Celebrating 28 Years Free of Locked Psych Hospitalizations
By Margalea Warner
There’s nothing more chilling than the sound of a heavy locked door clicking behind you. In my case, it was the door to the psych floor. There is no shame in being hospitalized when you are in a mental health crisis, but staying out of the hospital is something to celebrate.
In June, 1995 I was discharged from University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for the last time. One by one the years of freedom added up. In 2012 I had an idea: what if I collected some keys, one for every year out of the hospital? Friends were generous with their keys. I decided to label each key for a principle that opened the door to freedom and wellness.
Enter key #1, right meds and key #2, talking therapy. It took over a decade to find a correct diagnosis and an effective treatment that included medication and therapy. Now I’ve found it, I stick to it. My heart goes out to my peers who try so hard to find the right treatment for their individual needs. Don’t give up!
Key 3 is family. My nuclear family, including my mother, father and brother, have passed away but their love lives inside me. What remains are the family that I choose, my dear friends near and far. Key 4 is related; it stands for Compeer and all true friends. Compeer means equal friend and the Compeer program matches trained volunteers with persons in mental health recovery to help end isolation and stigma.
Curiously enough, key 5 is let tears come. I choose to feel my feelings rather than be numb. To not allow tears is to block the joy that follows. If Jesus wept, so can I. I especially grieve lives lost to suicide even as I understand how suicide happens when suffering is greater than support.
Key 6 is dignity of work. Everyone has a job to do, whether it is paid or volunteer or just doing the dishes. I celebrate that I was able to work full time as a secretary at University of Iowa Hospitals for almost 36 years before I retired in September 2020. My work in retirement includes creative writing and getting published, volunteering at Crowded Closet and taking care of the kitty (who has no plan for me to retire from being her staff).
Keys 7 and 8 are related: say no to negative voices and challenge distorted thinking. Listen instead for the still, small voice of God.
Keys 9 and 10 flow out of my spirituality: prayer and choose life.
Key 11 is think outside the box and it is fitting the label is attached to a finger nail clipper that could pick a lot in a pinch.
Keys 12 and 13 are attached to Weight Watcher charms: Walking and healthy eating. I’m a lifetime member at goal for 24 years.
Kitties and Critters are key 14. Pets are a comfort and a reason for living because they need you and you promise them a forever home.
Key 15 is tai chi and the 70% principle. In the Wu style of tai chi, as taught to me by Joseph Wyse, we are instructed to never force a movement beyond 70% of what is comfortable. With patience, over time, our 70% will grow larger. Emotionally, 70% wisdom means being gentle with ourselves and gracious to others, respecting their 70% as well. In times of crisis, sometimes 40% is a needed boundary.
Keys 16, 17 and 18 are faith, laughter, and hugs.
Key 19 is the key to the old University of Iowa Psychopathic Hospital quiet room. This fortress like building opened in 1919. It is a huge, heavy key, fitting for how grim it was for me to be secluded there in the 1990s. Nursing professor Todd Ingram gave me the key after I shared my recovery story with his nursing students. He told me how when the old psych hospital closed and moved into the medical hospital he captured the key, thinking it would be a valuable antique. If only the practice of seclusion would become as outdated.
Key 20 is This is My Brave, after the dramatic presentations where persons whose lives had been touched by mental illness told their stories. “This is my brave” sounds so much more positive than “This is my bad.” It does take courage to live with mental illness!
Key 21 stands for massage. I began a wellness plan that made massage affordable in in 2008 after my father passed away. That first massage I wept quietly the whole time. Later appointments I was able to feel joy again.
Key 22 is Paris, not as a travel destination but a self-correction of not saying, I wish I were dead, but instead, I wish I were in Paris. Paris shines as a place of adventure, beauty and love.
Key 23 is music. All kinds have power to lift me up. I’m a faithful listener to classical public radio. The key itself is a key that opens the cover to a piano keyboard.
Key 24 is ask for what you need. I used this key in March 2019 when I was stuck overnight in the Denver airport. I got up the courage to approach a fierce looking security guard at the information desk and tell I was weak and faint and in need of a safe place to rest and take my bed time psych meds. Her stern face softened to a smile and she got me the help I needed including a pillow and blanket to sleep in the airport chapel.
Key 25, for 2020 during pandemic lockdown, was paradoxically gratitude. It wasn’t easy to find the light in dark times. But the more I flexed my gratitude muscle, the stronger it grew. I was even able to have an essay about gratitude in Mennonite World magazine in the Christmas 2020 issue.
Key 26 is Persistence. Like the Mars rover, she is helping me explore a whole new planet of possibility. Her song is this: Never give up. Never give up. Never, never give up.
Key 27 is Dancing in the Dark. What if instead of running from mental illness, we danced with it? In 2022 a dance professor at the University of Iowa approached me saying he wanted to choreograph a ballet about schizophrenia and asked if he could interview me about my experience of it. We met several times and I also met with his dance students. In November 2022 the ballet, titled “Unfinished,” was performed at Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City. I was interviewed by newspaper and television journalists and got to tell my story to more and more people.
In 2023 my new key 28 is Sabbath. To put it simply: create, rest, repeat. Sabbath is self-care, making time for things that renew body, mind and spirit. Sabbath is a well from which we draw a cup of cool water to give to a thirsty stranger. My retirement from being a hospital secretary for almost 36 years in September, 2020, was a Sabbath. It gave me respite from sitting from 8 to 5 and freed me to move about and play. Soon after retiring, I got a note from the volunteer coordinator at Crowded Closet saying, “Your friends at Crowded Closet think you belong here.” She was right! I do belong there. I get so much creative energy back from the time I invest sorting, pricing and displaying books. Retirement has become re-inspirement as my creative writing has flourished and I’ve been published. I’m still busy in retirement but there’s a more relaxed rhythm to my life. If I get caught up in a burst of writing for a few hours I can get up and go for a walk. Legendary singer Tony Bennet said, “I never worked a day in my life because I love what I do.“ A Garfield cartoon expresses this well: Garfield is on his back, sleeping, saying, “I’m not being lazy…I’m storing solar energy for the winter.” The actual key in my shadowbox collection is made of glass. I guess I’ll have to be careful not to break the sabbath.
The photo below is by Wilford Yoder.
Margalea Warner 