Finding Life and Trying to Keep It

A reflection on my time in a mental health partial hospitalization program, and trying to find a path forward as a transwoman.

Hello, dear reader. In my first entry, I promised you that I would write earnestly, honestly, and fiercely. In this entry, I have. Let us consider this the true start of our journey together. I hope that this piece resonates with you.

I graduate from my partial hospitalization program on Monday. I know that this is probably an important moment in my mental health recovery journey, but I don’t really feel ready to celebrate. Monday to Friday online group therapy, from 10am to 2pm, has been the drumbeat of my life since discharge from the psychiatric unit. Losing it matters. Patients came and went, of course, graduating or transferring to other programs, and thus the program ebbed and flowed, but the camaraderie between us all sustained me over the past few weeks. The solidarity within a group of people suffering so greatly in their lives and minds, but showing up for themselves and others and doing ‘the work’ even on the hardest days is deeply moving. It is special. I cried and even sobbed through many groups, but I was always comforted by all. In ‘open process’ sessions, they recognized and validated my trauma, my pain, and my journey. I will never forget that. Somehow even over Zoom, we have been there for each other. The support of clinicians and nurse practitioners has been valuable and important, of course, but it is the shared love of my fellow patients that has been the heart of this stage of my…