I have overcame so much in my life, childhood trauma and abuse,foster care, drug addiction, homelessness, incarceration, and mental illness. In 2016 I sought treatment for bipolar disorder, I also decided to pursue my undergraduate degree in psychology on a pursuit to become an Licensed Professional Counselor, I want to provide affordable treatment to those that need it most in our society. I am now in graduate school studying mental health counseling. I could not have done this without my medications, they saved my life and changed me for the better. 

The idea of having a Bipolar Disorder stung me for a long time. When I’m feeling down, sometimes I feel the pressures of the stigma revolving around my mental illness. I always felt like there was a “normal” Valerie or a status quo that I had to

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            My name is Jennifer and I am a recovered mental illness survivor—

            I have endured severe mental illness for over half my life.  During that time, I suffered from clinical depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and borderline personality disorder.

            Due to the depression, my behaviors ranged from excessive crying to excessive sleeping to suicide attempts.  I felt feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and helplessness.  All I thought I wanted to do was die.   But in fact, what I really wanted was help with overcoming my severe sadness.

            During my manic states, I endured impulsive, spontaneous, and irresponsible behaviors.  I felt on top of world.  I felt excessive amounts of energy.  I had racing thoughts.  I had delusions of grandeur.  I’ll be honest.  It felt great to be so high, but it is also very dangerous.  Risky behaviors can lead to much endangerment of self and others.

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This year has been the year I’ve really worked on my recovery and my overall mental health. From a very young age I was depressed, fascinated with death and constantly anxious. I developed major body image issues as a child that turned into an eating disorder. I grew up with a biological father who was an addict, alcoholic, abusive and mentally ill with Bipolar Disorder.

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Hello, my name is Matthew.

I have a serious mental illness and the diagnosis is Bipolar disorder.

We all have our own story. Mine is how I went through school K-12 and always struggled with depression and anxiety but I never got the right treatment until my senior year of high school was falling apart.

I did graduate but it was more than getting to class on time, doing homework and studying for the next test. It was Bipolar 1… a serious and complicated illness. With words going around school that, I was falling apart like a monument that collapsed with no foundation. The foundation was not cemented it was my state of mind. A dark hole that comes quick, I went to Havenwick Mental Hospital.

I was ran a cross-country race, I was always a great runner since 10th grade. “Come on Matt speed up,” I finished with a bad time. Which was not me but my team treated it like it was. I was just dehydrated, which was true, but how about writing how you will run a race and do well in school the next day when you stay up until 3 am? Why, I was manic. Manic is less sleep more energy. (Superman) I felt like trash with a cherry on top.

Going back to 2005 when I was in kindergarten the alphabet was tough for me. The teachers most likely said he is hard on himself or he is slow. Ever since then I was hard on myself, but moving back to my senior year I was falling apart quickly and then started to not be as hard on myself once I received treatment at a mental hospital I felt happy and with peace to be in the same room as other people with mental illness. When I was in Havenwick Mental Hospital, I was thinking of my friends and people at my high school. Not as much as if I miss them, but the fact that the people in hospital with me did not take the small things for granted. Small things are like appreciation for one another.

Back at my high school it was you are a jerk get out of here you are a no buddy. Then I was rethinking my friends and being happy to talk to others that had a great appreciation of one another. Respect for one another. With respect comes a problem to connect about depression, anxiety, coping, medication, and other mental illness in a hospital room. I just think it ironic how the people that don’t realize they have it all but instead that blame other people for their problems. For the people in the hospital, it was just being happy to have shot at recovery. Ever since my recovery, I made a face with puzzle pieces each piece as a word that defines who I am. I made sure that I filled it all the way. To never looked back!

It took months maybe a year or two to feel very comfortable about being aware of mental illness. That’s what brought me to type this letter. Everyone has chances to somehow come out of your mental health problems. If not come out to feel somewhat relieved.

The treatment was more about faith than anything else faith that you have a shot to change for the better. Support groups are in many hospitals in the Metro Detroit Area. Just look on the web or a person that may know about mental health in general. If our problems were meant to be solved by ourselves we would not be speaking the same languages. Look what humans have done for thousands and thousands of years. Whether it was the next Empire or helping your neighbor down the street we have done it all. That’s what support is, its self help. What’s wrong with help, nothing. I have help. Great! “A man that faces his problems can teach someone else how to fight their problems, but not someone that runs away.”

