Onika L. Dainty

Three years ago I experienced the very real and painful process of changing the direction of my life’s journey. I had been dealing with mental illness for many years and feeling stuck in it. I believed to that point I was doing everything I could to manage my illness, I was taking my medication, I participated in higher education in order to re-invent myself, I started and ended several careers, I filled my timetable with therapy and support groups, I became a mental health advocate speaking publicly about my experiences with Bipolar disorder, I started a podcast and I worked in mental health as a Peer Support Specialist. But the hidden reality of my life was that I was also addicted to marijuana, I suffered from severe anxiety that kept me up most nights and even with all I had accomplished over the years I was not truly taking care of my mental or physical health.  

I was like a pressure cooker ready to explode until one day I finally did. In the winter of 2022, I attempted to end my life in what would have been a spectacularly painful way. I will not go into details about the attempt but I will say it was the catalyst to change in my life. By the following year I was homeless and living in a women’s shelter. During my stay there my body exploded into so much physical pain I had to stretch multiple times daily just to climb up and down the stairs of the shelter and to get up and down the ladder of the top bunk of the bed I was assigned. Walking was painful, sleeping was uncomfortable and my appetite was non-existent. I continued to use, convincing myself that marijuana was giving me the only release I received in a day.  

When I was housed in the spring of that year another vicious cycle began– the cycle of hospitalization. I was admitted to two psychiatric wards eight times within a year where I was kept isolated and heavily medicated due to extreme psychosis. I experienced delusions and visual and auditory hallucinations that were treated with various medications but nothing seemed to help my broken mind and my hopeless spirit. During my last hospitalization in the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), I was transferred to a mental health hospital to receive more acute and critical observation and care. It was in this medical facility that I realized the pain of remaining the same was greater than the pain of change. 

Though the beginning of my sobriety journey was forced by my confinement, once again the pain I experienced dealing with withdrawal symptoms was not as great as the self-medicating addiction I had struggled with for over 15 years. The pain and uncertainty of when the next manic episode would appear became less and less as four months of residency in hospital became the time I needed to learn to manage my illness. Change was occurring daily within the walls of that psychiatric hospital, teaching me that though it can be painful change was necessary for personal growth. Remaining trapped in an endless cycle of chaos and pretending that I was making movements towards being better, I realize now was far more painful than actually working proactively toward making real and lasting change.  

Today, I am almost a year and a half sober, I have a beautiful home, I have stability in my mental health, I practice daily self-care, I have family and friends that support me and are proud of the progress I’ve made and I have a better understanding of the meaning and importance of embracing change. Change began with the pain of knowing and understanding that my life would remain paused unless I acknowledged the truth of my situation, the truth that was buried inside my deteriorating mind, body and soul. My physical, mental and emotional pain derived from inaction, fear and self-loathing so in order to move forward, to embrace change I had to address the most ugly parts of myself or I would remain stuck and as painful as that process was, as painful as the transition from immobility to change was I am now in a better and more peaceful place.

Now  I feel change is necessary for me to continue the forward movement into a brighter and healthy future. I embrace the process knowing it may be uncomfortable but the discomfort of remaining the same is no longer an option for me. Thank you Mr. Robbins, you taught me that “I will remain the same until the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change.”

Life Lessons Series: Start Before You’re Ready - Steven Pressfield

Life Lesson #8

“Start before you’re ready.”-Steven Pressfield

Despite what we may think, time is a finite thing and we all have a limited amount to use in either the best or worst ways possible. In my lifetime I have made mistakes, learned many lessons and I have grown into a person I love and even admire. That said, I have wasted a lot of time along the way in the pursuit of perfection. What does that look like for me? Waiting for the perfect moment, for the perfect words to come to me, for the stars to align and my moment to arrive without taking the steps forward to make anything happen. I always seemed to be in a perpetual state of waiting for all the right elements to come together to create the perfect storm of readiness that will whisk me off my feet into a world where my dreams are reality. It was American author Steven Pressfield who coined the phrase “start before you’re ready.”   

Well, when I was six years old I dreamed of my name being as common as salt. I dreamt of winning a Grammy like Whitney Houston, I dreamt of winning an Oscar like Julie Andrews and a Pulitzer for Best Writer on Earth-what can I say I was a little girl with really big dreams but no idea how I would make them come true. So I waited and waited for the perfect moment of realization when the picture forward to my dreams would materialize in my mind and then at 24 years old my waiting for my perfect moment was put on pause when my mind started to fail me. I was diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder and my dreams felt even further away and completely impossible. But then something inside me changed. I rediscovered my fighting spirit and realized that my dreams would never come true if I didn’t start despite feeling completely unready. 

Step one was to start sharing my writing and the story of my journey through madness. I started opening up to others about my experiences with Bipolar disorder, I started a podcast in 2017 about mental illness, I published a chapter in an anthology about women being empowered to succeed despite the challenges life threw their way. Finally on September 30, 2024 I published my first blog on this website that has now reached over 10K unique views in six months. I was not ready for any of this. It wasn’t the perfect time or the perfect moment in my life. I wasn’t a year out of the hospital like I had planned, I wasn’t out of therapy, I didn’t have an Oscar or a Grammy or a Pulitzer but I started before I was ready and I started something pretty special. 

Thank you Mr. Pressfield for reminding me that sometimes to find direction when pursuing your dreams you must “start before you are ready.” And thank you to my readers for believing in a little girl’s dreams and giving her hope that one day they will all come true.