My jour­ney to recov­ery began with a ter­ri­fy­ing pro­longed break from real­i­ty. I was expe­ri­enc­ing audio and visu­al hal­lu­ci­na­tions and found myself in the hospital. 

It was dif­fi­cult for me to believe I had a men­tal health prob­lem. I blamed every­thing from a cochlear implant to food poi­son­ing as the cause of my errat­ic behav­ior. I couldn’t accept that it was a men­tal ill­ness even though my symp­toms sub­sided while med­icat­ed. I quit my treat­ment after a month. I wasn’t crazy; there was no rea­son for me to be tak­ing antipsychotics. 

The lack of treat­ment lead to fur­ther psy­chot­ic episodes. Due to my online activ­i­ties dur­ing an episode, I found myself in legal trou­ble for ter­ror­is­tic threat­en­ing. When local author­i­ties found me, they knew some­thing wasn’t right. I was not in a nor­mal state of mind. I was delu­sion­al. For safe­ty rea­sons, I was jailed for obser­va­tion until being charged with ter­ror­is­tic threats. 

Dur­ing pro­cess­ing, I told them about my for­mer diag­no­sis. Even though I didn’t believe I was men­tal­ly ill, they began treat­ing me. It took a few weeks for the med­i­cine to counter my psy­chosis. I was still hav­ing hal­lu­ci­na­tions. I began ques­tion­ing my san­i­ty when I saw chil­dren watch­ing a movie and eat­ing pop­corn in the jail. 

I served my time for the ini­tial charge and was offered help if I would will­ing­ly par­tic­i­pate in a pro­gram called Men­tal Health Court. I agreed to do so, and it was a deci­sion I have nev­er regret­ted. It was the first step of my recov­ery journey. 

Men­tal Health Court helped me find the right resources I need­ed that I would not have found on my own. An impor­tant part of my recov­ery is access to peer sup­port. With­out the resources pro­vid­ed by the Men­tal Health Court, I would have nev­er main­tained treat­ment. I am sure I would still be home­less, depressed, and deal­ing with a seri­ous men­tal ill­ness on my own. I know I would have nev­er been vic­to­ri­ous with my battles. 

NAMI Lexington’s Fayette Coun­ty Men­tal Health Court helped me bet­ter under­stand my ill­ness, facil­i­tat­ed a recov­ery plan and taught me life-chang­ing cop­ing skills I would have nev­er learned on my own. They con­nect­ed me to the vital sup­ports nec­es­sary for my recovery. 

It isn’t hope­less. Recov­ery is possible. 

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