Today was my last day at the Birches program at Brattleboro Retreat. It has been two and a half weeks. I am not 100%. I don’t think I will ever be at 100%, but I am doing better than I was when I drove into the campus on June 4th.

I have to keep reminding myself and learn to be okay with the fact that dealing with mental illness is a process. There are going to be times I feel calm and other times I will feel depressed. Something useful I learned during my time there is how to be aware of what is going on inside of me.

My meds are once again being adjusted so that it a process. I now need to find a therapist and a new psychiatrist, and that is also a process. I will admit that I am not good at being patient. I am proud of myself for finally acknowledging that this is a process and that it is okay for me to not be 100% better.

One of the things I will miss from the Birches program is the community of people that I met when I was there. That support among everyone on a daily basis was life blood. I didn’t become best friends with anyone, but there is closeness is sharing with others your all time lows and your struggles and for them to understand the feeling of pain. Just like there is a community on here for us to come and feel less alone, there was a community there I could physically be with each day. My challenge now is to find some sort of community here where I can recharge somehow. I’m lonely out here in MA as I don’t have friends in the area.

I still need to work on loving myself. I mostly see the negatives both internally and externally. And yet strangers see something totally different. On the day we leave a stone gets passed around (mine was an angelite stone) and people say something nice about you from your time there with them or well wishes, etc. I was surprised to hear the common words of how approachable and warm I am, that I have a great smile and laugh, that I am like a sister and that people noticed how I have changed in a good way over the time I was there. These “strangers” saw in me love and kindness.

I’m still hard on myself and it will take me a long time not to be. But I do hope that when I look back at the stone that was given to me I can remember the words of kindness that others feel towards me and start to love myself a little more.