For awhile I have wanted to write this, but I was too afraid too. I decided to because people around are sharing their stories and I admire them for it because they bring awareness and say to others struggling that they aren’t alone. I hope that mine will do the same, this is my story with mental health.
I have changed both physically and mentally throughout the almost twenty years of my life. I learned to grow and sometimes even laugh at some of the mistakes I have made. I can laugh at a mistake, but also be caught up in it and overthink it. I was an odd kid in middle school, I’ll admit it. After I did something stupid for attention, when I was thirteen, I instantly regretted it. People would talk about me and what I did, but they didn’t know that I really regretted it. I couldn’t control what they were saying about me, but there was something that I could control. That is when my eating disorder and obsession with my weight developed.

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Show Me how to love, 

And I’ll show you how to feel

So insecure that nothing seems real. 

Show me, please show me, how to love. 

Show me how to dance

And I’ll give you a chance

To dash your dreams of true romance

Show me, please show me, how to love. 

Show me how to sing

And I’ll teach you a thing

About sadness and sorrow and snow in the spring,

Show me, please show me, how to love. 

I’m giving you one more chance to reach out to me. 

But you will never know, unless you,

Show me. 

At 10 months old my grandma and Father picked me up from a Child Care Provider’s home. My Mother had left me there.
Although, my Father didn’t raise me, he was in and out of my life. I was 3 years old when I met my Mother. She came to get me from my Grandma’s house. My Father wouldn’t let me go with her.
Growing up I missed not having my parents there with me. My Grandma did her best. She was 56 years old when she picked me up
At age 13 I went to live with my Mother. I was there for 3 months. I was happy to go back to home Grandma’s.

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Challenge me

Challenge me to change my thinking
Inspire me with your words
Open my mind to new wonders
Excite my learning excite my knowledge

Challenge me to speak my words
My words speak the trurh
Challenge me to not become afraid
My words may conflict with your words
Remind me it’s okay to disagree

Challenge me to grow and let go
Excite me to want to become independent
Excite me to want to speak my words
Excite me to change my thinking

Challenge me to expand my life
Teach me assertiveness
So I can be on my own one day
Teach me to become uncomfortable
So I can get out of my small box
Teach me patience
It doesn’t happen overnight

Challenge me to live a full life
Challenge me to be the best I can be
In which all these things will make my life empowered!

Borderline. Borderline means that I am so pervasively empty that I become hyper sensitive to the world around me. Borderline means that the emptiness within me leaves me to feed off any and all changes in my surroundings to let me know what’s going on, to comfort me, to torment me, to please me, to concern me. To me borderline means I’m constantly on the border of coming to terms with a sense of being before the next little change. To all the people in my life that have stuck with me this far it means that I thank you for being sensitive to those changes and loving and supporting me anyways. I’m really grateful for a lot of really great people.

Please remember me.

Please remember me when my face is empty and troubled,

When I hardly speak and no longer laugh.

Please remember me.

Please remember me when you have to drag me out of bed in the morning,

When I don’t have the energy to do the laundry or get the mail.

Please remember me,

Please remember me when I can’t eat the meals you prepare,

When the sight of food makes me ill and I become weak.

Please remember.

Please remember me when I can’t even drive myself to my appointments,

When I can’t go to work and be the nurse I worked hard to become.

Please remember me.

Please remember me when I stop filling our social calendar with fun,

When I don’t want to go to concerts, travel, hike, or climb.

Please remember me.

Please remember me when I become insecure,

When I lose my independence and cling to you.  

Please remember me even when I forget myself.

Please don’t give up on me.

Please remind me I’m still here. 

