In August of 2019, I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and my doctor recommended exercise to treat it.  This all started in 2005, when I was diagnosed with a postpartum mental illness and treated with medications that have known metabolic side effects.   My diagnosis was later changed to Schizoaffective Disorder.  Every time I’ve been taken off medication, I’ve gotten sick again, so I need the mental health medication, even though it has side effects.

My work provides the benefit of points towards a gym membership. So, I joined the gym after I learned about my diagnosis. As part of joining my gym, I had a free consultation visit with a personal trainer. At the end of the visit, we sat down, and he took out his notepad.

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My name is Robert Hagee and I have a mental illness, I have had the illness since childhood, it was believed to be schizophrenia when I was young but came to schizoaffective disorder. If I was to write anything about my illness it would be this: that without my mother who was very strong from her life struggles as a child and as an adult, I would not have survived; I look back and realize if I was to know of all my issues and struggles to come when was a young and not to know of the good I do not believe I would have continued. There are other issues with my health and the hardest thing I face is that my mother will be at my funeral and my only regret I would ever change is the fact that my mother has had to experience my life with me.

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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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Hello, I wanted to write to those attempting to understand mental illness. My name is Jori, I spent my entire life not knowing or understanding why most people didn’t see the things I saw or heard the things I heard so I always knew I was gifted and a chosen one in my mind. My mother was diagnosed with 8 personalities and my father had severe mental illness too which I am not sure was ever diagnosed but because of his alcohol and drug addictions, I am not sure if people assumed his addictions were the issue which was just a bandage for the real problems in his mind.

I first began to notice I had something wrong when I was about 14 and I would snap, once attacking my mother whom I hated and throwing her to the floor in attempt to kill her. I was removed from the home and lived with a family which I observed kindness and loving relationships which was my first opportunity to see things in the home I came from were not acceptable as far as neglect and verbal, mental and sexual abuse.

I never graduated from high school and had two children with two different fathers who abandoned me during my pregnancies, leaving me to care for my children as a single parent. I did not know that I was supposed to bath my children and my oldest got an infection and had to have a surgery on his penis which flared up from never being cleaned by the age of 3. My fear was keeping him safe and not abusing him. I also would give my children a cup of chocolate milk and a vitamin in the morning and send them off to school without a lunch. The school finally began giving my children the free lunch programs so they would have something to eat. I never learned to cook or do self care until I observed friends caring for themselves. Life was tough, life was lonely and the loneliness has never left me for some reason I hold a hatred for my parents still to this day and I am 48.

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Taking one day at a time as I see my son recover from from being diagnose as having schizoaffective disorder. Everyday is struggle, however he is still trying to recover and make the best of what is normal for him in his mindset. Even though things took a turn when he was in college at the prime of his life, he made it back home safe in my arms. I welcome him with open arms as I try to come to terms of what happened to my baby, my first born. In this life he will always have a label holding him back from being all he can be because of what society shows. As I stand to help him recover, I open his eyes to not being a mental health client who is pushed to the side. I hold his hand as he walk this valley we call life and to live happy and know that he is truly loved. There is no love like a mother love for her child, so I say love your child even in the darkest time that they don’t understand.

I am a 36 yr old mom of 5 kids. I had a 8 year period of homelessnesand neglect drugs abuse etc. I recently forced myself to accept the 20 yrs of mental health diagnoseses of bipolar 1 p.t.s.d. schizoaffective disorder. I woke up in a eugene oregon hospital uncertain of how i got there. they explained i overdosed on zyprexa. they told me they had to shock my heart twice to revive me, pump my stomachce, they could barely get an iv in me my bloodpressure plumetted to nothing they had me in a warming unit. they saved my life when i tried to end it and now two months later i feel depressed major and need support.

Mental illness has been a part of my life for the past 30 years.  There have been many ups and downs.  There have been times I was hopeless and wanted to die.  Mental illness has even consumed my life at times.  Even so, mental illness does not define me.  I am more than schizoaffective disorder, depression, and bipolar 2.  I am not ashamed to have these disorders.  But I am also more than a label.  I am a unique person who happens to have a mental illness.  I do, however, understand that these labels are important, since they are used in giving the doctors direction in the best treatment for me. 

Having a mental illness has been the worst and best thing to happen to me.  It has been the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with.  It has disrupted my life.  It has caused much pain for me and my family.  And it has moved me to the point of almost taking my own life.  Yet, having a mental illness has taught me many things about myself and about life.  I have learned that joy can be found in the simplest of things.  Every day is a day to start over and begin again.  I have seen more love and compassion from family and friends than I may have never seen otherwise.  I am more capable than I would have ever imagined to stand up to the hardest of life’s challenges.   Perseverance has become my friend.  And faith leads to healing for mind, body, and soul.

