Just a month into my senior year at Cornell, I fell into a suicidal depression. Alcohol and drugs were an issue, as was my recent coming-out. I had spent the summer before studying for the LSAT, but as the testing date approached I became more and more anxious. For as long as I could remember, going to college was the ultimate goal. But now that college was almost over, and law school suddenly seemed like a ridiculous and extremely expensive proposition, I didn't know what to do. All of my friends were in beautiful relationships and had jobs lined up for after graduation. I looked at my life and saw no options for my future.
Two weeks before I was to take the LSAT, I stopped attending class and stopped eating. I stopped going out and isolated from my friends, even the ones I had already come out to. A concerned friend suggested I seek help, so on Sept. 28, 2010 I called the campus mental health clinic and told the receptionist I was going to kill myself. She asked me to come in immediately for an evaluation and set me up with a very helpful therapist. I met with a therapist as well as an advising dean, who helped me apply to take a health leave of absence.
That night, my new therapist and I called my parents and explained what was going on. My mother agreed to drive the three-and-a-half hours upstate to pick me up, immediately, and a friend spent the time waiting with me, making me dinner and helping me pack. The advising dean called me from his home and asked if I was safe. He offered to email my professors to let them know I would be leaving for the semester. I knew I wouldn't be coming back to campus for a while, and felt a sense of relief as I walked out of my dingy basement apartment to get in my mom's SUV for the drive home.
My friends wouldn't miss me, I thought, most of them hadn't bothered looking for me during the week I didn't leave my apartment. As soon as I got settled into my parents' house I researched psychiatric hospitals and made the third-most important decision of my quarter-life crisis -- I decided on the psychiatric hospital where I would begin my new journey. I slept well that night, knowing I was finally getting help.
The next morning my parents sat with me in the hospital admissions office as I answered a litany of questions about my suicidal ideations, my history of substance abuse, and why I didn't want to go on living. My answer to the latter question was a simple one: I didn't have a future. Mom and dad were shocked. I spent a week there, and another two in an outpatient partial hospitalization program. I learned about depression and mental illness, and very basic things I needed to do to take care of myself. I made the most important decision of my quarter-life crisis: I decided to cut alcohol and drugs out of my life completely.
Over the course of the next nine months I spent many weeks in and out of psychiatric hospitals and rehabs. I weathered a few manic episodes. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and addiction, and gradually learned to live with both. Some of my family were afraid of me and my condition, so I ended up moving in with my grandparents. I did hear from all those friends whom I thought forgot about me, and the phone calls I received from them helped carry me through a very difficult winter. In addition, a few friends and family members visited me in the hospital, but only the ones I was brave enough to tell I was there. Mental illness is a scary thing, isolating in more ways than one.
Later that spring, life became a burden again and I turned back to numbing myself with drugs. I also briefly took up cutting. This time my family was cognizant of what was going on and intervened.
Now, to backtrack a little, I should point out the second-most-important decision I made. Just a month after my first hospital stay, in November of 2010, I answered a notice for a reporter to cover local meetings for a weekly newspaper. I needed to make some money to pay for cigarettes, and I needed to keep busy. I study English at Cornell and putting my writing skills to work just made sense. My first assignment was to cover a suicide-prevention fundraising walk. It was fate; I felt like I helped make a difference, and a career was born. I also started volunteering at my local library. I had the makings of a legitimate career and a small group of teens who depended on me to unleash their creativity on Friday afternoons. I had my family and a growing circle of friends. I had reasons to go on living.
I returned to Cornell for the spring 2012 semester and, despite a brief hospitalization, achieved straight A's. I fell in love, but it didn't work out. Now I'm back at that same hometown weekly reporting and editing and doing some investigative work. I also have an internship in New York City. Soon I will head back to Cornell for my final semester. My quarter-life crisis has been a formative experience and I am happy to say that, having just celebrated my 24th birthday and one year of sobriety, I can see the other side of it.
Today, I'm going on dates. I'm applying to j-schools and looking for a full-time job. I'm working to better myself as a person and to help others, one day at a time. I'm setting boundaries with other people and discovering spirituality. I'm taking care of myself. These are things that adults do. I am still an alcoholic and an addict and I still have a mental illness and, like many people, I get depressed sometimes. But when I do, I remind myself how many things I have to look forward to. Today, I am grateful.
Follow Thomas Naples on Twitter: www.twitter.com/tomnaples
Like your story, though, mine also ends in hope and recovery, after doing a lot of work and finding meaning in my pain. I'm now a Recovery Coach and about to publish my first book on addiction recovery (called Thje Recovery Formula).
I love hearing stories like yours, because they show pepole who are struggling that it can, and does, get better. And the more work you do, the better it gets :) Bravo for sharing.
Beth Burgess
I'm glad your story of addiction & mental illness ends in hope & recovery. I'm still writing my story, but so far it's going well.
How did you come to be a Recovery Coach? What's that like? Also, please let me know when your book hits the shelves, I'd like to read it.
I decided to become a Recovery Coach after having worked in the addiction aftercare field and found so many recovering addicts still stuck in their old ways of thinking.
I used to help recovering addicts find jobs etc, and I was always frustrated by how many of them had very few ambitions. I wanted to shake them and say "Do you know how incredible you are, having recovered from such a difficult disorder?" But a lot of them just didn't see it and had low self-esteem and no real ambition.
I wanted to empower addicts to think differently about themselves and to see thier amazing qualities and the strengths they had. I love what I do now, it' very rewarding. More so than just getting people a job at the local supermarket. There's nothing wrong with that, if that's what they really want - but most people I saw really thought that was all they were good for!
The book is not suposed to be out until September, but naughty Amazon has apparently slipped it out early. You can see it here:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Recovery-Formula-Addicts-getting/dp/0957321708
It's about all the elements you need to make a successful recovery, that bizarrely no-one really tells you about. No-one told me anyway - I had to learn from relapse, pain, trial and error. The book is supposed to help prevent people going what I went through the first time I got sober.