Live like you’re not crazy, even if you might be crazy.

The sequence of events is slightly muddled, but I remember clear snapshots as if they were yesterday. The expired Cocoa Krispies. The frigid walks through unseen neighborhoods. The text message: “We never said you had DID.”

My response: Then what were the past three months about?

It had taken me far too long to reach that moment, hands shaking, mind spinning. See, for the past three months (maybe a little more — it all blurs) I had bought into a theory that I was insane. Literally. That I had multiple personalities, professionally referred to as Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID. And it’s really difficult to make sane decisions when you believe you’re crazy.

There was a time in my life when I considered checking myself into a mental hospital, with no intention of getting out. I had about a dozen ‘personalities’ in the end, all vying for my attention relentlessly. I would forget hours-long chunks of my day. At one point I angrily trashed a bunch of my favorite art pieces. But something deep inside kept trying to convince me I wasn’t crazy.

“It’s just denial,” they said.

“It’s rebellion,” they said. (Oh yeah, these were religious counselors. Who later redacted their claim to be counselors.)

“It’s your other personalities speaking.”

But no matter how many prayers or rituals I participated in, no matter how much money I threw down for these people, something wasn’t right. I wasn’t feeling better. I was feeling worse.

They told me my creativity was a result of my trauma. That it was God pitying me. My clothing style, my handwriting, the pictures I saw in my head, my art. It was all a façade, according to them. My mind was overflowing with false memories, memories of abuse and pain and heartache.

But it wasn’t right.

Finally, I knew there was a decision in front of me. I knew that there was a 90% chance I was actually insane, that these people were right, that they were trying to help me and that I was nearly beyond help. I also knew there was about a 10% chance that I was completely fine and they were full of shit, that I had been swindled and brainwashed. And I knew I would regret it if I didn’t take a gamble on that 10%.

As soon as I chose to walk away, the demons surfaced — and they weren’t my own, they were theirs. These ladies who had told me they were the only humans who understood me and wanted me to be healed, turned on me without a second thought. They made a last-ditch effort to prove to me I was crazy by insisting they had never told me that I had a mental illness to begin with. They returned one of my multiple checks and expressed how heartbroken they were that their methods — which had supposedly worked on everyone else — had been ineffective with me.

And I walked away.

I began the years-long process of undoing all the damage they had done to me, to my brain, to my heart, to my bank account, to my friends and family.

That 10% chance ended up being correct.

Walking away from harmful situations is not easy. There seems to always be a risk. A risk that we will end up back in that same place. A risk that we are wrong, that we are actually the problem. Let me tell you, it’s 100% worth the risk. I cannot even imagine how awful and unfulfilling my life would be had I continued to believe those people who tried to tear my life apart. It is worth it. It may take weeks, months, years to recover, but it is worth it.