Graduating from One-Six-Eight

A transwoman’s honest reflection on spending 168 days of this year in intensive mental healthcare, including partial and inpatient programs, and thinking about the future.

I graduated from my partial hospitalization program today. It bookends one hundred and sixty-eight days of intensive mental health care, and it hopefully heralds the dawn of a new chapter of my life. I want to tell you about it.

the heroes of my partial program — pen, blue notebook, and headphones.

People said nice things about me today.

They talked about my resilience and courage in being present and supporting others even on my very darkest days.

They talked about how my searing honesty in sharing about my struggles normalized it and empowered them to openly share theirs. They talked too of my compassion and depth of feeling, and the occasional good advice that I offered. They shared how I gave them language which helped them talk about their own issues. Most meaningfully, they spoke about my ‘trans grace’, a compliment of rare kindness that I will remember for the longest time.

I share these compliments here because I want to remember them for a long time. I need to remember that I was a valued member of my partial program, and that I think I made a small contribution to a community that has done much for me in recent months. This is not the only place in which I have recorded my partial…