"I want to get a life," I answered the adolescent therapist as she asked me what I wanted to get out of the intensive therapy program. She looked confused. "You mean a social life?" "No, it's a life, my whole life. I feel like a ghost." She typed something into the "goals" template of the treatment plan the state required for me to receive her services. I wasn't sure she understood and wondered if she could.

The onset of mental illness and hospitalizations that followed threw my once social adolescent self into hiding. Before all that had happened, I had been odd, no doubt, but I was active in the school band and felt some attachment to the people around me. After the hospital, everything stopped.

For months, my life felt like one long day I spent mostly at home. On the occasion that I made it to the school building, I'd notice all these changes: a broken door, people talking about a dance I knew nothing about. It's amazing how fast life moves when we are young and how still mine felt at the time.

Yet, slowly, I carved out something new for myself. At first, it was small things like walking up to the gas station down the road or taking my dog to the park. Even as I felt disconnected from the community in my hometown, I found a new community through a therapeutic school and a support group. Eventually, those steps turned into leaps, like volunteering at a summer camp in another state and applying to college.

Fast-forward to today, and my world is spinning once again. It's not quite how I........

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