Know that you are always, ALWAYS worthy of getting help Hey guys, my name is Alex and I am here to tell you my story of survival through the darkest time of my life. My journey with mental illness began at a young age. I exhibited symptoms of Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder around…
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I grieve my loss, but embrace what I’ve found with gratitude. I’m a Skyland Trail alumni, and this is my story. I had a great start. A couple of kids, engineering majors in college, fell in love with God and then fell in love with each other. They got married and had a little girl one…
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Skyland Trail provided a “bubble of healing.” When I walked through the doors of Skyland Trail, I had been struggling with mental health challenges for eight years and had been in multiple psychiatric hospitals and day programs, a few of which were the results of serious suicide attempts. I had a chart over an inch…
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A Validating and Supportive Community In the past, I believed I could never make a life for myself that I could be content with. Coming to Skyland was probably the best thing I could have done for my mental health. Never before have I been a part of such a validating and supportive community. Everyone…
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Skyland Trail’s web materials note that “many of our clients come to us exhausted, scared and desperate.” That was me in July of 2019. Earlier in the year, I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. That diagnosis later proved inaccurate, but it was the triggering event for my third lifetime event of generalized anxiety disorder. The…
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“Start with transformation of your heart. Let go of yourself and find the magic of the fairy home. Your mind will follow.” Most of us have heard, probably many times, that if you invest in the program you will receive many multiples of positive outcomes in return. And that is certainly true. But so often…
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Recovery is a lifestyle. ‘Let me just tell you that I was a mess before Skyland. I wasn’t doing great in relationships with friends, family, or really anyone. I was extremely depressed, overworking myself with two part-time jobs and school. I was constantly debating suicide and looking for outside validation in a number of unhealthy…
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I was enrolled in the Skyland Trail program and was working extremely hard at my recovery. Though I was diligent in my efforts, I felt that I was not progressing as I would have hoped. In short I still felt very depressed and was experiencing an extreme level of anxiety. My psychiatrist at Skyland, who…
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Over the summer of 2018, I started struggling with depression and anxiety to the point where I didn’t leave the house. I had applied to colleges near my hometown. I didn’t get into any of them. That was really a hit to my self-esteem. I was basically living in my room and leaving to get…
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Overcoming the Perfect Storm In 2012, I experienced “the perfect storm.” I was forced to seek my comfort in bed, had no appetite at all, felt that I was “stuck” down in a hole, could barely breathe and experienced mild panic attacks. I learned three things really quick: First, mental illness is not a moral…
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