I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Depression during the Summer of 2013 when I was going into the Eighth Grade.

I had the symptoms of both mental illnesses my entire life, hoarding at age five, nail biting and skin picking at age seven, panic attacks and paranoia starting at eight, and my first thoughts of suicide and suicide attempt at the age of nine.

My life had been ruled by my mental illnesses since I was old enough to count.

By 2013, both me and my parents knew that without intervention, I would never see my sixteenth birthday.

So I got help.

I went to therapy. I got diagnosed. I did exposure treatment. I got medicated.

I stayed alive.

I found myself.

Turns out I am a huge nerd. A comedy queen who loves to make others laugh, and a pretty damn awesome person.

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One in five adults live with mental illness

You’ve spent your childhood watching your mother or father struggle with anxiety, depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder. You can’t remember if you put the cuts on your arms or if it was something they did. Everything may be going smoothly and suddenly, you find yourself furious, panicky or tearful and you don’t know why. They never noticed the cuts. Your life is often filled with anxiety, uncertainty, and vigilance. You don’t let your father see you cry when his anger breaks your jewelry box; the gift you cherished that he gave you only two months ago. You were plagued by loneliness, vulnerability, and helplessness. You felt unwanted, abandoned, and lost. 

I was convinced no one would believe me, so I hid my chaotic home life from everyone. I was the family mediator, calming down a frightened father and comforting a sad, lonely mother. I convinced myself I was defective or different from other kids. When I was in school, instead of paying attention to my teachers, I’d spend all day worrying about how my mom was doing.

I lived in a permanent state of hyper-vigilance, constantly attuned to my father’s erratic moods and my mother’s helplessness. I chose to stay close to my emotionally unavailable, controlling partners and swallowed my needs to gain their approval. I wish I was beaten. I’d feel more legitimate. Who cares about me? Doesn’t anyone notice? I felt angry. I felt scared. The problem is no one can see my scars. I feel like if I told someone I was verbally abused, they’d think I was just complaining about being yelled at. If I’d been a better daughter my mother wouldn’t have been so sick. If I’d been a better son my mother wouldn’t have been so sick. All I knew was my grandparents were telling me that mum’s sick and dad was telling me that mum’s sick and I was confused, because she didn’t look sick to me.

I need positive feedback

Trauma and betrayal.

Staying out of the way, and staying safe.

Growing myself up.

I found myself in a paralyzing depression. I was suffering from complex posttraumatic stress disorder. There’s nobody in this world who loves me … I don’t have a mother’s love or a father’s love, or, family love… so it wouldn’t matter if I disappeared off the face of the earth.

My mother stopped sleeping when I went to college. Maybe it was my father’s heart attacks, maybe it was me. She’s been withering since. My familial environment was terrifying, and the chronic nature of this negativity exacerbated the effects of the neglect and abuse I endured. I found myself constantly trying to fix him. When I’m asleep and my roommate burns her grilled cheese at two in the morning my heart races as the smoke detector beeps. It takes everything in me to stop the panic building. The tears escape anyway. Growing up with dad, I never felt secure… and I know that I have always been anxious, my whole life. I feared to pass on the illness to a future generation. I’m scared to have kids. What if I treat them the same way my parents treated me? What if I don’t get well enough to care for them?

These were necessary behaviors when I was young, but they aren’t vital for my survival anymore. You can identify and stop participating in abusive relationship dynamics. Try to engage with people who make you feel safe and respected, who listen well and are emotionally available. I can be my own person. Thank your shame for protecting you and ask it to please step back. Your childhood was not your fault. It was ok to put some distance between me and my mother, even though I loved her. I named, validated and felt the sadness in my body as I gave myself compassion. I took a walk through the park and looked at nature. I felt better. It fostered empathy, compassion, and resilience. You had terrible role modeling from your mother. You had terrible role modeling from your father.

