My Journey to becoming Jamie Roth

Jamie Roth reflecting and taking in water energy at the Wabash River 

I wanted to share some of my story. My experiences with depression and my journey into the healing world because I believe our stories are important. And when you share your story, it might help someone else feel seen and validated. We are not as different as we might imagine.

Trigger warning: Suicide mentioned and described (not graphic, but detailed), Sexual abuse and disordered eating mentioned.

Childhood me

I remember at 12 years old feeling absolutely and utterly alone.

I remember that a girl that I thought was my best friend had told me earlier in the day that we were not best friends, and she never considered me such. Which doesn't sound like such a big deal when you're an adult. I’ve learned that friends come and go. But when you're 12 years old, friends can be everything; and girls especially lean into their friendships and look for validation. And I remember her saying that to me was especially heartbreaking and devastating. I had often felt different than most people I hung out with, but never quite sure why. Sometimes we are not super obviously different from others, but enough that we feel the sense of being the outsider. An inner knowing that friend groups can do with, or without so.  I know I was a clingy friend because I was always desperate to have one special person in my life, one bestie, and to feel validated, and special to that person.

Unfortunately, her brushing me off came after a long line of feeling like people always took advantage of me. I was a very sweet girl at that age. I've always been very kind, and compassionate. I've always been a giver and a helper. But I have memories from most years of school from elementary through high school, in which people took advantage of me, were extremely unkind to me, and harmed me in some way. Again, on a macrocosm scale, nothing too extreme happened. Most would chalk it up to school aged kids being kids. But in the microcosm I ingested each un-kindness as validation of my own unworthiness. When you are a sensitive, loving person, un-kindness causes deep wounds.

I also had a big brother that was very mean to me, always picking on me. I remember after school being chased by him with a rolled up newspaper so he could beat on me and the only room in the house with a lock was the bathroom, so I’d sit in there for hours to be safe. I remember being only five or six years old and asking my mother: “Why does he hate me?” She responded that he didn't hate me, but I could tell by his actions that he did. That moment of asking my Mother that question is one of my earliest core memories. 

Family

(trigger warning: SA is mentioned)

I grew up in a home that was very loving in a lot of regards, and was traumatic in its own ways. There was always so much fighting and screaming. Either my parents screaming at each other, or screaming at us. My brother and I screaming at each other. My parents fought a lot. So much so that I used to hide under my bed and play astronaut. After I would fly around the galaxy, I would continue to lay under the bed wishing my parents would get a divorce, even though I didn’t really know what that meant. Mainly I thought about which parent I would choose to live with. 

A lot of families live like this. So much fighting and yelling and even physical abuse. My childhood is far  the most traumatic story I’ve ever heard. But each person’s experience shapes them. Sometimes when I do inner child healing work and I go back in time to being younger, I struggle because there are both memories of love and a lot of really great times, and also of pain, loneliness and a deep sadness. It’s like that for most people when they do healing work. Our experiences can be both- filled with love and filled with pain. And those that loved us the most, caused us the most pain. When I revisit myself at younger ages the attribute that stands out the most is how sweet I was. How purely sweet and kind hearted I was, yet people, especially family, were so harmful to that sweet and naive girl. When I visit her in my healing work she often asks me: “Why? Why were people always so unkind, when all I wanted to do was being loving?”

Also at 12 years old, I was sexually abused by a family friend. Later on in my adult life, I had a memories surface of being sexually abused as young as 3 and 5 years old. 

 (trigger warning: suicide attempt)

So, I remember the night that I decided that the people in my life didn't really want me around. That I was only taking up space, and my life was unnecessary. I'm not sure where I got the information from about how to kill myself. There was no Google, or smartphones or even cell phones. And I have wondered many times how I even got the idea to try what I tried, but I really don't know. All I knew at that time was that if you take enough medication and you drink it down with some liquor, you can die. I likely got it off the package warning labels. So that's what I did. 

I took a bunch of Tylenol. I took a bunch of Benadryl, and I took some swigs of stuff that tasted awful. Probably whisky. I remember showering and thinking that at least I could be clean for my family that would find me, and then I went to bed.  I put the empty Benadryl foil pill wrap in the jacket that a stuffed pig wore that I had on my bed. That alone is a pretty sad thought. I was so young that I was still into stuffed animals. I used to be obsessed with pigs. And to think that that sweet little pig on the end of my bed was holding the secret to my demise.

