A Taste for Air and Water

The Southern Adirondacks were home to my mental health clinic I transitioned into as an independent woman living with a disability. I was located so close to the mountains that I could climb one and scream into the wilderness if I felt like it, without anyone being bothered by my actions! In other places, I would have caused alarm to those around me by acting like wolverine in green spaces, but my new place to reside with my pets made me feel as if there were not nearly enough people around to notice my neurodivergent needs. I didn’t feel self-conscious, as I did in the metro area, which triggered my symptoms. More of my disability was accommodated in the wide-open spaces outdoors, compared to the snug living quarters around New York City. Yet, despite being located where it was socially acceptable to be a wild woman on a mountaintop, I kept calm and carried on with my prescribed medications, one-on-one and group therapy, psychiatry appointments, and mindfulness meditation sessions with a dedicated therapist. I and other mental health clients would gather in a friendly circle and find peace together from the safe space in meditation while receiving psychiatric treatment. Meditating regularly and practicing mountain meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn, who founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program, assisted in our psychiatric treatment, in addition to the psychiatric meds we had to agree to take as psych patients. Grounding ourselves in nature like a mountain while we experienced all four seasons together in group therapy relieved much of our anxieties from the stress of having mental health conditions. Our treatment center was the central place of stability for us in our mental health journeys and recoveries from brain conditions, so, relying on services to improve ourselves, we meditated there. Mindfulness meditation entered into my life when I relocated, and it substituted many of the poor addictions I needed to let go of from my hometown. Public sitting became my time of rest and also a new drug that wasn’t toxic like cigarettes and alcohol. Sobriety became possible because of spiritual practices like yoga and meditation, which gave me coherence in life. We all learned the teachings of mindfulness properly in a clinical mental health facility. The practice was done regularly in health-care, work, and school settings; law services; tech environments; military and governmental practices; and professional sports. The mindfulness approach stretched to more than seven hundred hospitals and medical centers globally, which offered MBSR or similar programs, just as my mental health clinic used its mental health benefits for patients. I was among the clients who enjoyed participating in a mindfulness meditation program, and its principles for stress reduction stuck with me well after the sessions closed. I found Buddha at my mental health facility in Saratoga, and I continued practicing Buddhism in the future. The art of letting go, grounding practices, and self-reflection helped me to feel I belonged more in the world as someone suffering from debilitating anxieties in public. Reading spiritual companions, such as Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn, gave me an introduction to the path of mindfulness and why developing a reading practice in addition to meditation can ease the brain into a calmer awareness surrounding enlightenment. I gained a great deal of love and compassion for myself from my meditation practitioners, psychologists, and psychiatrists, and eventually, I learned to take the mindfulness practice I developed at my mental health clinic into spiritual communities and reading shelves based on religion and spirituality. Shambhala meditation filled the gap in my life between coping with atheism and cultivating more spirituality. I once had not had much faith in life. Buddhism was the missing link to a complete recovery, because with the teachings of mindfulness meditation, I felt more whole and less tormented by scattered thoughts and disorganized thinking and speech. I was reaching a full recovery process because I stood like a strong oak tree and solid mountain during the mental health crises that shook my branches from heavy winds. The tools I learn from maintaining a meditation practice allow more love into my life, when otherwise, my skepticism might deter me from finding true love and compassion. Sadness is a feeling that comes and goes, but for people with mental health conditions, it can be a constant underlying factor that determines their actions and behavior. Depression is why I sank so low as a topless dancer and had delusional thoughts about selling my body to make myself feel complete. Sadness is also why I suffered from suicidal ideation, and hiding my dark thoughts on the matter prevented me from recovering completely. In the book Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chögyam Trungpa, we see a natural romanticism that comes forth from having dark fantasies, in the chapter “Fear and Fearlessness”: Sadness hits in your heart, and your body produces a tear. Before you cry, there is a feeling in your chest and then, after that, you produce tears in your eyes. You are about to produce rain or a waterfall in your eyes and you feel sad and lonely, and perhaps romantic at the same time. That is the first tip of fearlessness, and the first sign of real warriorship. Fear led to mental breaks, but once I learned how to move on from traumatic triggers, then much of practicing fearlessness healed my emotional pain. Controlling my symptoms of depression is more manageable with Buddhism and mindfulness meditation, which replace a place of void with love and compassion for myself. I used to look the other way from love, but now I can face my fear of being vulnerable by trusting family, friends, companions, peers, and pets, who gave me back my true self when I had lost so much of my worth. Recovery feels a lot like a stormy sea to navigate, but a support network can help you to steer clear of rocky shores and waves. It took me a long time to grow up compared to others who matured a lot faster than I did in life. I never gave up hope that I too could become whole again as a woman on the psychosis spectrum, just like peers who succeeded in their educational and personal careers. Even if I never called myself a sea captain in life, I had what it took to sail my ship into recovery because of all the love and support guiding me there. No matter how turbulent our relationships were or if we needed a white flag on board to surrender our hostilities with one another, we were safe and would go forward together.