MY STORY

After 15 years of disabling mental illness, intermittent psychosis, 21 psychiatric hospitalizations, and a suicide attempt, I was told the only way I’d survive was to live in a long-term, locked psychiatric ward. Yup, I was told the only way I would survive was by being locked up in a psych ward for ever.

Stubborn to my core — and no stranger to defying expectations or rules — I told my care team to go to hell. (Actually, mother-ducking straight to hell was the exact quote.)

I still needed a care team to survive, though. I was living with chronic hallucinations, suicidality, OCD, agoraphobia, and lost time (a condition that had yet to be diagnosed as dissociative fugue). Yet no local doctor would work with me. In mental health care, patients with chronic suicidality are often treated as liabilities — something I hope to change when I’m well enough to step into activism.

Still, I refused to stop searching. I met with doctor after doctor, and even after being told over and over that residential care was my “only chance” at survival — the only way to stay alive —  I kept searching. I was determined to hold on to what little agency I had left. And honestly, I really had nothing left to lose.

In a last-ditch effort, I met with a trauma therapist known for his intense — and sometimes re-traumatizing — behavioral therapy methods. While other doctors barely lasted a single session with me before discontinuing treatment for liability considerations, this one listened intently for four sessions straight. That alone felt like a miracle: to have someone hear it all — to sit with me as I shared my heartbreak and anger about my learning disability, the electroconvulsive therapy that damaged my memory, the 21 psych ward stays, the repeated sexual assaults, the lost time, and my one suicide attempt.

And then, an even bigger miracle happened: that doctor gave me a choice. A real choice — something I hadn’t been given or felt I’d had since I was 16 and first entered the mental health system. The choice was simple: either work harder and get more uncomfortable than I ever had in my life by following his therapy plan to the letter, or go to residential treatment and live the rest of my life “safe” and “comfortable” behind locked doors. His reasoning was this: I had already worked harder than most patients he had ever met, and if I didn’t have it in me to go further, then I deserved the agency to decide my own future.

Looking back, I probably should have paused and reckoned with the mountain of work that lay ahead of me. I had worked my butt off to even survive that long. But I didn’t. I didn’t even think twice. I just committed — to the work, to myself, and to the possibility of a future on free ground.

What followed has been called “the recovery of a lifetime” in more than one press outlet. But to me, it was really simple. It was just my fight for freedom — what was necessary to stay alive, free, and me — outside the metal-barred windows of a locked ward.

The early years of my recovery were defined by a disciplined exposure response prevention therapy program, a practice designed to empower you to face your fears and grow through discomfort one brave day at a time. I’m not going to lie, it was unbelievably brutal (and I mean wowza brutal). But slowly, the work paid off, and I began to grow beyond the confines of psychosis-induced agoraphobia, OCD, and fear.

Over the following years, I found a job, built a community of friends, fell in love with my now-husband Dave, brought home Waffle — the puppy I trained to be my psychiatric service dog — and started openly sharing my story online. I wanted others living in the trenches of serious mental illness to see themselves represented, to know they weren’t alone in the mess and that life wasn’t actually all the highlight reels that these platforms pretended it to be.

Now, eleven years later, I am happy (most of the time), well(ish most of the time), married, and determined to give others what I now know was the turning point of my life: agency. Agency over body, mind, and how an individual moves through the mental health care system. That’s why I now write The Healing Lab on Substack — a newsletter that explores the many modalities of mental health care — with my business partner Amy.

But, all that said, let me be very clear —  because radical transparency is my jam.

I don’t have the answers. I still live with debilitating PTSD.  I still lose time. I still have days in bed and weeks of brutal depression. 

But now — now, I don’t fight for my life alone. Now, I have the privilege of a husband, two service dogs, good friends, a loving family, and an online community of more than 175,000 human beings across social media and Substack. And holy hell, that — that is the greatest gift and privilege a human can know — to walk through life with another by their side.

So yeah. That’s my story so far, and if you’d like to join me as I explore and democratize access to mental health treatments, I’d love to have you along for the ride.

But whether you do or don’t, please know this: just reading these words means more to me than you likely could imagine. For back in the psych ward, my only dream was that one other person — just one person outside of my parents or sisters — might someday read my words. And today, by finishing this piece, you’ve made that dream come true. And for that, I will always be grateful.

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If you are interested in learning more about Kate’s story, watch her TEDx talk and listen to this podcast where she shares her entire lived experience with serious mental illness and the many adventures she lived along the way.