Before I went to PQ I was in the darkest and most desperate place I have ever known. I was having intrusive thoughts of suicide serval times every 10 minutes. I had lost all hope and given up. I felt like nothing was real, and that nothing truly mattered in this life anyways, so who cares? I was isolating, over sleeping, barely eating, and desperate for help.
I went to PQ and I was very reluctant when I first arrived. I had a lot of difficulty adjusting to the program initially, and decided I wanted to leave. Thankfully, the staff and students worked with me to make me feel more comfortable and learn to absolutely LOVE the program. I have met the most reliable, loving, vulnerable, funny, smart group of people through this program, who I know I will be friends with, and able to depend on for the rest of my life. I received the best therapy I have ever had, and I have been in therapy since age 9. I went into the program wanting to no longer have thoughts of killing myself, which I not only accomplished after just a few short weeks, but I came to see the root causes of the thoughts and worked my way through them as well.
Every second of the day at PQ has intention, and restores hope and purpose, although it can be very difficult to see in the moment. I started my PQ journey wanting nothing more than to leave, and by the time I was finishing up I couldn’t imagine my life outside of it, and tried to prolong my stay. I even tried transferring to staff.
Since graduating PQ, I am the strongest and happiest I have ever been. Although I must admit that I do occasionally have thoughts of wanting to disappear, I now have a community to reach out to, and tools to use to come out on top. I can’t rave about this program enough. I often think about how much I want to go back, but I now feel ready to handle whatever life throws in my path with joy.