The Pink Elephant In the Middle of the Getto by TiTi Ladette

Author:TiTi Ladette [Ladette, TiTi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Healing

“You can fill your life with if only’s or you can get on with it….. In my family, we get on with it.”

-Judy Blume “Summer Sisters”

I entitled this chapter “Healing.” Not “The solution,” “Cured,” or anything that states finality. Healing implies a process over time. Merriam Webster defines healing to cause an undesirable condition to be overcome.

Although, I am still a work in progress, I think about my last act of violence in jail, and my emotional and spiritual state at that time. After beating the twenty one year old girl while in prison, I began praying earnestly, asking God to change me. Asking him to help me with whatever it was that caused me to go into such tumultuous fits.

In prison, psychiatry is sporadic and impersonal. You meet with the psychiatrist once a month, but only general questions are asked, and they only expect general answers. On one of my routine visits to the psychiatrist, I told him that I needed some intensive help. He broke protocol and asked what was going on. I had an opportunity to explain my condition and severe bouts of rage. He became concerned and asked me were my meds effective. Basically, mostly everyone in prison was on the same types of medication. They don’t customize meds unless you are allergic to a particular kind of medication.

He took an interest and worked with me for the next couple of weeks, adjusting and readjusting my meds until I started feeling better. He began pulling me out weekly, talking with me and discussing my history and other extenuating circumstances in my life that led me to this point.

Pretty soon, I was getting excellent mental health care. I was able to do some work on anger management and coping skills. I learned that the issues I suffered from were so deeply rooted that the things in my present actually reminded me of things from my past because I had never dealt with those issues.

I started feeling better about my life. I continued to read my bible and pray, and started making a plan for my life. I knew that God had a greater purpose for me than what I’d been doing for the last thirty years.

Eventually, I started attending NA meetings in prison. When I walked into my first meeting, I knew that the NA program was my permanent solution. I started working the steps in prison and really taking a look at my life.

I knew that if I wanted to live…..truly live, I had to surrender my perception of the world and the people in it. But mostly, I had to stop using my past as an excuse to destroy my present and future.

I began ordering books on mental illness and its effects. I started understanding that I suffer from a dual diagnosis. Not only am I mentally imbalanced, I also suffer with the disease of addiction. The two are inherently intertwined. The major illness is, of course, the mental illness. Drugs were also a major problem, but mainly a way to self-medicate.

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