutions do not work, it is the system that is in place that does not work.

Although the system is currently screwed, that is not what this book is about.

This book is about one choice that changed my entire life. This book is about the moment I was admitted to the hospital for the first time, to the moment I was released from the hospital... the second time. This book is about everything I felt, experienced and witnessed while doing both in and out of care.

Chapter 1 coming soon