13 — Back to Washington
Chapter 13 of “The Woods Behind Me”
I left the hospital two days before Anthony walked through the door.
Effexor XR had cut through the depression the way SSRIs never could, and the Topamax still held me upright as a stabilizer. On paper, I was “better.”
In reality, I was in the soft, shaken stage that comes after a crisis — the part where your brain feels like wet clay and your emotions haven’t hardened back into anything you can lean on. Walking out of a psychiatric facility feels nothing like the movies. There’s no swell of music. There’s just the parking lot, and the daylight, and the strange sensation of being outside again while still not quite trusting your own legs.
The kids had been the anchor that pulled me out. Their visit had pierced through the fog and forced me to choose life. That’s why I got out. Not because the system saved me. Because I clawed my own way out.
When Anthony came home, I thought I’d finally get to breathe.
But the Army had other plans.
Chapters One through Three are free. The rest are here for White members — or read the whole memoir on Kindle, $4.99.
