Shoutout to all my mental illnes peeps who were hospitalized through February -- be it for trauma, eating disorders, drug/alc rehab, SUI, etc -- who spent over a full month creating detailed plans to re-structure your life for wellness after discharge.

...only to hit quarantine.

Shoutout to everyone who committed to getting outside more, finally seeing friends again, braving the public for errands and appts, having meals at restaurants.

Shoutout to everyone whose discharge plans heavily revolved around community activities, group therapy, volunteering.

Shoutout to everyone whose life sadly went back to looking exactly as it did before you were admitted, but now you can't tell if it's this isolated, inactive and depressive bc it *has* to look this way fit everyone....

....or it's bc you've regressed and aren't doing your best.

Shoutout to everyone who IS doing their best but these conditions wrecked your shot at full stability, and now you're wrestling w/ the devastation of having worked SO hard but now you can't use any of that momentum to get ahead...

...annnd are scared it may even brew a relapse.

Shoutout to everyone who HAS already relapsed bc all your coping strategies were thwarted, you lost a job, can't access supports/therapy/medical care, there's 0 daily structure, or you're triggered like crazy by the crisis.

Extra shoutouts if you truly had your footing before.

Shoutout to everyone who had friends/family expecting a different you at discharge and now no one can tell if you'll bounce back when this madness ends, or if your struggle rn would've been this tough regardless.

Shoutouts if they're blaming you and ignoring the pandemic's role.

Shoutouts to everyone w/ OCD, anxiety or trauma, who were totally chill and unfazed when this pandemic began bc this is your norm.

Shoutout to those who felt oddly comforted now surrounded by a world that finally spoke your language. ..feeling understood while also the calm one.

But even more shoutouts to those who started this way, watched others w/ mental illness struggling *more* bc of this, and felt "wrong" for being so nonplussed.

Bigger shoutouts if that's finally happening to you, too, now. If it finally caught up w/ you and your MH is spiraling.

Shoutouts to anyone w/ mental illness whom every day of this is a new roll of the dice. Or every hour.

Some days, this is what you trained your whole life for. Calm in a crisis, armed w/ a thousand mastered coping skills, are you're rescuing everyone else w/ your "medicine".

Other days this is your undoing. Your nemesis, your doomsday scenario, your deck stacked so high against you there's no cheat code to combat it.

It's every trigger, every stressor, every antagonist; alongside every removed support, safeguard, reinforcement and contingency.

You are heard, seen and understood. This isn't fair. It's cruel. It's not your fault. And you're doing the best you can w/ everything you have at your fingertips -- which is very little rn.

But you're killing it anyway. You're pressing onward and you're doing the damn thing.

Please just know you are not alone. You're not hopeless, set up to fail nor a lost cause. It's a bizarre stroke of terrible luck, but lots of us were dealt the same hand.

Whatever each day or hr looks like for you is entirely understandable. We're gonna figure it out together.

And hey, if you need to send this to a loved one or friend to remind or show them why the wheels feel like they're falling off, or loosening a bit, or you suddenly feel in over your head when you were so strong a bit ago?

Go for it.

To those loved ones reading: They need you.

They're so confused, lost and scared. They came out so determined yet sooo vulnerable. They're spinning from the initial adjustment, then the world changing under their feet.

Be patient. Be kind. Help where you can. Hope's not lost.