It's no secret that most of us choose not to deal with a lot of thoughts and emotions that cause us pain. I honestly believe that some of that is healthy. Like our brains way of protecting us, too much negative emotion can be very damaging. So your brain will just compartmentalize the stuff until we are more ready to deal with it. It's amazing to me because this stuff never actually goes away our brain just hides it from us for a time, for lack of a better phrase. What an amazing brain we have right? I used to think that if I just ignore things long enough they will eventually go away. What actually happens is it all gets stored up and then one day your "vault" just bursts and all that yucky shit just comes streaming out. More often then not it will land on someone you love very much, and will hurt them in a way that you can never take back. There is nothing healthy about this process and its not until its too late that you realize exactly what has happened.
This journey has continued to be difficult and I still have days where I just cry. Its been almost a year since I shared Part 1 and I am finally ready to share this part with you, not for sympathy, but for education and realization of the kind of people who are really affected by stigma. April 28th, 2014 is the day I made the hardest the decision of my life. After Carissa's suicide attempt and almost losing her we started looking at a different approach. Long term treatment. After a few months of doing my homework I found Project Patch ( http://www.projectpatch.org/ ). I won't bore you with the details involved with getting her accepted to this amazing place but it was a pretty emotional and intense process. Having to relive so many details of the last couple years over and over. The day had finally come for us to drive up to this place and have an interview with staff and counselors to see if we were a good fit. Packing her things from the list of approved items th