Failure is just part of life, it’s learning from someone or your own past mistakes. A quote from Henry Ford the man that started the assembly line a line full of other people that work on different parts that help each other to achieve a goal that it’s hard but they made it look easy. “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”- Henry Ford to this day still makes a tremendous impact on the auto industry and assembly lines in general. He also made a lot of mistakes in the process but learned from one another. He made jobs for people with severe mental illnesses. (Production line) Hope this letter helps someone in need of hope in their lives.

Hello, I have always thought that sharing my story with the mental health community is important to bring hope to others that are just like me.

I’m a 37 year old divorced mother of two boys. I have been in therapy of some kind or another since I was 7 years old. Mental illness runs in my family as well as substance abuse addiction. I believe I was born with my many disorders that progressed and worsened as I got older, abused illegal drugs, prescribed medication and had my children. In my early childhood I showed all the many signs of OCD. I also grew up in an extremely chaotic family where my mother suffered terribly with her own mental illness that was never acknowledged or treated and an emotionally absent father. My two older siblings coped with this by using and abusing drugs and my older sister was put into rehab when I was seven. My older brother simply moved away and is still an addict today covering up his own mental health issues. My younger sister was extremely emotionally disturbed and would act out violently towards my parents but especially towards me. She would later become a drug addict for many years and thankfully entered recovery 4 ½ years ago.

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My mental health struggles began at only 15 years old I got bullied for years since the third grade it wasn’t bad then but it got bad in junior high name calling, rumors spread about me, made fun of for my braces on my teeth, made fun of for being of German descent and more. By eighth grade I hope things would get better and they did. I graduated eighth grade and had hopes high school would be better boy was I totally wrong about that! The first few weeks were great then then bullying started again this time it was a group of girls different ages who wanted to make each day a living nightmare and made me hate high school. They made fun of my outfits or that I wore leggings, laughed at me and talked about me behind my back, bullied me in the gym during the homecoming assembly, called me names. My breaking point came in 2010 in February after so many months of relentless teasing from those girls I became depressed and thought of suicide for the first time but the school social worker convinced me to stay alive. I continued to get bullied though and those thoughts were still there. I fought those thoughts as hard as I could but I was only 15 and the bullying had been going on too long. On March 19th, 2010 as I was leaving physical science class one of those girls who had been bullying me for months said something I never thought I would hear. That caused me to go somewhere I never thought I’d be. I survived that difficult journey but not without more struggles that followed. I continued to get bullied after March and then the rest of my high school years sophomore and junior year and Senior year and still struggled with more thoughts of suicide and then also self harm. I fell into a deeper depression at 16 and also struggled with body image issues and food issues and came close to developing an eating disorder at 17. I also came out at 16 as bisexual which increased bullying at school and then occurred online. I also got cyberbullied by classmates on Facebook various ways. I felt powerless and couldn’t escape the hate. I somehow made it through that too and also graduated high school. I then started college in fall of 2013 during that time I lost a professor and also my only living grandpa I had left. I fell into a deep depression again and had a relapse into self harm again I decided to do research because I was feeling really broken and lost and felt that perhaps I was dealing with something more than regular depression. I immediately recognized that I had lots of the signs and symptoms of bipolar disorder type 1. I started experiencing psychosis but it didn’t last long it went away and hasn’t came back since. I had episodes of mania/manic episodes and spent money on clothes I didn’t really need, bought Starbucks or some other pricey drink multiple days during the week and went through my money or points for food and drinks on my college card too fast and so much more. I had to do counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy it took a long time but with time I learned better coping skills and also was recommended to see the campus psychologist or psychiatrist whichever one diagnoses someone with a mental illness. In January of 2014, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 1 at only 19 years old. I was recommended to take lithium and an anti depressant. I decided against them because the side effects but now at 23 years old I am thinking maybe I should try to find a med cocktail both an anti depressant and mood stabilizer that works for me. It’s been a long journey but I am a fighter and warrior now and still have sometimes slip up and relapse but I am currently doing well in recovery but some days are harder than others. I have been doing many things to help me cope with the highs and lows of it but do think maybe some meds could help me on my bad days. I’m just afraid of the effects. I hope my story can help someone else struggling and inspire someone to reach out for help or maybe just find it as a story they can relate to.

I just want to talk to people about my mental health struggles throughout my life and how I’ve overcome each and everyone of these hurdles and how I could be inspiration to others. Through the power of open and honest communication and never giving up on oneself I’ll be honored to talk about my struggles but also my hope that I can give people that are struggling today day with things that they cannot control in the midst of the coronavirus