“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.”
– Kurt Cobain
I am forever grateful and thankful to Karis Community; after all, I am living and continuing my very long and interesting but often tiresome journey. Through it all, I have accepted and finally found myself. I have found the person I am, the one I want to be, the who of now. I have found the person who resides in the darkest and brightest times. I have found the person I accept but never expected to be, and I finally found that I have self-comfort and stability. I am comfortable being me. So, at age 44, I’m moving out of Karis after a stay of 18 months. With the support and acceptance of my peers, I’m moving into the Stepping Stone Cottage. I also live with the very recent loss of my Brother-In-Law, Michael, whom I miss every day.
Looking back, I have a long-understood history of mental health “issues,” as I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and related anxiety when I was 11. I have always been a very emotional and sensitive person, mostly a loner with few friends. This became ever-present when I was in my teens. I was bullied and socially isolated to the point that I dropped out of high school. Dealing with those years can be difficult enough; however, I also dealt with taking many medications, had several hospitalizations, and changed schools several times, adding to my ever-evolving struggles.
I did find hope and freedom after moving to California when I was 19. I was treated in a hospital specializing in my needs. After getting stable and settled, I eventually found work in Public Health, specifically HIV/AIDS testing, counseling, and treatment. I became a Program Coordinator, counseling crystal meth addicts. I managed the multi-agency program and successfully met funding requirements as the head of the lead agency. I worked for several agencies in both Los Angeles and San Francisco over an 8-year period. I did everything from community organizing, program management, counseling, designing mobile testing, and grant writing. I successfully co-authored a 6-million-dollar grant. I also had the honor and privilege to serve on the California HIV/AIDS State Board, for which I served as a youth representative. I attended college for Psychology and took acting classes on the side. I was busy enjoying extremely rewarding work, traveling, and having friends. However, I was doing entirely too much and eventually burned out. My last pay period was 108 hours. Some had been more than that. I reluctantly found that I was exhausted and had to stop working. My mental health “issues” had come back for me to face without a choice.
I was still attending school and began volunteering when I hit another wall and could no longer function. I had a complete mental and “nervous” breakdown. Soon thereafter, I lost my father, who passed away in 2006. I moved from California to North Carolina, where I began assisting my mother as best I could. I also began to take high-dose opioids for chronic back pain and voluntarily turned in my driver’s license. I began isolating myself after having seizures and being admitted to the hospital on three occasions after being found unconscious. I was extremely lonely, isolated, and depressed. For many years I saw only my family, my many doctors and pharmacists, with the occasional shopping trip. I had been hospitalized for suicidal ideation as well and released after it was made abundantly clear that the inpatient setting was contributing to my deterioration. I was completely isolated in a medicinal haze when I moved to Colorado in 2018 to start over and be with my family. I moved, but my condition did not change. Unfortunately, it continued, and by 2020, during the height of the Covid pandemic, I had my first complete psychotic break. I could no longer take the isolation, medication, and turmoil that my inner world had become. I was hospitalized and put on new medications, which failed to work, and that’s when I found myself in the worst state of my life. I had always struggled, but nothing like this. I was barely surviving in a state of prolonged psychosis, for which I eventually became an inpatient four times in a row. I was entirely lost in the abyss of chaos to which my mind had become overwhelmingly and completely consumed. I found that I had zero hope or even a remote chance of ever having any quality of life again. That’s when change came.
I was living in a hotel, mostly estranged from my family, and attending an IOP (Intensive Outpatient Program) where I had just finished being inpatient when I received a call from a Douglas County Health Dept caseworker saying that she had found housing for me. I was given a lifeline I didn’t know about or ask for. She came along with my Caseworker from the Parker Police Department’s Community Resource Team, and they supportively talked with me about Karis. I had no idea what Karis Community was, as I had never heard of it, but I was out of options. I had less than nothing to offer when Karis miraculously appeared. I did my intake interview shortly thereafter and then scheduled my applicant dinner. I showed up, interviewed, and to my surprise, was called a day earlier than expected due to Labor Day and told I was accepted.
I remember telling the staff that it felt as if I had just won the lottery jackpot. I gave myself one week to get ready for the move, and on September 13, 2021, I moved into Karis. I somehow became a member of a loving, accepting, and supportive community that took me in and gave me the tools and opportunity not only to survive but to thrive. I became social, active, and trusting again. I was in a safe place to live and finally felt safe. I remember well my first night of being able to sleep without fear. I was given a chance to know life in a manner I had never known before. I worked continuously to repair the relationship with my family and was eventually able to do so. At least I know I did the absolute best I could. If for nothing else, I’m grateful that Karis gave me the opportunity and ability to heal some of the damage caused by my psychotic break and the ensuing chaos. That means everything to me now as I reflect on what matters in my life.
I am now a volunteer at a homeless shelter and am recently a certified crisis counselor for the Crisis Text Line. I am forever grateful to Karis and the supportive community experience that it provided me. I am no longer the person I was when I arrived. I am a new person in almost all regards, with the exception of living with mental illness, but I now have the management skills required to do so. I live. I want to live and have hope that I will forever be a better me. I am finally able and comfortable being me.
By Jacob Livengood, Community Member
Jacob,
I am so proud of you! You have an amazing story and journey and you are such a light to everyone who knows you.
I’m blessed you are my brother!
You did a beautiful job with this blog!
Love, Sis
Jacob I am so proud of you and that is a very amazing story it take courage to be you and celebrate that we celebrate you much love Julie B
Jacob that is an amazing story and so proud of you to be courageous enough to be you much love Julie B