The Hartford Transition: Living on the Edge of Chaos

After completing my 28 days at New Prospects in Bridgeport, my next step was a three-month stay at a recovery house in Hartford. I ended up at a co-ed facility called Mercy House, located right on Main Street.

If you know Hartford, you know that Main Street is a tough, chaotic area. Right across the street was a public park everyone nicknamed "Bum Park" because homeless individuals and active drug dealers constantly hung out there. I was trying to completely rebuild my life inside the building while staring at open drug deals and chaos right outside of my window.

Making a Closet a Home

Inside Mercy House, the men and women were separated by floors, but the cafeteria was co-ed, and the building itself was actually connected to a homeless food center.

When I first got my room assignment, I was horrified. It was tiny, literally like a big walk-in closet with a bed squeezed inside. But instead of letting it defeat me, I used my creativity, and I cleaned that space from top to bottom, organized it, and made it my own. By the time I was done, I had turned a closet into a comfortable, safe sanctuary.

We shared bathrooms with the other women on the floor, and we had strict curfews: 9:00 PM during the week and 10:00 PM on weekends. The facility had a backyard area, and they were always giving us donations like; free clothes, shoes, shower supplies, and even makeup.

It was there that I found my "crew." I met a few friends, and we did everything together. Having that tight circle made the strict routine easier to handle.

Navigating a New City

I had never lived in Hartford before, so I had to learn my way around a completely unfamiliar city. Three times a week, I had to travel to Intensive Outpatient Programming (IOP), and we had house meetings once a week. At Mercy House, they were always hosting BBQ's and other activities for us to do while we were there.

When I had free time, I explored. I found some spots that became my favorite places to go to like; Ashley's Restaurant on Main Street, Bushnell Park, Elizabeth park, the Hartford River walk along the Connecticut River and Hartford Yardgoats baseball stadium. Bushnell Park always had concerts once a week that I loved going to, Elizabeth Park had an incredible rose garden, the River walk was the closest thing I had to a beach during the summer there and the Hartford Yardgoats baseball games were fun to go to.

The Ultimate Trigger

The hardest part of my stay wasn't the small room or the chaotic neighborhood; it was my personal life. My ex brought my daughter up to visit me all the time, and I was deeply appreciative of that. But at the same time, he was playing mind games. He was begging me to come back home so we could be a family again, even though he was still actively living with the other woman.

When my time at Mercy House was up, I went back home, thinking things would finally change. I felt stupid because, of course, they didn’t. What completely broke me and triggered my relapse was finding out the truth about what happened while I was away. I found out the other woman had been constantly around my daughter while I was in rehab, and she had even thrown my daughter a birthday party. The pain and betrayal of that scenario were overwhelming.

Not long after I returned, eviction papers were served on the house. I managed to stay there until December, but surrounded by triggers and chaos, my recovery slipped away. I ended up having to go right back to inpatient rehab this time, heading to Stonington.

The Takeaway: The Illusion of Change

Looking back, I felt like four months of hard earned recovery time just went straight down the drain because I let myself get pulled back into a toxic situation. But the truth I know now is that the time wasn't wasted, it was a lesson. You cannot heal in the same environment that made you sick, and you cannot force a situation to change just because you want it to.