Onika L. Dainty

Recovery, Remission and Redemption

My Journey Back To Baseline Part 4

I have learned a great deal in my two years of remission. I have continued outpatient treatment and I connect with Dr. A regularly for check-ins, medication management, and mental health emergencies. I built structure, routine, and healthy habits that support my emotional wellness. I have managed my medication collaboratively with Dr. A to ensure that I am on the therapeutic combination most likely to prevent bipolar relapse. I have been sober for almost two years, which has been one of the most important factors in stabilizing and protecting my baseline. I have also taken intentional steps to address trauma through psychotherapy. I am pursuing my passions through writing, blogging, and public speaking. I have secured stable housing with the help of my support team of family and friends.

For the first time since my Bipolar I disorder diagnosis in 2006, I was able to identify the trigger that set off this most recent hypomanic episode: excessive travel, exhaustion, and burnout. In the past, episodes escalated before I had any awareness. I would end up in the emergency room where the episode was often misdiagnosed as drug-induced psychosis. I would be admitted to the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) as an involuntary patient, experience isolation and restraints, and spend no less than two months hospitalized. I would be medicated heavily and discharged quickly, with little understanding of how to maintain my mental health outside the hospital or prevent the same cycle from happening again.

Fast forward to today. Through psychoeducation, trauma work, accountability, and deep self-awareness, I can now recognize triggers for both the highs and the lows of my mood disorder. I knew what was happening in my mind, and I sought help before the episode escalated into mania or psychosis. Over the last three years, I earned Dr. A’s respect through transparency and honesty in our appointments.

So when I arrived with an unconventional request to heal at home rather than in a clinical setting, he took a risk. He trusted my insight and believed in the work I had done to understand my illness. Dr. A has been more than a psychiatrist. He has acted as a collaborator in my healing. We do not always agree, but our relationship is grounded in mutual respect. That respect allows me to have agency over my mental health, something many people living with severe mental illness do not experience.

During the first week of healing at home, I felt like a newborn. My days consisted of showering, eating, sleeping, and sitting outside on my porch for sun and fresh air. I checked in with my support team, especially Grama Judie. I listened to audiobooks, colored, and played music to soothe the noise in my mind. When the doubt became too loud, I turned the music up and danced until I remembered that my body, too, could be a place of healing. I sang loudly, breathed deeply, and held space for myself in ways that were both simple and sacred.

Sleep did not come easy. I feared that at any moment this healing-at-home path could shift, leading me back into hospitalization. I was grateful, but I was also afraid that three weeks would pass and I would still be hypomanic. Mania felt close, like something waiting behind a door. Psychosis felt like a possibility. The medication could only carry me part of the way. The rest required trust, discipline, and faith.

I was not only chasing baseline. I was chasing redemption. If I could return to baseline on my own terms, I would regain my autonomy. I would show the people in my life that my illness did not define me or diminish me. I would show myself that I was capable of self-correction and emotional regulation. I would challenge the belief that hospitalization was the only path to stabilization.

If I returned to baseline with the support of my healthcare team, medication, structure, routine, healthy habits, my family, my friends, and my own relentless commitment to choosing myself each day, then maybe the question would change. Maybe I would not have to chase baseline anymore. Maybe I could begin chasing my dreams.

I would not receive the answer to that question until my follow-up appointment with Dr. A, where he would determine whether hospitalization was still necessary or whether I had found my way back to stability, remission, and the possibility of redemption.