I will not inherit my mother’s pain. I will not inherit my father’s fear. She never showed you that we can learn to control our impulses. So I’m worth saving? I’m not irredeemably bad? I will always have ups and downs and have to manage fears and the damage that will always be there, but now I accept it and work with it. I can thank my parents for everything they have done for me. But I no longer owe them anything. I will grow strong. I will get better. I will be happy. And I will remember:

I cannot heal my parents.

This is a Found Essay, meaning that I pulled lines from different essays on NAMI and incorperated them with my own experience wot create a creative Non- Fiction piece.

Poem 33 Voluntary Work Helps My Life

VOLUNTARY  WORK  HELPS  MY  LIFE

I have been doing Voluntary Work for Many Years now.

My Mental Health Problems which are Also,

Mentioned about in my Poetry Book,

“SOME OF THESE MAKE SENSE, SOME OF THEM DONT,

BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT LIFE IS.”

Post Traumatic Stress, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,

Depression not Clinical and Schizophrenia.

Pricing Books for a Local Hospice and working on the Till,

Another Charity Shop Pricing Dvd’s, Computer Games and CD’s.

Welcomer at a Cathedral, telling History,

from Roman Times to the Present.

18^th Century Church near my Address, again talking History,

Which is what my Degree was in.

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Dearly Beloved,

I have a long history of suicidal thoughts, ideations, and plans. How am I still here? Because of you! Let me explain! I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Social Anxiety Disorder. It’s a daily struggle. Seriously, the very day I am writing this, it has been a major struggle. I often have intense urges to do some sort of self-harm or suicide. I have found over the past eight years since I’ve known I’ve had depression and such, that what keeps me alive and what keeps me from hurting myself, is you. 

Maybe you struggle with suicidal thoughts and self-harm like myself. I would like to propose that you try writing what I call a “Suicide Lament” instead of a “Suicide Note.” In a typical suicide note, people tend to write to loved ones why they are killing themselves. I once began a suicide note, but as I began to write it to my family, the message totally changed from what I thought it would be. Instead of writing why I was going to commit suicide, I wrote why I was not going to commit suicide. Yet, I did not ignore my nasty feelings. I wrote the brutal truth of it, lamenting that I would not give into my urges. I accepted the feelings and said, “this is so hard and I have such the urge to do it, but I’m not going to do it for the sake of my family.”

I want to encourage you to live for someone. Choose a person. If you can’t think of one person to live for, then I beg you to live for me. I stay alive for you. You stay alive for me. Deal? Let’s live for each other.

I find that living for another person is why I am alive and still fighting. As I said, I struggle with intrusive thoughts, anxiety, depression and other stuff this very day. But thankfully, I don’t live for my own sake. I live for the sake of others. And to be honest, I find my strength in Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High God. Choosing to live for others, despite my suffering, comes from the image of Jesus on the cross. He shows me how to live. He shows me how to die. And it is not by suicide. He shows me what true love is; that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend (John 15:13). So, I get to practice this great love. Laying down my life, ironically, means living my life. I am living my life for you, my friend. And I have so much confidence and this strange other-worldly peace in that. I lament a lot about my pain, struggle, and suffering, but my life does not end in death. It ends in eternal life.

Your sister,

Jacqueline

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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I first began to experience symptoms of bipolar disorder in my early teens. i was put on Lithium while in a hospital and right away the almost catatonic depression I was in began to ease. From there on in, it seemed medication would be the answer to everything that was wrong with me. For years i was on every depression medication available, tricyclics, MAO inhibitors–when one stopped working, I was simply put on something else. Then things got better and I needed no medication through my twenties. i still struggled with lows, but there were no suicide attempts, I was able to live and love, to work and, for the most part, even enjoy life. Then, at the age of 29 I had a manic episode and my medication nightmare began.

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He looked at me and said you look normal;

I said you don’t see what’s going on inside, in my body and mind.

I have learned over the years of recovery, to deal with and manage my mental illness, BPD/PTSD/OCD, but I had to lose everything before they notice and over time I was diagnosed.

