My Personal Resiliency with a Parent with Mental Illness: A Story 

As a junior in college last may I was tasked with writing a research paper I was passionate about for a class of mine. I decided to analyze data from research studies on children with parents who are diagnosed with mood disorders. As I  formulated my ideas and turned them into sentences, and eventually wrote a non-biased analytic paper on adolescents with parents with mood disorders, I noticed something extremely interesting. The statistics I found, the resiliency factors I discussed, and struggles of day to day living was my own reality as an adolescent coping with my father’s mental illness. I found that I saw myself in the research, and was that same adolescent I described, often times scared and confused about what was happening to my father. My father was diagnosed with major depression, bipolar depression, borderline personality disorder, ADHD, and ADD. At the age of 14 I made the adult decision to cut contact and eliminate my relationship with my father due to his destructive nature. 

Often times prior to this, I was visiting my father and he was always disoriented, disheveled, and carrying around mementos such as pictures constantly in a rolling bag. My mother was extremely concerned, especially with the nature in which he kept his house. His house was in an undesirable state covered in dog poop from our dogs, papers and pictures everywhere, and an unstable and unsafe place for an adolescent to sleep and spend time at. Regardless, my mother allowed me to spend time with my father in the earlier years, because she knew the unconditional love I had for him. In the end, it came to a point where my relationship with my father was detrimental to my development, emotionally, and I had to cease communication with him. 

These detrimental experiences include themes that are mentioned in my research analysis such as, parental-child role reversals, being careful and scared not to trigger an episode, and carrying an emotional responsibility that is far beyond my years. My mother would attempt to explain my father’s manic episodes in a sense that I would be able to understand. She would explain it as a rollercoaster, starting at the bottom (his mad and upset emotions) to the top of the rollercoaster (feeling happy again.) Such experiences also included traumatic events such as him screaming at my mother because she had hired a babysitter when he was available, (my parents divorced when I was four years old and shared custody), starting a physical fight with another parent at the hockey rink in which my brother played, and I believe the worst of all to happen is a physical suicidal threat to me over the phone and email starting at the age of 16. 

During my sophomore year of high school my father won a court case forcing me to attend reunification therapy. I had not seen my father in two years at this point, and had a private session to express my fears of reunifying, my personal experiences, and questions about mental illness. At one point in time, I had questioned my genetic risk for having the same mental disorders as my father, and for quite some time had anxiety about it. I attended the first session with my father, and found that he was as always disheveled, and his conversation was never the future but rather like he always had a mirror looking back. He carried mementos piled high of happy memories, and literally cry about the past in therapy sessions. The way in which I explain the nature of my relationship at this point with my father was, “I would give an inch, and he’d take a mile.” Often times, we had boundaries and limits to communication, i.e. phone call once a week. This resulted in five phone calls, most of them being ignored by me, and brought up in therapy. 

The reason the court ordered therapist eventually concluded and agreed that I could terminate the therapy was due to a traumatic experience where he physically threatened over the phone (when I was a junior in high school) a disturbingly descriptive way in which he would commit suicide if I did not force my brother to get on the phone with him. (my brother was three years older and at an age where the courts would not force unification therapy upon him)—We developed a plan to inform my father that we were ceasing the sessions without using words such as “permanently” and after a while, I found myself again, giving him a second chance at fixing things with me. Eventually there were more and more reasons that this ongoing therapy would not work out for me and eventually canceled permanently. 

I found that through these experiences I have developed emotionally far beyond my years, and matured at a very young age. I was comforting my father in ways a child never should, trying my best to not hurt his feelings, and ultimately putting my father’s well-being in front of mine. 

Looking back on these experiences I believe that I will always love my father, but will never again be ready to initiate a relationship due his emotionally abusive nature. What my therapist has taught me is that everyone has baggage, a situation that they have to deal with every day, and no matter what it is what you do with the experiences that you have is what is important. Fast forward almost five years, and I am accomplishing things I never thought I would. Attending college, majoring in education (like my father), and most fascinatingly writing an analytical research analysis on children of parents with mental illness. I have persisted to understand mental illness, especially guided by my therapist, and despite the genetic risk I have, I will do everything in my power to ensure my own personal successful in every aspect of my life. I found that by having support, and an understanding of mental illness described through my father’s emotions and actions, I was better equipped to understanding that it is not my fault, and I am not my father. I have learned through trials of therapy that I am not the answer to his happiness and medicine to his mental illness (which most of the time he believes I am). The therapy may have failed, and I had a felt bad disconnecting once again, but I needed to put my mental health before his need for a relationship with his daughter. 

I am that same example of that resilient adolescent, thriving and succeeding in life because of the support I received from peers that I felt I could externalize my problems to, the psychoeducational background I had a luxury of because I was afforded many therapists throughout the years (art therapy in the earlier years), and support and guidance from extremely strong-willed mother. Looking back, I have been afforded knowledge through these preventive factors, and learned how to cope with my father and experiences alike, and focusing on the present I have realized my own very success over mental illness. 

