I went to an inpatient treatment facility for the first time in 2008. I was a wreck. When I look back on that experience, despite being so crazy while I was there, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience. My 28 day stay there didn’t come close to solving all my problems, but I had something when I left I didn’t have before I got there: Hope. Hope for the future. Hope that things would somehow turn out all right. Hope that my life wouldn’t continue being so unbearable.

Through a combination of luck, some blind faith, and a lot of people rooting for me to succeed, I was able to take that little bit of hope and leverage it. Where I am today as a person, versus where I was in 2008 is remarkably different. I continue to feel that things keep changing and I keep growing into the person I was meant to be. Tomorrow I am going back there and staying for a few days. My goal is to reconnect with the place, and the world, on a deeply spiritual level. The more connected I feel, the better things will be.