However, over the past few years I also have acquired a stomach conduction, and live with with Reflux and pain everyday which I manage with medication as well.

I have been through counseling, all therapies, hospitals and treatment centers,

My world didn’t open until I did, setting in a meeting, thinking “what the hell am I doing here” I am not like these people, “they are not normal” I was being prejudice, not exactly knowing what I was talking about, being judgemental.

My friend said,” just listen”, don’t look for the differences, look for the similarities, just listen.

So, I did and it was like listening to someone telling me my story, but it was theirs.

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I feel like an alien, I don’t belong, I don’t want to be here, I’m not made for this earth, nobody understands what it’s like because you just can’t put it into words and even when you can you feel like a burden or like you’re crazy or attention seeking.
You know everything and yet you know nothing, constantly questioning who you are because once you think you know that illness comes tapping at your door and you suddenly feel lost again.
From a troubled past of bullying and being made to feel so small and insignificant, guilt trips, abuse, neglect, abandonment, death, violence, a broken home and self harm..
Nothing has ever felt like home.
Always thinking about giving up, never being good enough, wanting to fit in and be loved but at the same time all you want it to be left alone and not hurt anyone.
Being completely fine one day then losing control the next.
Locking yourself away and shutting everyone out and then when you’re finally alone you get hit with depression and crave someone to pull you out.
Problems with your self image and having to grow up too quick.
Abusive or unstable relationships where they react in a way which triggers the things you try so hard to keep hidden away.
Begging and crying to friends, family, hospitals, councillors and doctors to please just fix me I can’t take any more of this.

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*TRIGGER WARNING*Being mentally ill and suicidal at a young age is strange. You grow up with this idea that one day you’ll be brave enough to kill yourself. You don’t plan for the future. Picking my major, my 21st birthday, adulthood – planning it all seemed like a waste of time. But now that I’m here, I can’t help but feel unprepared. I admit it, I find it sickly pleasurable to press upon the memories of my darkest moments. They are bruises. I touch them where it hurts because part of me feels this is where revelations live. While I take comfort knowing that there are people who live successful lives that are like me, I struggle understanding why I was dealt this hand and what to make of it.

Sensitive is how I was made. Blessed with a childhood close to perfect, I have loving parents who raised me right and have told me I am brilliant and special. Still, I always felt a little off, like all my senses were amplified. Ever since I was a child, things hit me hard. When I got mad, I burned. When I cried, I poured. When I was happy, I glowed. It became clear early on that my life would be a hunt for balance. When I was younger I would try to block out all these voices in my heart, but how do you silence what is meant to be heard? I spent a lifetime struggling to do so, until I learned that I could not quell the roar but instead learned I have to just stand against it.

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I am a 23 year old girl who is a prisoner of my own mind, thoughts, and compulsions. I am battling a mental illness that has taken over my life leaving me unable to function and care for myself.  Up until now I was embarrassed to tell people about my illness, I’d rather make up a story to justify my inability to do things!  So far I have been diagnosed with Severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and underlying personality disorders.

This causes my brain to function differently than most. My OCD has been interfering with my life since I was hospitalized at age 9 with anorexia and OCD. However, as I get older it is increasingly crippling me, therefore I lost my job, my apartment, and many friends that just don’t understand my illness. I have a routine or ritual for everything I do and if my routine or ritual is off in the slightest way I have to restart my day from the beginning. I used to have good days and bad days, now my good days are few and I’m restricted to stay inside for fear of something bad happening to someone. Because of my OCD there’s only a few streets I can drive on, stores I can shop in and on only specifics days of the month, (due to I cannot obtain tangible items) I cannot go to movies or read a menu in a restaurant. I know I have no control over what happens in life however I’m still fearful so I avoid them. It is difficult to talk to people for they might say a trigger word, I can’t watch T.V or listen to music, go on the internet, talk on the cell or text for the same reason.  You can’t imagine how difficult it was to write this because I had to wait for good days, which took close to 3 weeks to complete!

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