Living with Schizophrenia can be scary and confusing. A lot of times you aren’t sure what is real and what voice is yours. Despite how much it has impacted my life, I still try to look for the positive in my illness. The stories the voices tell me become stories, poems and artwork.
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#mental illness #mental health #hope #schizophrenia #submission #coping #Support #stigmaMy 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.
Everyone struggles with something in life. Some struggle for brief periods of time and some struggle every day. I belong to the some who struggle every day. Since I was 5 years old I have constantly struggled with mental illness. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, ADD, ADHD, PTSD, and attention deficit Disorder. My dad, step mother, and Step Father physically abused me for most of my life because they didn’t understand what I was going through and my Mother was the only person in my life to try to help me through everything I was dealing with. Unfortunately I did not trust anyone around me due to how I was treated at home and because I was constantly bullied at school because I was different. Eventually the abuse I was facing at my step fathers house led to me going into a state of shock and I tried to hurt my mother because I was so out of it and thought she was my step father. I was 15 at this point and was detained.
Since October 2014 after receiving therapy and meds for one year I decided to join NAMI and become more proactive about ending #stigma about suicide and mental illness, partially at the suggestion of my therapist and partially because of my own suffering. Maybe stigma is less than it was in the 1960’s and 1970’s but it’s still alive and well. If someone in the family or in the workplace complete suicide no-one wants to talk about it its like that person never existed. I suffered suicide losses both in my family and in the workplace. Due to heredity and both family and marital abuse/neglect I suffer from BPD. Sounds like 5 words to ruin a first date: I have Borderline Personality Disorder. I am still learning how to cope with my intense feelings and how to control some of them. Posting on NAMI and attending meetings has helped me a lot.
I attended the talk by Dr. Stephen Geisler at Zucker Hillside (Queens/Nassau) where he discussed Clozapine treatment for Schizophrenia which I found interesting. I am also reading “On the Road” by Dr.Oliver Sacks where he tells of living with stigma and of his mistakes but also his ultimate success in his chosen profession.
I have been diagnosed with a long list of mental illnesses. I suffer from severe depression and anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Out of all of them, BPD affects my life the most. I have had BPD my whole life. From pre-school to elementary, I would cry the night before, the morning of, and during school because I wanted to be with my mother. One of the symptoms of BPD is fear of abandonment/paranoia of being abandoned. I did not want to be separated from my mother because I was afraid of being left behind.
Other symptoms of BPD are: feelings of extreme anger for no reason, a pattern of unstable relationships, disassociation, mood swings, depression, anxiety, impulsive dangerous behavior, feelings of emptiness, distorted and unstable self-image, and self-harm/suicidal ideations.
BPD also affects the way one thinks. They see things only as black or white - there is no gray area. In addition, people with BPD put someone they just met on a pedestal, then immediately drops them if the person says/does something they do not like/approve of. It can be the smallest thing and most times, the person has no idea that they did anything offensive. Having BPD distorts the mind, leaving the person unable to think clearly and logically.
I have burned so many bridges because of my fits of rage, my inability to handle stressful situations, and my attachment issues (fear of abandonment).
I have been in and out of the psychiatric ward at the hospital because of BPD. Every time I am released from the psychiatric ward I am hopeful and optimistic, praying that this will be the last time I will be in the psychiatric ward. Except, I always end up going back. I feel so frustrated because I am taking ten steps backwards from recovery.
Borderline personality disorder.
Hello there, my name is Leah Groom and I’d like to share my story with you today.
When I was 18 I was diagnosed with Borderline personality disorder which hit me like a ton of bricks, why is this happening? Why me? What did I ever do wrong? All sorts of questions were running through my head I was terrified and felt isolated from the rest of the world feeling like nobody would ever understand me, I shut my family out and let myself coil in self despair. Getting a diagnosis is hard but it’s also a huge relief although I felt all these extremely negative feelings I also felt like I finally had an answer.
