I called Princeton House as my new psychiatrist prescribed. “Hello, Princeton House.”

“Hi, my name is Ashley. I’m calling because my psychiatrist prescribed me to go here…”

“Ok! So I’m just going to do a phone interview with you, just so that I can get all of your information. It may take up to an hour, do you have time?”

“Yes, I do have time…” My psychiatrist had made me stop working. He said I needed to focus on getting better.

“Ok, great!”

The receptionist asked me all sorts of questions about my insurance, about what I was feeling, any medications I had taken or am currently on, about what was my diagnosis...I was tired of repeating myself, but if this place could help me, then I would repeat myself countless times.

We finished the phone interview. “Ok, can you start on Monday?”

Monday?! So soon! It was already Friday, I felt so scared to start something like this right away, but I said yes anyway. I needed to face what was eating me alive and this was the only way to do it. When Monday rolled around, my fiance took me to my first day. I got a tour of the place, I got to fill out paperwork, and they asked me, yet again, what was wrong with me. But things were going smoothly. I liked the people I had met so far, the location was nice and my new psychiatrist seemed to know what he was doing. On the first day, my psychiatrist asked me if I wanted to hurt myself. I said yes.

“Then maybe you should be in the five day program. It’s for five days, 6 hours a day.” He said.

“Uh...I don’t think so...That may be a little much for me. For now, I know that I won’t hurt myself, there are things stopping me…”

“Like what?”

“Like my family and my fiance. If I were to hurt myself I fear that I would only be a burden to them. I don’t want to disappoint them…”

“Ok. I don’t want to make you do anything that would make you uncomfortable. So let’s place you in the three day program. They’re only half days, so you don’t have to stay too long.”

“Thank you…”

At Princeton House, everything was about Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). We would sit in groups and they would teach us how to breathe or how to meditate. Other times we would learn about self worth and how to be assertive. Other groups were very interesting, such as the one where they teach you about what’s happened to your brain to make it depressed and what’s happening now that we’re in a program like Princeton House. Thankfully I found myself learning a lot of good, helpful things and I think it was working well, until I started feeling worse…

Instead of feeling better since starting the program, I started to decline. One day, I laid in bed, crying. I couldn’t take it anymore. My depression was eating away at me. I was so angry at myself for being weak. I grabbed an exacto knife. I scratched myself with it. I cried more. I kept scratching. It felt so good, like I was letting everything out. But in reality, everything was crashing in on me and I didn’t know what to do. The next day, I went to my psychiatrist and told him how I was feeling.

“I just don’t know, but I’m feeling so depressed and it just feels like I’m going downhill.”

“Your safety is the biggest concern for us here. Do you think you may hurt yourself?”

“I keep feeling like I want to but I still stop myself from doing it…Except for yesterday...I scratched myself with an exacto knife...”

“Maybe you should consider going in-patient…”

“No. I don’t want to go in-patient. I think maybe we should try the five day program instead…”

I was terrified of the idea of going in-patient. How could I just drop everything, my family, my fiance, and go into this place that I had no idea about? Absolutely not! I refuse! So, I started the five day program to see if it would help.

Did it help? Of course not! It was the worst decision I had ever made! It made my depression decline faster. You may be wondering how, but my depression feeds off of how tired I am. If I become exhausted mentally and physically, my depression declines faster than if I was well rested. Sadly, I don’t sleep well, never have, and going to a 30-hour-a-week program was not helping. I became so depressed that I began avoiding the program all-together. My therapist would call me and say, “Ashley, if you’re not going to show up I need to know that you’re at least okay. Remember, if you’re gone for three days straight I have to call the authorities to do a check-up on you. Please call me next time.”

I felt so guilty for not attending program, but it felt so good to rest at home all day. When I did call my therapist to tell her that I wasn’t attending program, she’d say, “Just come in. Come in because at least that way you know that you’re in the safest place you can be in. You need to commit yourself more.” The thing she didn’t know was that I was trying to commit myself, just that I couldn’t attend a 30 hour program. It was exhausting and my depression was declining so fast after switching to it that I began scratching at myself again. My fiance was so concerned, he asked how I was doing and I broke down.

“I just can’t take it anymore! I feel like shit every day. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to live!” I sobbed.

“You don’t want to live even for me?” He asked, worry showing on his face.

“I do, but it’s so hard! Everyday I think of ways to kill myself. Just yesterday I thought of ten different ways! Today I feel an urge to do it. I just keep thinking about getting a knife, going to the bathroom, locking myself in there, running the water and jumping in. Then, just cut myself and let myself bleed out. I want to hurt myself so bad. I’m angry at myself for being weak, for not being able to overcome this! I can’t work, I can’t enjoy things, I can’t have a family with this condition, what else do I have going for me?!” At this point I was going all out sobbing, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Babe, I think it’s time to go to in-patient. I really do. You can’t keep going like this anymore.” He hugged me. “I’m here for you.”

“Ok...ok…”

----

The next day, I went to the program and asked to go to in-patient. My psychiatrist asked what changed my mind, so I told him what happened. He agreed that I should go in-patient.