Dear Diary...

Sunday, October 1, 8:17pm

My name is Ashleigh, but I go by Ash. I'm 17 years old, and my birthday is June 23rd. I live in northeast Texas. I have panic disorder, major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, insomnia, and most recently, psychosis. Yes, I know that's a lot, and yes, I know some of you might not know what all of those mean. Feel free to ask if you want.

I've been in a hospital for seven weeks. The week before school started, I was put into a mental institution. Before then, I'd been going to therapy for a year and had been taking medication, but I hadn't been totally honest. I never told my therapist about my self harm or suicide attempts. I was scared, honestly. I didn't know how my family would react. I wrote a 25 page letter that confessed to all of my lies and gave it to my mother. The next day, I was in inpatient.

Inpatient was terrifying. I cried my first day, laying in bed shaking. My first roommate was a trans (F->M) boy named Toby. He was 13 and quickly became my closest friend. Honestly, I thought of him as a little brother. Not many people liked him, so we just stayed in our room together and talked. Toby made me feel comfortable. Everyone else was pretty friendly as well, but there was drama. Most of that drama stemmed from the fact that the hospital decided it was okay to put 19 lesbians in close proximity. You can imagine how that went.

The food was actually pretty decent. You weren't allowed to choose what you are until level one, though, and that took at least a day. The hospital functioned on behavior levels starting at zero and going to three. Each came with their own privileges.

Most of the time us girls just talked about our issues. We had process group, yoga, psycho education, recreation, gym, etc. Yoga was by far the strangest part. Our instructor used a fake British accent and constantly insisted on us "finding our eyebrows"... Whatever the hell thats supposed to mean. It became quite a running joke.

Anyways that's enough story time for right now. Each day I plan to share a little bit more of my story, as well as talk about my day.

This morning I went to church, and I was dead tired. I mainly just sat around and drew crappy pictures in my sketchbook. (I'll put some pics here, but I also post them on my Instagram, @ashmichaelis_). More than nothing, I just went through the motions.

Depression sort of hit me around 5pm tonight, as well as my compulsions. I was out of the house when I started freaking out because I forgot to do my compulsions before I left. All in all it was hell, but I managed. The depression stems from the fact that tomorrow is my first day of senior year.

I'm starting six weeks into the school year, and I'm going to have to face a lot of my bullies tomorrow. I don't really have friends because of my social anxiety. School is going to be lonely, and thinking about it makes me so anxious that I feel physically sick. I'll manage though. I have to. Just for a semester, at least.

One good thing about my day (I always try to make at least something positive) is that I reconnected with an old friend. We've been close friends about 3.5 years, and in fact, people used to refer to us as the twins because we were so inseparable. We had a long talk, and he told me that he is going to come "steal" me one day so that we can spend time together. I'd like that, especially seeing as I've missed him a lot.

Anyways.

My cat is snuggled up against me as I write this. It may only be 8pm, but I'm exhausted between hallucinations, paranoia, and my cat literally bouncing off the walls. I need to be prepared for school tomorrow. Wish me luck, world. Feel free to vote or comment, either would be appreciated.