For many years I felt as though something was wrong, before I had my diagnosis I was a wreck. I couldn’t cope with my emotions I had this unexplainable anger inside I couldn’t understand why I felt so paranoid and hated I never wanted to be alone I clung to a very unhealthy relationship if we ever broke up I’d cry and feel suicidal and beg for him to come back I refused to sleep alone and slept with my mother if he wasn’t there, I left my work, I left education, I self harmed, I was always anxious, If I tried to sleep in my own room by myself I’d hear voices which terrified me, I never felt so alone. Desperate and fragile I reached out for help and that’s when they diagnosed me. At first I couldn’t believe what I was hearing at first to me it felt as though I was being degraded “Not so bad personality disorder” is what I referred it to. Until I actually searched up the meaning, the word borderline is used because people with this illness border between “Psychosis and neurosis”. For me this explained a lot and made me feel that there really WAS something wrong and the term “Borderline” wasn’t used to belittle my illness. As messed up and alone as I felt, worrying that the world and others around me would judge me, petrified of the stigma I reached out…
And things slowly started to change….
My name is Amy and I have bipolar 1 disorder. Both my parents had mental health issues: Dad bipolar 1 and Mom borderline personality disorder so i am genetically predisposed to my condition.
I have had episodes of severe to mild mania followed by depression of equal intensity. Though I am relatively stable on my meds it is still a struggle, sometimes daily.
I’m embarrassed to say that I often tell people I have an anxiety disorder vs. bipolar to account for times when I can’t sleep or when I have a panic attack. Particularly for upper management where I work. I find that people can relate better to that vs. bipolar which brings about images of serial killers and perpetrators of mass shootings. It’s just that bipolar is not well understood and I have lost my marriage, some friends and family. Some people are visibly afraid of me because they think I’m unstable or judge me for times it was hard to parent my kids.
Having said that, I have come a long way in my recovery. I have a great job with a flexible schedule. I’m compliant with my meds, have a superb psychiatric and a solid bond with my therapist. Wonderful friends and family support too. I’m also doing my best to repair my relationship with my kids.
In fact, I am a NAMI Certified Support Group Leader and I can tell you that people with mental illness can get better and manage their disorder. We have good days and bad days but keep hope alive and don’t isolate. NAMI has fantastic resources to help you along. I use them all the time, follow NAMI on Facebook and donate when I can.
Have faith and remember you are not alone.
Amy
I have been struggling with mental illness from a young age. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, adhd, ocd, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, psychogenic seizures, and a learning disability. I also am I recovering addict. I would like to spread my story to those in need to show them that the darkness does fade as long as you have the strength to flip the light. The goal is to inspire everyone but if that is not possible I aim to touch at least one person.
TO ANYONE WITH ANY MENTAL ILLNESS OF ANY AGE:
(you don’t have to be in middle school)
Middle School’s known to be some of the hardest years of our lives, between hormones and homework it’s tough enough to make it through without mental health and the stigma it so often carries. As it’s impossible to make it through a class without someone making a joke about a mental illness either a friend of mine or I have, I’ve come to a certain conclusion. Teenagers will be teenagers, it shouldn’t be that way, it shouldn’t be an excuse to kidding about things that people truly struggle with on a daily basis, but it is. Sometimes things in life are just stupid, but we can’t let that get to us.
I’m a 13 (almost 14) year old in the ignorant year of 8th grade, towards the end of last year a few things in life went really, really wrong, and it resulted in a series of unfortunate events (no pun intended). Basically, by the time 8th grade started, I had not only experienced my fair share of panic attacks, gone to a therapist several times, but I had also been diagnosed with depression and an anxiety disorder. I had basically hidden from my entire grade during the summer, so as school started up again and I was struck by a mass of indirect insults towards my mental illnesses, let’s just say there was a lot of tears at the beginning of the year.
My hopes in writing this article is to have the reader read this and finish with a greater sense of what it is like to live life with mental illness. Stigma around mental illness can be conquered; it won’t be completely gone but it can be less frequent with education and most importantly by people who speak out. Living with mental illness is manageable with the right kind of support and treatment. So this is my story living with schizophreniforum (a type of schizophrenia) and borderline personality disorder.
When I was eighteen, as my therapist said it, shit blew up. I had just gotten disqualified from the Navy in March of 2011 after lying about some information in my medical records and quite frankly I did not feel like it was for me. As it turned out being in the Navy wouldn’t have worked out anyways because of what happened two months later. After my ordeal with the enlisting in the military, I was trying to escape from my embarrassing moments by taking medication. This medication was an anti-anxiety drug used to calm the person down instantly. What I didn’t realize that by not following the prescription directions there would be serious consequences to my health.
Hello there my name is Sonbela, my story is that i really have the schizophrenia. Being that 1 percent of people have the illness, i would like to have the support and educate myself about how to better deal with it adjust.