Hey there,

I recall having an underlying depression in my teenage years. I developed extreme anxiety and sever depression in college. It lingers to this day and I sometimes have suicidal thoughts. I have developed many, many coping mechanisms and become a substantially more functioning person. Still, it has always been a stigma-and that has been a shame. I’m glad this forum exists to express my mental illness. I also believe the extremely sensitive person that I am-that allows for the mental illness- is also what makes me creative and compassionate. So, I am also glad for sensitivity! My mental illness/symptoms are often good barometers for when I need to make change and take action-so they can be helpful as well!

Coping with anxiety and depression has been a constant in my life.  I’d developed decades worth of coping skills and silently fought my way through, wondering why things always seemed to be more of a struggle for me.  In the summer of 2017, after having 3 babies in 3 and ½ years and outside responsibilities mounting beyond what I could manage, I suffered a debilitating bout with anxiety.  I couldn’t sleep or eat, I couldn’t function.  As I read and studied and prayed and reached out for help, I decided to hope.  For the first time in my life, I discovered hope isn’t just a feeling that comes, it is a decision, an action, a verb.  I chose to cling to the knowledge that things would get better, and they did, and they always will.

Sending love and hope and healing out into the universe.  Keep fighting.

**Trigger Warning**

Hi. I used to be really mentally ill. I have had panic attacks, the worst case of obsessive compulsive disorder, bi-polar, anxiety and depression. I have struggled with substance abuse.  I have struggled with self-harm and suicide. One year I tried to kill myself multiple times. 

Treatment:

Coping- I have learned several coping skills. They really help.

Recovery- I was inpatient at a mental hospital. It really helped.

Therapy- I usually see my therapist every other week. It really helps.

Medication- My medication really helps too.

I hate the stigma!

I moved in with my abusive step mother in 2006 and lived with here till 2014 when my dad died of cancer (i was 11). I now live with my bipolar mom and little brother. I suffer from PTSD, OCD, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, and panic attacks. I used to be suicidal, but I could not leave my brother all alone with my mother, so I’m coping.

My entire life since I can remember I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression. High school is when it started to manifest the most, and so on through college and my early adult years (now). Each stage I have dealt with these issues in unhealthy coping mechanisms weather it be self harm, reckless behavior or most recently and certainly the most heavily with drinking. What I didn’t realize was the last two years of my college career into my first year as a working adult was that I had fully developed Bipolar tendencies. It wreaked havoc on my life, my relationships, my work, my finances and especially my self worth. Periods of manic ups and depressive downs had me feeling absolutely crazy. I was reckless, and quite out of control. My reputation was at stake and my life was in trouble. While you may be apprehensive in the moment or not able to help yourself, what I have to share is that when you’re ready, you must. Since getting myself to my doctor and having a candid conversation, she’s prescribed me with the correct medications and I’ve been working on myself consistently. I can say without a doubt that I am absolutely 100% more functional and stable while being correctly diagnosed and helped by medical professionals. There is help and there are solutions! Let someone know you need help, whoever it might be, I didn’t tell anyone except my doctor and proceeded not to tell anyone until I knew my treatment worked. Not every day will be perfect, but It IS absolutely worth it and you can get better and live a stable life. Please help yourself if yourself is all you have. You are worth it and you are able to find stability. You are NOT alone. Brie

Hello.  My name is Jeff.  I’ve been coping with moderdate depression, general anxiety, issues around self-harm, and trauma issues since I was a teenager.  Around age 16 I turned to music and started playing guitar to give me a sense of worth, and accomplishment.  Iplayed a lot of metallica and megadeth when I first started playing.  I ended up at Berklee College of music.  While I was there I made a number of close friends, that I am still in contact with.  I however also began drinking quite a bit.  I wouldn’t drink every day, but when I did I would get totally obliterated.  I was mostly ro compe with anxiety, and to express things I had kept to myself for years out of anxiety.  Ultimately I came to the point where I was drinking alone.  By the time I finfished music school I was self-harming.  The first time or so it was about self punnishment, but before too long I realized that because of the endorphines I would feel ok for about a half hour after. 