This thing we call life throws things at us sometimes that can overwhelm us and push us to our limit.  It dangles hope in front of us sometimes, only to jerk it away in an instant.  And just at the moment we think we have it figured out along comes a curve ball in the form of unforeseen relapses and occasional hospitalizations.  Mental illness has robbed me of many years of productivity and happiness.  But it has also led me to where I am today.  And that is a good place.  It is a place that I never dreamed I would be.  I am blessed with a wife who loves and understands me and a son who loves me unconditionally.  I have a sense of purpose and a desire to help others who are living with a mental illness. 

Yes, having a mental illness takes away so much from people.  However, learning to live life with a mental illness can give a new sense of meaning and purpose.  Finding this meaning and purpose is a process that takes time and patience.  Rome wasn’t built in a day.  And discovering meaning in the pain of mental illness won’t come overnight. 

I believe that real meaning in life can be found in the quality, not quantity, of life that we have.  Because, of the treatment I have received and the help of many caring people I am able to experience the quality of life that escaped me for many, many years.  Now, I am convinced there is a purpose for my pain.  My life has meaning.  And, hope, is a common word in my vocabulary.  There is hope.  There is always hope.  Mental illness does not define me.  It is not who I am.  It is something I am learning to live with and overcome every day.  By the grace of God, my future is bright.  And I am determined to shine the light of hope on others who may also be living with a mental illness. 

I wanted to take a moment to share my story and individual struggle with mental illness, the system we all live in and why it is important now more than ever to advocate on behalf of those living with various mental illnesses. My name is Dan Olson and I have been involved in mental health and treatment in one form or another for the past 25 years. I was removed from the home as a child due to severe physical and mental abuse. I placed in various foster and group homes because I was born into a cycle of poverty and alcohol abuse and when removed from my mother’s care, there was no support system there for me. This was the early 90s and I was acting out at the time due to severe mental trauma and was diagnosed as ADHD and placed on medications. None of the juvenile treatment programs was able to break through to me but they did plant some positive seeds that were able to bear some fruit in the future. My rebellion and lack of structure led me to harder juvenile corrections more focused on punitive philosophy and eventually my actions led me to the State Correctional Facility. From that point on for many years I was lost in the system, lost in my own mind and anger. But I had hope. I had a child and he stuck with me always in the back of my mind. I was determined to not allow him to succumb to the same problems I had, I was committed to being a father and self-improvement.  It was a struggle and many mistakes have been made on the way but I earned a Clinical Psychology Degree, and through the intellectual understanding of my mental blocks I was able to overcome them.  I wish I could say that education is the complete answer but I don’t believe anything is so simple. My education introduced me to ideas and concepts that continue to place me in direct opposition of authority. I belief in the mental health field today there is entirely too much focus on profits and pharmaceuticals.  This knowledge and struggle against what inevitably can only be described as the double bind of society and attempt to solve an unsolvable problem led me to have a psychotic breakdown. To those familiar I relate this breakdown to Carl Jungs own psychological experiment into neurosis. I had more run in’s with the police and at one point was actually beaten and tazed.  Today I am diagnosed as some latent form of schizophrenia. I can if I am not aware spiral into psychotic episodes that seem to be based in ideas of dissociation. With the support of my psychiatrist we are on a test run of allowing me to be in charge of my own treatment using principles of mindfulness. It is my hope that possibly I can discover new ideas and treatments for mental disease while continuing to work on my own self-improvement and recovery.  I hope to be returning to education soon and to the MASC (Masters of Communications Studies) studies program at Edinboro. I have found that intellectual stimulation, goals, and sobriety great benefits to my attitude and mental health. I hope that I can be a beacon to others struggling through the same dark rooms I once did and can combine my street knowledge and prison experience with my Clinical Psychology and Communication Studies to become the kind of leader and advocate people suffering with mental illness deserve.

Please help my nephew Zechariah. On July 18, 2017, he was arrested by a police officer. He is 22; he has was diagnosed with mental illness since he was 16. His mom called the police in order to get them to transport him to a mental health facility because he was hallucinating, yelling, and being paranoid. Zack has been prescribed medication for his condition and seeing a therapist, but Instead of the police transporting him to a facility. They beat and tased him and took him to Prison on Monday night. Now they are charging him with assault on police office, resisting arrests, and disorderly conduct. His bail is 100,000; His mom told the officers several time that he was mentally ill, but they told her to “shut up.” #helpForTheMentallyiLL #notPrison Please help get the truth out🙏he doesn’t belong in prison..