However, I woke up the next morning. And I clearly remember feeling so disappointed that it didn't work, and that I was still alive. But I couldn’t let on that anything was wrong, so I started to get ready for school, however my stomach gave me away because I was nauseated from everything I had ingested the night before. And my brother told my mom that I was throwing up and my mother, having a pretty keen intuitive sense, rather quickly figured out what I had done. Next thing I know,  I was in the hospital drinking charcoal so that I could throw up whatever was left in my system.

Life moved on from there. My parents put me in counseling, but I refused to talk, so that didn't last long, so we just went on about our life. Back in the late 80’s mental health wasn’t so much a thing as it is now. 

High School me

(trigger warning: eating disorder talked about)

In high school I discovered extremely poor body self image, and body dysmorphia. However, I figured out that I could maintain my weight, and a sense of control by making myself throw up. And that began my three years as a bulimic. 

High school was a time of very mixed experiences, with some very positive things happening, and also depression at the same time. Odd how you can be so happy and sad all at the same time. How you can be living your best life, meanwhile staring down the toilet and puking up your lunch in the school bathroom.

However, I got really healthy and happy for a short while after Highschool, when I studied abroad in Brazil for a year. That was such a phenomenal year of my life that really showed me how much bigger the world was than just my own backyard. That year gifted me my independence, and my confidence. I actually went to Brazil still as a bulimic unbeknownst to my parents. I was still throwing up many times a day, unbeknownst to my host family. But along the way of my year-long stay, I found pieces of myself that were joyous. And even though initially I experienced a profound sense of being an outsider, (I was indeed the foreign girl that didn't speak the language, so in essence, I truly was an outsider), yet after a bit of time, I was embraced by not only Brazilians, but other exchange students from all over the world. And the experience of loneliness was almost deeper than at home, yet it turned into an acceptance by others,  that was also much deeper than anything I experienced at home. And I blossomed into the happiest I’d ever been. 

 I remember the last time I stared down the toilet to force myself to vomit. The moment I realized that I didn't want to live like that anymore-staring down a toilets wherever I went. It was not a pleasant thing to do. It was quite disgusting actually.. And as my happiness grew while I was in this other country, one day, one moment, I made a conscious choice to shut the lid on intentionally vomiting.

When I came home from Brazil, I was extremely healthy in mind-body and spirit. I remember my Mom commenting on how happy I was, because it was so notiecable. So much so, but I never thought I would deal with depression again.

College me

Then I started college and freshman year was pretty decent. Although once again, I have a memory of someone, (my dorm mate), being exceptionally unkind to me and it negatively coloring the Freshman experience.  And also, I started dating a guy that while I was madly in love, overall it was a toxic relationship. He definitely was cheating on me, and lying to me a lot, meanwhileI did nothing but love him and ignore the signs. 

As I look back on the first 21 years of my life, it seems that no matter how happy I was, there was always some level of dysfunction and sadness as well. Not that any life is only ever joyous. Life is tough, it can come at you fast and hard. But I do think that the self harm, suicidal ideation, and toxic relationships are indications that I was never really truly happy, or when I was, it never lasted long. There is a long thread of feeling like an outsider, a deep sense of loneliness and being misunderstood, as well as harm to me at the hands of others, and myself. 

I did also have some really positive experiences. I have some great memories within those 22 years. Oddly I don't look back and think it was all terrible.That’s not actually my take away from my younger years.  It's not until I really lay out the story that I'm reminded that I suffered a lot in my first 21 years. I think that’s common for most people. To romanticize their childhood, and to hold the good parts close, but push the painful parts at arms length. Or to accept that love is painful. Many, many of my clients don’t even realize they were abused or traumatized because as a child we just have to accept what we are dealing with and survive and not worry ourselves with labels of those experiences. But when you really reflect on your story, and allow yourself to pull all the pieces together, we often find that it was much more painful than we realized, and there are some long lasting scars. And that those experiences absolutely shaped how we perceive, receive and give to the rest of our life.

(trigger warning: depression and suicide)

Halfway through my junior year of college, I started to sink into a depression again. I don't particularly know why. But, I do recall becoming friends with a couple of girls that also suffered with suicidal ideation and  depression. A lot of our relationship was feeding into each other's negative mental health. Basically being each other’s moral support of being suicidal. So obviously, that was toxic. I also recall going to the student health service complex, and seeking out a psychiatrist.  I remember saying to her "I feel like dying”, and she was soft and so kind. I could really feel her empathy and desire to help me, but like any therapy you can walk in feeling like you want to die and still walk out of there to go home and figure out whether they are going to live or not. She did prescribe me an antidepressant, but it was too late.