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I live continuously with the uncertainty of my destiny but I strive everyday to change the outcome of the stigma attached to my disorders. BPD, ADHD, major depression and generalized anxiety. I could play the victim and blame others for my outcome but that was only an outline or precursor of who I was to become, I’ve had to learn and establish coping skills to tame the beast. Do I lose control, absolutely! Am I still alive, obviously. The problem with being a high functioning BPD is I am overly self aware of my triggers and constantly screaming inside STOP STOP what you are doing this is insane and unacceptable. Anyone who knows has BPD knows that, that inner voice is not enough to stop what you are doing and go back to the rational way of thinking instead of the emotional.

Just like the hulk, he is always angry. The constant turmoil of keeping the hulk under wraps can be in itself exhausting. No normal person will fully understand the struggle but I want to do my best to explain both sides of the spectrum. The hulk is a coping mechanism, a tool we use to either force real abandonment or test the limits to its last string. If someone leaves because we force their hand it’s just a prophecy we’ve forced to come true and if someone stays and endures are wrath we BPDs need to take responsibility that we are no longer hurting ourselves anymore  but destroying someone else’s psyche in the process. That’s not acceptable and has to be addressed.

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I am one of the many faces of mental illnesses. I have been diagnosed with depression, generalized anxiety disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. I’ve struggled with this from an early age and only recently have I started coping with my mental health. When I was on one kind of antidepressant it made me extremely suicidal and aggressive, I finally had it changed to something more suited for me. I wasn’t able to do this on my own though. It took someone stepping in and addressing that I had a substance abuse problem and telling me to get help. I have been clean for 4 months now and I’m working towards staying healthy, both for myself and for my family. I take medication daily and I see a counselor weekly. If there is hope for me then I know there is hope for you or your family member that is struggling with a mental illness. Please, don’t he ashamed to ask for help. There is always someone out there who will understand!

Depression, for me, is genetic. The fact that I cannot point to a specific event that triggered my symptoms makes the disease seem more nebulous. I’m more susceptible to believing that well-meaning person that says “You’re young! You have a beautiful family! How could you be depressed?” Maybe, I think, I’m not sick. Maybe it’s my attitude. 

It’s not. I am sick. Don’t let your depression be nebulous. How can you battle an enemy that has no shape or form? I tell my mom, who has suffered and fought for 40 years (yet still asks her psychiatrist from time to time: “Am I really sick?”) that neither of us should be ashamed to say that we suffer from clinical depression, or mixed mood disorder or major depressive disorder, whatever you want to call it. If depression is the reason that I struggle to get out of bed, or leave the house - anything - why should I be afraid to say that?

Breast cancer awareness has pink ribbons. Families of soldiers fly yellow ribbons. Autism uses blue. But did you know, we have a colored ribbon all our own? It’s silver. Just because people can’t see inside yourself and see the way you struggle to cope with basic tasks from time to time doesn’t mean it isn’t real. I don’t have a cast, or a port for chemotherapy, or a pacemaker, but I still am fighting a disease. I label that depression. I put a face on it. I do what I can to make it into something that I can fight. For now, I’m not going to win. I know there isn’t a cure. I’m still going to have bad feelings, terrible pains, like I’m free-falling out of control, or circling the drain.

But, if in the midst of those feelings, I can stop and say, “I am sick, and this is real”, then I can see my opponent. I can visualize him. And I can fight. 

This the continuation from my first submission , it got sent on an accident and it wasn’t completed.  So what I was saying is when I read Harvest time on NAMI’s not alone page when she talked about the Good Seeds & Bad Seeds , I understood what she meant plant good seeds and receive a good Harvest, and throw a way the Bad Seeds an don’t pass them on to anyone.  I realize that that is the truest statement that I read , I realized that that is what I’ve been doing all my life, with my children , husband, with everyone and allowing others to throw there Bad seeds on me.  So With that being said, I’m going to do my very best to cope and plant good seeds and throw away the bad.  I going to go to this DUI school  an get my license back , continue my therapy ,continue my Meds and most of  all plant good seeds an take care of myself.  and know truly,  believe that there is no HOPLESS SITUATION.