I suffer from schizophrenia. I am also legally blind. I have retinitis pigmentosa. I was seeing a psychiatrist for medicine. However the medicine I was taking did it agree with me. The police were called. They came in the house where my mother lives. They surrounded me. So I sat on the sofa. They surrounded me. Then one of them jumped on me. I was worrying they were going to hurt me. One of them punched me. I could barely see what they were doing. One of them was dragging me from the sofa with handcuffs. I did not do anything wrong. Later on they brought charges against me. They say I either have to plead guilty or face face five years in jail. Again I am legally blind. I use a cane to walk. After they did this I went to their hospital where they kept giving me the wrong medicine. After They took me to their hospital six times. My parents took me to a city hospital. It’s much better. Than having people that don’t care you attack you. Then you have to defend yourself because of it. I didn’t see why they need three police people to subdue me. I wasn’t violent. I was calm. I went to sit on the sofa. They start talking loud and getting all excited. Making it seem like I’m violent. I was calm. I see now how unfair the criminal justice system is to thee mentally ill.

-The routine of caring for my dog, Fuzzy, adds structure to my day. I can’t sleep all day, because she needs me to feed and walk her and play with her. She depends on me.

-The responsibility of caring for Fuzzy helps to improve my self esteem. I can see the results of a job well done when she learns a new trick or thanks me by nuzzling me after I feed her.

-Caring for Fuzzy reminds me that caring for myself is also important. Both of us need time and attention.

-Multiple studies have shown time and again that pet owners demonstrate measurable positive biological responses such as lowered blood pressure, slowed heart rate, and decreased muscle tension. Time spent with Fuzzy calms and relaxes me.

-Being with pets increases our levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, which are critical for inducing sensations of pleasure and well being. When Fuzzy and I spend time together in the evening, I seem to fall asleep easier.

-Pet owners consistently self report reductions in feelings of anxiety and depression and an increase in happiness. Fuzzy helps me feel less anxious and more joyful.

-Walking Fuzzy, playing catch, and picking up sticks for a game of fetch is good exercise for the both of us. It gets me out in nature, and I feel less cooped up.

-Pets can help us interface more easily with others. Walking Fuzzy often leads to conversations with other dog owners. We can form effective social networks around shared interests. I interact more easily with others in this “low risk” type of environment.

-Fuzzy helps me live in the moment. She isn’t worried about the future or the past. She’s all about “right now”.

-Caring for a living being other than myself gets me out of my own head. Fuzzy reminds me that my problems aren’t at the center of the universe.

-Fuzzy needs me as much as I need her. It’s a warm, wonderful symbiosis.

For as long as I can remember, It’s been here. Existing in me, this demon that I cannot control. It binds me. It holds me. It suffocates me. I cannot breathe some days. This demon that has taken me, is me. It is my mind. My worries, my fears, my internal cries for help. It is my anxiety. "Anxiety" I’ve come to hate that word. It does not do justice to how I feel or how others see me.

At the age of 5 I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder known as Selective Mutism. You probably don’t know what that is. My psychologist barely knew. It mostly affects children and results in the inability to speak to others in certain situations. Since my diagnosis, I have been prescribed handfuls of medications, each with different side effects that have sent me through depression and various mental breakdowns. Going through these situations, I have been dealt with the difficulties of explaining to people what is “wrong with me.” I do not like to tell them I have anxiety because I do not feel anxiety is a good enough word to describe the years of agonizing mental battles I have had. Yet, I do because it is the easier way. How do I tell someone that it’s almost impossible to leave the house some days. That almost every day I find myself shaking and sobbing, yelling at myself because I want it to stop. It’s not just anxiety, its a disease. A disease that ravishes the brain and takes control. 

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Just treat me right sir…Like how many times?!
When I put my hands up in the air
the stress of the moment gets me down
the tension the anxiety stiffens me up
the blues the agony makes me tired
all I want to do is play hide except you seek me out
You seek me out with my weaknesses
You seek me out with my inabilities
and soon I run out of steam
Yet you still react the same way
I look at you with tired eyes
I walk away with shrugged shoulders
I walk away with sadness
and soon I am barely there
Yet you still don’t see me
I walk away with my head down
I walk away with my eyes glued to the floor
I walk away realizing you will never get to know me
Like how many times…just treat me right sir!