Madison: Rediscovering My Sparkle

I always felt different – a little more outgoing, a little more sharing, a little more extroverted. I thought that was my “sparkle,” my special skill.

Then in my early teens, I started to be ostracized and had a hard time relating to people. I started thinking instead, “maybe there’s something wrong with me.”

Over time, my struggles cascaded to include being bullied and challenges with organizational skills that would later be attributed to ADHD and PTSD. Without insight or skills to cope, I defaulted to some self-destructive behaviors.

I was unable to keep a job. I was using substances to numb the reality of feeling like I couldn’t work towards my goals anymore. I had this mindset that I had a dark cloud over my head and that my life was just going to be a consistent series of unfortunate events. I felt that I had generated some sort of bad karma and that I wouldn’t be able to dig myself out of the hole that I had created.

Once my family realized that I wasn’t going to be able to help myself, they said, “I know that you’re unable to see this, but we’re going to continue to push for you to find a way out of this dark place.” And, eventually, they helped me find Skyland Trail.

At Skyland Trail, I realized how much the way I saw myself had become distorted.

I consistently had epiphanies, “I can’t believe I thought that about myself for so long!” Or, “I can’t believe

I’ve been living my life like this without knowing that there was another way!”

I was really nervous about the idea of labels. My therapist helped me understand that a diagnosis was a tool for my treatment team to create a formula for success… for me. It wasn’t a label. It was information and an attribute, one of many attributes that all come together as building blocks to create how my mind works and what is me.

I also realized that my upbringing hadn’t necessarily prepared me for dealing with life. Skyland Trail served as boot camp or basic training. I was able to see myself as capable, disarm all the defense mechanisms I had put up for protection, and gain these tools so that I was ready for life.

Today, I enjoy my career as an aesthetic professional. I would describe my life as very full, very active and engaging. I like putting my life into my work and into my family and friends outside of that. And when life becomes overwhelming, as it does for most people sometimes, I find wilderness and nature to be a great place to re-center myself, focus on all the positives, and be grateful for this life that I built.

And so my mental health journey, while it continues, has really been full circle. I started by thinking I was different and special, then believing I was different in a negative and distorted way, and then I was able to come back and embrace the parts of myself that make me truly special.

I was able to lift the shadows and find my sparkle again.