And at 21 years old, I tried my second suicide attempt. 

I actually tried hard to avoid this attempt. Unfortunately, my efforts were not in the best of vain. First, I went to visit my toxic on again, off again boyfriend. We were off at the time, but I showed up at his doorstep and he let me come in. I was desperate for some love and attention and consolation, however he really wasn't that interested in giving it to me. I would say he was tolerating my presence. In a desperate attempt to thwart my desire to die that night, I tried to express to him what I was feeling, and his response was to say "then just do it. You're always fucking depressed and sad, so if you mean it, then just do it, or stop talking about it.“ Clearly that wasn't what I was looking for and that was not the help I needed and so I left.

 But before I left, I had also called my mom from his house. Again, I was trying to reach out for someone to find the thing to say that would stop me from attempting. But my mom was mostly confused because I just sort of rambled about whatever and then followed it up with saying "Don't worry I'll be safe, I won’t hurt myself "and she really didn't know what I was referring to. When I realized that she was unable to decode what I was saying, I just ended the conversation.

 In the 45 minute drive home,I thought about running my car off the road multiple times. But when people have suicidal ideation, it's very common for them to feel aligned with specific ways for specific reasons. And I always knew that I didn't want my death to be grotesquely messy with a mangled body.  I just simply wanted to go to sleep and stop existing. Partly for my own sake because I couldn't bring myself to do something so drastically awful to myself. But a bigger part of that was not wanting to cause more trauma than necessary by my death. Because that's me-always thinking about other people. Even when I want to die.

 The roommate I had at the time was not a good friend. She was just basically a random roommate, and she also had depression issues and some physical pain issues, so I knew she had some Tylenol codeine pills. (I am pretty certain that there is also a lesson in here about the company we keep). Constantly having relationships with other people who are depressed and suicidal was not helpful to me, nor me to them. 

I recall intently reading the warning on the Tylenol codeine bottle. And it said in big bold letters to only take the amount prescribed. It also boldly stated with a symbol of the crossbone and skull that taking too many could lead to illness or death. And even though I didn't know exactly how many was too many, I just kept reading that warning label over and over again, knowing and hoping that I was taking too many. 

With this attempt, I actually went so far as to write goodbye letters to people. Which, if you are familiar with suicidal ideation, there are steps and degrees to which indicate the likelihood of following through on an attempt. Creating a plan and writing good bye letters is pretty far up the list of the likelihood of actually attempting suicide. 

So I cleaned up my room, always being a neat and tidy person, and I took a shower. Then I downed a bunch of my roomates Tylenol codeine pills. Not all of them, but most of them. I don't recall how many I took.. And as a college student, alcohol was always very present, at any given time. So I walked into the kitchen, grabbed some Southern Comfort, and chugged a bunch. Then I just hung out for a while, and smoked a few cigarettes, and then I went to bed. 

But once again the sun arose and the next day began, and I was still alive. I was supposed to show up at work that morning with those friends that also were encircled with depression and suicidal ideation. However since I didn't show up, they knew what that meant. And I knew that they would know. So I sat and waited for them. Pretty soon I heard running up the steps, and I already had the door open for them. I didn't feel sick this time. I didn't look sick. I simply said to them: “Go ahead and take me to the psych ward,” and so they did. I did the mandatory three day stay and then my parents pulled me out of college and required me to go back to living at home so they could watch over me.

I had intended to go back to college but instead I got a job, and then I got an offer from a family friend to go live in Seattle Washington. At 21 years old, I moved away from the state I had always lived in my whole life. It was actually a very exciting time, but I was still in a very raw and vulnerable and often depressed state.

Also, right before I moved to Seattle, I was diagnosed with Bipolar II disorder. Bipolar II leans more to the side of depression,  and less on the side of mania. Once you receive a diagnosis like that, you are basically boxed into a life that can feel very much predetermined for you. For me, it definitely felt like it was determined to be a life on a pill schedule and constantly charting my moods and emotions and thoughts to determine if I was leaning too heavily into depression or bearing towards mania. 

Beginning life of awareness

The turning point for me was moving to a new city and having to find a new psychiatrist to prescribe my meds. He decided I needed to be on a really heavy duty concoction because I reported to him that I never felt different. I never felt better. I never felt worse, I typically felt sort of numb.  As I left his office with these three prescriptions of antipsychotic meds in hand, and a pill schedule that included morning pills, midday pills, and evening pills, I had an awakening. Right in the middle of a very busy Seattle sidewalk.

