Today marks the final day in Butler Hospital Lippitt 2, an intensive care unit for the mentally ill at Butler Hospital.

I chose to come to Butler. I am proud to say, I am leaving without a diagnosis, without a prescription, and with an intense desire to return to normal life (whatever that means).

But there is something I need to say first.

We are fundamentally handling mental health wrong. I am an exception to most patients here, not the rule.

Here is the rule.

Enter patient. Patient is full of life, personality, and intelligence. Find what is wrong with patient. Fill patient with medication. Deprive patient of fresh air and exercise. Release patient into the world.

Patient comes back.

Please note, I use the word patient on purpose. Not human, not person.

Patient.

I’ve fallen in love while being here. I’ve fallen in love with addicts and schizophrenics. I’ve fallen in love with nurses and doctors. I’ve fallen in love with the parts of myself that I have always found hardest to love.

When people leave this place

too often

they are vegetables. They are on countless medications that deprive them of their personality and humanity.

In searching for ways that people are broken, places like these shatter people that are perfectly whole.

Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful for this experience. Very much so. I healed from things I didn’t know I needed to heal from. I’ve met the most remarkable people I have ever met.

I’ve made friends for life.

I hope this little piece of writing communicates this.

I am healthy. I am safe. I love living. I always have.

And I, along with every other person in this place, am not broken.

We are not ill

We are not broken.

We don’t need you to fix us.

May all of us learn

as I have

the importance of replacing diagnoses, medications and mental hospitals

with

love.