“What if, instead of being diagnosed—being called mentally ill—what if I had been able to receive care for its own sake. To be in distress, to ask for care, to receive it. What if there were space in the world for care.”  —Suzanne Scanlon, Committed After my discharge from the snake pit, I was assigned to follow-up care alternating between a therapist and a psychiatrist. The therapist was relatively sympathetic, but she seemed rather detached and was prone to giving advice rather than simply listening and offering empathy. The psychiatrist was cold and seemed almost hostile, peremptory and even occasionally rude, not engaging with me beyond deciding what meds she should prescribe. I should mention that this facility, near the hospital where I had been confined, was greatly distant from where I live. If my partner wasn’t able to drive me, I had to take a nearly hour-long bus ride for at most, fifty minutes of “therapy,” followed by the same lengthy ride in reverse. Given the unhelpfulness of the visits, I stopped going. I spent the next several months in a fog of anxious depression (the only way to describe the state I was in). I spent much of each day in bed, saw almost no one except my partner, occasionally getting out for a bit of fresh air or to shop for the little bit of food I would eat. I had no desire to read, listen to music, walk or bike, or engage in any other activities that I once passionately enjoyed. As before, the one bright light in this situation was the steadfast support and presence of my partner. Even when it was clear that her patience was sorely tried, she came over and spent time with me, usually offering comfort, sometimes pushing me a tiny bit out of my comfort zone (though “comfort” is not exactly accurate). Despite my seeming resistance to what I perceived as pushing, she remained steadfast and quite clearly my recovery would have taken quite longer if it occurred at all. But at the time, recovery seemed distant if even possible. I drifted through those miserable days, plagued by fears—certainly delusional, but real seeming at the time—that I’d lose my home ( I assumed, quite wrongly as it turned out, that I was on the verge of running out of money), never see my sons again, never write again, and live the rest of my life in this half-dead condition. What finally broke this pattern (literally as well as figuratively) was a sudden fall . Whether it was a symptom of my condition or a side effect of the medications I was taking, I would occasionally find myself on the floor, banged up but otherwise uninjured. This time, however, I got up with a sharp pain in my left side that didn’t lessen after a couple of hours. I went for an X-ray that revealed two cracked ribs. I prepared to settle in for some extended pain when my doctor called and told me he saw something on the X-ray that might be a bigger problem. Indeed, the subsequent X-ray revealed a collapsed lung (not as bad as it sounds but bad enough) from one of the broken ribs. So off to the hospital for a procedure in which a ventilator was inserted into my left side to provide extra oxygen. It remained in me overnight, pumping away. Somehow I managed to get some sleep and the next day it was removed, though the pain lingered for quite a while afterward. I had to remain in the hospital for a couple of days and for some reason, likely my uninterest in eating and general low affect, I ended up being sent downstairs to the behavioral health unit. Believe it or not, this is where my experience began a slow turn toward recovery, though it hardly seemed so at the time. This particular facility, unlike the first (at a different hospital), was cleaner, brighter, with a much more humane staff. Nevertheless, the actual experience was very similar to my previous stay: the same infantilization, and lack of autonomy; the seemingly constant parade of psychiatrists, each with his or her own theory about the exact nature of my condition and the propped medications for it; the disturbing nature of some of my fellow patients, though I never felt I was in actual physical danger. Near the end of my stay, I was subjected to several sessions of ECT, which was terrifying regardless of whether it helped or not. It’s hard for me to gauge how beneficial this treatment was. My partner insists she saw some improvement and it’s true my appetite did come back and my energy level increased slightly. I was fortunate enough not to suffer the memory loss and other side effects that often accompany ECT. Nevertheless, I declined further treatments after my release and, having read a number of accounts of others’ experiences, I believe that was a wise decision. The one unmixedly good thing about this time around was that the hospital was in Arlington, VA, near where I lived, which made it possible for more people to visit. The kindness of several of my friends and that of a couple of my partner’s fellow congregants at her Quaker meeting was of enormous benefit. Though it might seem strange to say, despite the actual ordeal of this second psych ward stay, in retrospect, I feel that it marked the beginning of my recovery. At a minimum, I didn’t feel worse afterward as with my first experience. I was discharged on my 64th birthday and a couple of days later, went into a halfway house for recently released mental patients. For the first time in my entire journey, I experienced true warmth and compassion from the social workers in charge as well as some of my fellow residents. Though I didn’t think I felt any better, in reality my condition began noticeably improving. I began to read again and took some small pleasure in socializing and some of the activities offered. The long slow path of healing had begun.