 I somehow suddenly knew that this would not be my life. This was not the way I wanted to live for another 30, 40, maybe 50+ years. Time stopped for a minute, even though people continued to rush past me as they do on a busy city sidewalk.  

This was probably the first time that I really, truly heard a deep inner calling from my own soul. Knowing that there had to be a different way to live. 

That was the day that I decided to stop taking my meds that I was on, nor take any of the new ones I had just been prescribed. Instead, I knew that I needed to seek a different way to live life.

*Please note that I do not recommend people stopping their meds. It is well known that people with Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder, often make that mistake because they feel better on their meds and so then they think they don't need them, so they stop taking them and then it leads into the cycle.*

I was aware of this and I was going to do this in a responsible manner. So I let my boyfriend and my parents know that I was going to wean myself slowly off the medication I was on. I also gave them permission to let me know if I was going sideways mentally and emotionally and to call me out. But that never happened because it never needed to.

Also, I didn't just wean myself off the antidepressant I was on, I also began a deep dive into holistic healing work. I sought out all kinds of body work, such as massage, and chiropractic care. Energy work, such as Reiki, and healing touch. I learned about breath work. I devoured tons of self-help books,  and I actually utilized their suggestions. I journaled, and I learned about neural plasticity (which wasn't necessarily a term back then), but that's definitely what I was learning. 

Interestingly, I was also in massage therapy school, so I was getting my body touched and moved a lot. That was really when I learned that our memories are held in our cells, because  that is when the repressed sexual abuse memories surfaced. I feel like that's it’s own story, that I want to share it in a different post, at a different time. I will speak to that part of my healing journey eventually, so that's a post that will be coming another time.

But the takeaway is: once I was on the healing journey, a lot of things surfaced. Things that needed to be seen, heard, felt and validated.

Healing journey

My healing journey has been for many, many years. And has been through many different types of modalities and healers and experiences. The things that I learned that stand out the most are: We are whole when we are connected to our mind, our body, and our spirit. And you cannot heal one thing, one aspect of your humanness and be healed. All three aspects need to be addressed for the deepest level of healing. You can make improvements by only focusing on one piece. For example, talk Therapy has done me a lot of good over the years of my life. It's nice to be able to verbally process things and get validation, and work on the mind and how I think. That's been a very powerful part of my healing journey. And so has the somatic piece. The part in which my body speaks of its pains, its sorrows and suffering. Somatic healing is when “I feel it to heal it.” Feel it physically and emotionally, and I allow myself to go into the depths of emotional hell and also triumph. 

And I most definitely wouldn't be in the position I'm in, if I did not find spirituality. I have a very broad and open ended definition of spirituality. There is not one right way to be spiritual. But it's whatever helps you feel connected to something bigger than yourself. My spirituality comes in the form of ritual, ceremony, and honoring mother Earth. It’s in talking with spirit guides, and by leaning into my intuitive senses to guide, not only myself,  but also others.

Jamie Roth

I do consider myself to be a healed and whole person, and I’ve been that way for a long time now, mainly because I have a deep connection to my inner knowing, to my soul. 

However, because of my line of work as an intuitive healer, I pretty much stay in a perpetual state of healing. That is not a lifestyle for everyone and I do not encourage that at all. It is a choice that I make to continually peel back another layer of myself and to reflect on layers I've already explored. Because with more life experience, comes more wisdom and insight.

 It’s a choice to continue to look into my shadow- the pieces of where I may lack integrity, or have some icky sticky parts of shame. I do this because I always learn and practice on myself, before I take anything to my clients. I am my own best student, and I find the layers intriguing, and fascinating. I do take breaks from my own healing work. I do give myself a reprieve from journeying into the depths of darkness, and simply be  present.

 So when I say that I'm healed and whole, what I mean is that I am very comfortable in my own authenticity. I know my soul inside and out, I know my body better than any doctor ever could. I know my darkness, and I know my light. I'm comfortable in speaking my truth. I'm comfortable in making mistakes and acting a fool, because I love myself and I’m not ashamed to be me…inside and outside. I don't desire to be like anybody else, and I don't fear life or death. I haven't been manic or depressed since I was 22. I haven't had any suicidal ideation since then either. And I no longer identify with bipolar or depression. 

I simply identify as Jamie Roth.

And the best thing I could ever do with my experiences was to turn it into even more love for other people. To share the experience of healing work. And my greatest honor is to hold the lantern in other people’s dark spaces and hold their hand as they peel back their layers of pain, suffering and injustices, to expose their most authentic self. The wounded healer goes on to heal. It’s a story as old as time.