Seated on a stool and bathed in hazy neon light, Jalyssa Charnae Elliott grips a microphone with one hand and hesitantly announces to the room: “This … is a dance.”

It’s the first line of Jalyssa’s own short poem, titled Of sound mind and I. In it, she describes waltzing with her own mental illness as if it were a person before dropping it, triumphantly, into an open grave.

Jalyssa, who also writes and performs under the name Lyssa Bastet, has crafted countless poems and essays over her lifetime, but this chilly fall night was the first time she’d performed in a poetry slam – and she was astounded by the response.

“There were all these really good poets there – poets who are published, who do shows, who travel and pay the rent with their poetry – and they’re telling me that I could do what they do,” says Jalyssa, who lives on Solid Ground’s Sand Point Housing campus with her 8-year-old son, Mysun. “I couldn’t believe it.”

Jalyssa, now 36, says she’s been enthralled by the power of words and language since she was a little girl devouring books and competing in regional spelling bees in New Jersey. But she’s also grappled with mental illness for nearly as long, which has kept her from maintaining stable jobs, housing, and even relationships through much of her life.

That is until 2019, when she moved into Solid Ground’s permanent supportive housing and began to build the stability in her life that had eluded her for so many years. “Proper housing is vital,” she says. “I wouldn’t be anywhere if I didn’t have stable housing that I knew I wasn’t going to lose in the next six months or 18 months.”

‘Chaotic and violent, but also really fun’

Jalyssa grew up in New Jersey’s Atlantic City, the oldest daughter of a personal pastry chef and a high-end craps dealer, both of them teenagers when she was born. She says her young parents worked hard to provide the best for their children but still struggled to hold on to apartments – and often left the kids alone to fend for themselves.

The family bounced between hotels and homeless shelters at times, and Jalyssa sometimes lived with her dad, who could alternate between being fun and caring, and abusive and violent.

“I loved to escape into books, and at times I wanted to be a part of the worlds I was reading about,” she says. “And I loved creating worlds for my little sister. We didn’t have imaginary friends – we had a whole imaginary school.”

~Jalyssa Charnae Elliott

“I kinda thought that all families were chaotic and violent, but also really fun, because my dad was also really funny and loved to have fun and dance and party and provide for his kids,” she says. “He liked to show us off. He like to give us nice things.”

Then as now, Jalyssa found solace in words and language. “I loved to escape into books, and at times I wanted to be a part of the worlds I was reading about,” she says. “And I loved creating worlds for my little sister. We didn’t have imaginary friends – we had a whole imaginary school.”

Jalyssa excelled in the classroom at first –  she had a poem published for the first time when she was just 8 years old – but anxiety, depression, and thoughts of suicide eventually made school a nightmare. She started seeing a therapist at 12, began taking medication at 13, and started an 18-month stay in a psychiatric facility when she was 15.

‘Sadness that wouldn’t go away’

“I was trying to figure out a way to release all this sadness that wouldn’t go away,” she says. “I couldn’t read it away. I couldn’t write it away. I was having to leave class because I was crying randomly. I was trying to find ways to harm myself to get rid of the sadness.”

Her adolescent and early adult years were not much easier. She did well living in a group home through high school, but after graduation she struggled to juggle college classes with working and living on her own – all while managing her mental health with the support of a therapist.

Despite the ups and downs, Jalyssa eventually met the man of her dreams. Soon she learned that she was pregnant. “He was really happy and high-fiving people up and down the street,” she says. “Everyone was super excited.”

But the pregnancy ended in miscarriage – as did four others that followed. One daughter lived just long enough for Jalyssa to hold her in her arms. “After that, everything in my head just kinda went dark,” she says. “I was like a ghost.”

That day marked the beginning of what Jalyssa calls “my heroin binge,” which lasted for several months. But after losing her home, Jalyssa says she woke up one day in a hotel and told herself, “I don’t want to die like this.”

So Jalyssa moved in with an aunt, found a new psychiatrist, and stopped seeing her boyfriend. “My aunt pretty much put me on house arrest,” Jalyssa says. “She was helping me to be a person again.”

Then one day, Jalyssa went to the hospital with stomach pains and learned she was already 16 weeks pregnant. Overjoyed but wary, she was determined to make it to the critical milestone of 24 weeks – which she did. At 39 weeks, she asked her doctors to induce labor.

Jalyssa’s son, who she named Mysun, was born. “He was like the light at the end of a very, very dark time,” she says. “That pregnancy and the early months after he was born was the best time of my life.”

But her aunt’s health – and their relationship – were deteriorating , and after eight months Jalyssa had to move on. She moved in with a friend in Texas for a while, then followed her younger sister to Washington state, where she eventually found herself staying in a homeless shelter once again. This time, though, she had a rambunctious toddler to tend to as well.

Changing her world through the power of words

Through it all, Jalyssa wrote and recorded videos about her struggles and triumphs for a growing number of followers on her social media accounts. So when life at the shelter became intolerable, she turned to her online audience and asked for their help paying for a hotel room.

“Every day, I made a new post about how we were doing and what was going on,” she says. “I crowdfunded enough to keep us in that hotel for two months.”

Eventually, with the support of a particularly tenacious public health nurse, Jalyssa secured an apartment in Solid Ground’s Sand Point Housing adjacent to Magnuson Park. From a lifetime of experience, she knew that this kind of permanent supportive housing was what she needed to thrive.

“And I loved living in a city park,” she says. “No matter where you look, it’s beautiful. There was a community center there, and a playground, and activities, and a preschool nearby.”

‘Everything that I always wanted’

Jalyssa still struggles with her mental health at times, but at Sand Point she now has enough stability in her life to persevere through it without fearing she may become homeless again. Her writing has taken on a new, more hopeful tone, she says, and she’s had a chance to seek out new opportunities to share her poetry beyond the internet.

And Mysun, who was nonverbal when they arrived in Seattle, is now a fearless third grader who rarely stops talking. With the support of Solid Ground case managers, Jalyssa got Mysun enrolled in special education programs to meet his needs and developed an individualized education program with his teachers.

“I came to Seattle with a nonverbal toddler, and now I live in a city park with two bedrooms,” Jalyssa says. “There’s literally everything that I always wanted. I always wanted to be paid for my writing, and now I’ve had opportunities to speak at events and be paid for it. I have people who pay to read my work on Patreon.”

But more than anything, Jalyssa is proud to be able to provide Mysun the stability and educational resources that she also needed but never had as a child.

“It’s so rewarding when I look at everything that I crawled through to be here,” she says. “I’m grateful that I’ve created a life for him where he feels safe and the freedom to be himself. No matter what, I did that for him.”

Read more of Jalyssa’s work on her Patreon page, A Void with a Voice.

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Photo at top: Jalyssa Charnae Elliott and her son Mysun find stability, self-determination, and joy together at Sand Point Housing (photo by Michael B. Maine).