Afrika
Before treatment, I felt like my life was stuck on repeat. Now I’m moving forward with purpose. Hi, I’m Afrika and this is my story. Before I went to treatment, my life was sort of headed in a direction that I never thought it would.
I just started college. It was my freshman fall and I sort of dropped the ball. I hadn’t been taking care of my mental health at all. I wasn’t taking my meds and I started using substances a lot and just isolating a lot and really lost track of myself and the person I wanted to be.
My friends and family had been encouraging me to, you know, get up and, you know, try and get my life together, but nothing was really pushing me to do that. So, I thought I needed a more structured environment to help me. When I first arrived at Skyland Trail I think my main goal was just getting my sense of self back, especially using substances. I feel like my mind became very foggy and, I didn’t really know who I was, who I wanted to be. I really wanted to take the time to discern what my values were and, I guess to rediscover my passions and the person I want to be in the future.
My favorite activity definitely LEAP (Life Enrichment Adult Program). I was doing ceramics. I was embroidering, doing these little Perler bead keychains and my favorite thinking spot was definitely the Koi pond. It was a great place to just retreat to and sort of be alone. I think the hardest part about treatment was definitely being vulnerable and honest. A huge part of treatment is sort of expressing those vulnerabilities, especially to your care team in order for them to help you as best as they can. But over time, I was able to sort of break those walls down and become really open with my care team, and with my peers.
Being in Skyland, it was the first time where I was really in a place where people understood how mental health can be so detrimental to people’s lives. And I met people that were like my age, around 18, but I also met people who were in their 50s and 60s, who were taking the time to really take care of their mental health and themselves. And I think I found that really inspiring.
Just as I started to feel as though my treatment was really working for me and I was starting to really make the changes I wanted to see in myself, my insurance wanted to stop covering my treatment. And so I am very grateful for my care team and for Skyland for providing me with the financial aid to sustain the rest of my recovery and allowing me to keep working on myself in treatment. I think in many ways I was downplaying a lot of my trauma and my experiences and sort of telling myself to suck it up, and that this was something I could deal with on my own.
The professionals in a place like Skyland know so much and have so much experience to help you see the things that you can’t see for yourself. I’m thankful to myself for taking such a a big risk, a big leap in my recovery. I give myself a pat on the back for that.