Kym asks a follow up question (as part of our Ask Me Whatever you Want Weekend)

I’d like to hear more about the psych hospital and why you were there and do you think it helped?

Um, this is tricky. I mean, I could write for days about the experience. But then, this whole mess is saved by google and you never know who or what might be reading it. So I’ll just share little bits now and then.

But as for why I was there – I know this is hard to believe – officially it was depression. Unoficially, I was an out of control teenager who was failing school, taking drugs, and alienating his family, and they were afraid I would just spiral more and more out of control. They were probably right. They intervened – I’ve written before about the night that I found out I was going; they showed incredible faith in me by letting me have a car the next day to go say goodbye to a few friends. Essentially I spent a month or two drying out and learning to be myself a little, then another year working through a bunch of issues.

Did it help? Yes. Although there are unintended effects, I think, life-long effects on me and my point of view regarding therapy, hospitals, etc. I have, oddly enough, some very good memories of some friends there – they are all I have and all I’ll likely have. They don’t organize reunions and homecoming games for psych patients, and all the records are sealed, anyway.

That’s enough for now, this is harder to write than I thought.

And I’d like to know if you think you’ll ever do a half marathon

Wow, another tough question! You know, I never thought I’d be a runner. I always imagined myself a cyclist. So it’s funny that I’ve been able to run as well as I have. But let’s try a paradigm shift, and see if I can’t change that. My running plan right now has me up to 25 miles per week by the beginning of the year, with my long run around 10 miles. So, if I stick with things, a 10K would be very doable. So maybe I’ll run a half by next summer. Or even by my birthday, that’d be cool, huh?

Thanks for playing!