Most of us don’t arrive here hopeful or happy. We feel small and walking through these doors is tough. We can’t figure out how we got here. Our lives and stories are different. The wounds are different. Circumstances are different.The substances we use to medicate are different. Our struggles with mental wellness are different. Our diagnosis may be different. Our pain isn’t. Pain binds us together. Our struggle binds us. Our desire to wake up feeling different binds us… This is the battle most of us are in and we feel alone, it’s this battle that brings us together at Choice House.

There’s been months or years of chaos and confusion. Our family and friends find themselves behind the walls we’ve built. And we can’t seem to find a way to connect with those people we love. The schools we attend, the people employing us. Nobody knows what we need, and we don’t know either.  We try to do it ourselves- school, work, relationships and we just can’t seem to get where we want to go. Everything feels just out of our grasp and we’re too afraid to ask for help. Most of the time, we don’t know how to ask for that help we need. We feel broken. We feel inherently flawed.

We’ve no clue what to do with our feelings. We don’t even know how to just feel them, and be with that discomfort of unpleasant ones. We shrink, we fight, we avoid, we medicate, we go off the handle. We feel frozen. We abandon ourselves. We abandon people we love. Our dreams. over and over. Some of us have experienced external success, but our internal world that feels out of control.  Some of us wear our wounds and scars for everyone around us to see. This part actually doesn’t matter that much, we both need the same medicine.