It can be amazing how something as simple as Chocolate Milk can bring memories of a one of the most detrimental moments of my life and how I took advantage of the mental health system and made a very detrimental decision without realizing how dangerous and detrimental it was to my mental health and the wellbeing and safety of others.

The other day I was visiting my father in the skilled nursing facility and the aide offered him some chocolate milk as a snack. On the drive home, my mother brought up when I had said as a teenager that the specialty psychiatric hospital that I was in a few times as a teenager had what I claimed the “best chocolate milk that I ever had.”  We further realized that during one of those stays that I took advantage of the mental health system and checked myself out of the hospital without realizing the entire reality of the situation.

I indeed was fifteen years old, but in the state of Pennsylvania, you are legally considered an adult at the age of fourteen. To the best of my knowledge this was something that was done at the time as sort of a peer pressured thing because other patients in the hospital were doing this and because I was probably bored or just wanted to avoid the reality of the situation, I did it without not realizing the total effects that it would have caused to myself or others that were helping in my care at the time.

One of the biggest things that I did not realize was that I was nowhere near my home, rather I was over an hour away from home and while the hospital was considerate to lodge me until family could get me, I now realize that they did not have to do that. I am sure that my parents and those collaborating with me at the time were very uncertain and frustrated with my actions and even to this day over two decades later, I did not think thoroughly how detrimental such an action could be for me and those caring for me.

Eventually, safeguards were taken to make sure that I no longer had the option to make decisions as far as my mental health and they were indeed very costly for my parents. I know that they did it because they cared for me, even though for some reason I thought it was meant to be hurtful to me. Yes, some effects still happen because of it decades later, but I know that they were frightened because I was not in my right mind and was not able to make the best decisions regarding my mental health.

It can be hard to realize that acting in ways that were so challenging to my family and others were intense as they were, and I should have done better on my behalf to realize what I was getting into before making such a decision that I did not fully understand or was able to comprehend.