Navigating the mental health system was its own kind of trauma.
There were intake forms that asked the right questions, but no one really listened to the answers. There were rushed fifteen-minute appointments where I was expected to condense a lifetime of suffering into sound bites. There were doctors who misread my calm as wellness, and others who mistook my tears for manipulation.
I wasn’t just a person—I was a chart, a code, a billing number.
Some providers helped. Some hurt. Some handed me pills without explaining side effects. Some told me to “stay positive” while I was barely staying alive. I learned quickly that advocating for yourself inside the system is both necessary and exhausting—especially when your very illness makes self-advocacy hard.
I filled prescriptions I didn’t understand. I sat in waiting rooms for hours, listening to the buzz of fluorescent lights, wondering if this was what recovery looked like. I cried in therapy. I lied in therapy. I skipped therapy. And still—I returned. Because some part of me believed there had to be more than this.
There were moments of breakthrough. A therapist who saw past the façade. A nurse who spoke gently. A psychiatrist who finally, finally, treated me like a person instead of a diagnosis.
But I shouldn’t have had to be lucky to be seen.
The system is flawed, but I am not. You are not. We are not.
We deserve care that honors our humanity, not just our symptoms.
And until that is the standard, we keep showing up. For ourselves. For each other.
For the day when the system starts to listen.
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