Washington seemed like a great idea, until it wasn’t.

Warning- Sensitive content involving attempted suicide.

Things at home were getting pretty rough with my parents by the time I was 15-16 and there was a proposal for me to move from Oregon up to my sisters in Washington for a bit. She was expecting her first child, and her husband had been sent away to train for deployment.

Fast forward to my nephew being born via c-section. He was premature and needed extra assistance as far as feedings and TLC. My sister’s mother-in-law had traveled up to stay a few days to help out as well. A few days into my sister being home with the baby we were all introduced to what is called Postpartum Psychosis.

My sister had been resting in her bedroom with the door closed and it was time for the baby to nurse. The dog was growling at the mother-in-law trying to enter the room, so she came and asked me to go check on my sister. As I opened the door, I was greeted with an anxious dog wagging her tail and happy to see me but, it was clear that something was very very wrong. I could feel it all the way in my bones.

As I approached the bed and rolled her over, I would discover that my sister had tried to take her own life with pills and had choked on her own throw up.

With much urgency and mentally trying to wrap my brain around what was now happening, we ended up in the Taho flooring it to the E.R. on base. I honestly don’t remember a lot about what happened during this time other than they made it a point to let us know that if we had been 5 minutes later, her liver would have shut down and we would have lost her.

There was a period of time where my sister’s mother-in-law made a lot of phone calls to get my brother-in-law back home. There was a lot of stress and what ifs.

When the hospital finally released my sister, it wasn’t long before she believed the radios were bugged and people were spying on us. They admitted her for psychiatric care. This was a long road for the entire family.

I was in a new state, and it was supposed to be a positive change but so far, I was traumatized and feeling very alone with no friends around. Nobody asked me if I needed to talk to anyone. No therapy started. Just survival mode after trauma and trying to make my motions to get through the day at school and home all while images flooded my memory and every time, I closed my eyes, all I could see was me rolling my sister over. It was like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

It was during this time that I was interested in a boy who attended the alternative school when I went half days. (I knew how to pick the winners when I was young.) ugh!

One of the days I had class, He didn’t show up. But, his buddy was there so he sat down at the computer next to me. It was a small module style building that smelled stuffy and of uneducated mischief!

If I had known the next round of trauma that lie ahead for me on that day, I would have ditched class and stayed home…