My own personal experience, and passion for research has led me to advocating for peer support programs in the United States. During the entirety of my adolescence I believed I was alone, the only child experiencing this, and if there were programs in place to help kids like me, I believe we could make a huge positive impact. 

The Lights

It’s hard to describe to people what anxiety and mental illness feels like. This story is what it’s like to be a mother that battles anxiety and mental illness. 

This time it starts because the lights go out.

            My daughter wakes from her bedroom and comes into mine, asks if it’s morning or the middle of the night. She tells me the numbers on her clock are flashing.

“Mama, I never seen it do that before.”

It’s 6:03 AM according to my watch, and so I throw the covers off my body and growl about the flashing clock, how it disrupts my lying awake.  

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October is mental health awareness month and anyone who has been touched by mental illness has an important story that needs to be shared. There are people that need to understand that these issues are okay to talk about and feel all the feels.

I feel compelled to share this story about my anxiety and depression because mental illness took the voice of a friend of mine and countless others when it doesn’t have to. It’s a journey, but there is hope.

            “I have a chemical imbalance in my brain. I did not ask for it, nor did a diabetic ask for their illness. Yet, you stigmatize me for mine and call me crazy yet you give compassion for the other.”

That chemical imbalance for me, according to a psychiatrist, is generalized anxiety disorder and depression. Before the diagnosis, let’s go back to December 9, 2016 at around 3:30 in the morning when I was literally catapulted from my bed and my journey began… I jumped up as if someone was stabbing me in the heart. I thought for sure, this is it, I’m dying. Not realizing that I was walking around and pacing in order to decide what I should do next. Needless to say I wasn’t dying… I decided after calling my primary care doctor that I should go to the ER. They pulled me into the room right before the ER pretty quickly after getting there as they often do with unexplained chest pain. They took an EKG of my chest and sent me back to the waiting room. After they took me back to the ER they went through chest x-rays, physical exams, multiple doctors and nurses, and then they said you’re not having a heart attack. We only treat you for what you came in with so we’re sending you home and just follow up with your primary care doctor. What?! That’s it?! Do you people not realize I am actually going to die? Spoiler alert- I’m still here.

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I am the first Portland, Oregon-area woman author to publish a memoir about schizoaffective disorder (a little talked about diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia).  Most books on mental illness are written by doctors and clinicians, but I feel the personal stories of “lived experience”- like mine and others fighting the pressure of stigma with mental health disorders- are more meaningful because they help us to see the person first, not the diagnoses. Schizo-affective disorder is a hard disease to tackle. Societal pressures seem to dominate your routine and the sheer process of overcoming the stigma of this disease is complicated

I remember when I was young, I used to think people were talking about me and judging me because of who I was. My paranoia carried over into my adulthood. I felt paranoid because I couldn’t focus on something beside myself when people looked at me funny. When I was really upset about something I shook. My knees became rubbery as I disagreed with a speaker in a meeting. Being around higher ups, I felt like I was going to erupt like a tempestuous volcano. I hung my head, not humble like, but in disgrace of not accepting myself for being me. My ship was sinking. My shakiness and weak knees didn’t necessarily stem from my disease. It happened when I was physically abused by my stepfather for defending my brother when he was 7. My stepfather and my mother left him alone to go drinking and when they came back home, I arrived home from work and stood up for my brother. I took a blow to the jaw. My world fell apart and my life changed course.

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Back when Princess was first diagnosed with a mental illness, I knew we’d have a few visits to  behavioral health hospitals. Never in a million years did I dream that she’d have her first stay in one when she was just barely eight years old.  Like most parents of kiddos like mine we expect the teen years to bring on even more instability than the average teen. Many teens with mental illnesses have to live for a time outside of the home at a residential treatment center. I was prepared for that.
Placing my child in a hospital behind locked doors before her tenth birthday, I was not prepared for. If your child has never been to one, I am here to tell you that it will be alright.  Let me back up a bit. At the start of Princess second grade year she had a really difficult time adjusting to the start of school. She, like many children on the Spectrum or with mental illness, does not like transitions at all. On her first day back to school she got aggressive with several of the younger children in her multi-age class. Since this was not her home school, the principal revoked her transfer since she was deemed a behavior problem. She advised us to keep Princess at home for awhile until she settled down at bit. She also recommended we look int hospitalization. At the time both her therapist and her doctor were strongly opposed to both ideas. Looking back I wish that we had sought hospitalization then instead of waiting for another year until things became unbearable.

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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.

As a schizophrenic, I never enjoyed being labeled crazy. It occurred to me when I was laughed at and mocked at bye so-called friends of mine. It hurts even when I think of all the years and all the trials and tribulations being labeled that way. Why people can call someone with a mental illness crazy? I guess ignorance. I was a person and just like other schizophrenics symptoms arose in the early 20s but can occur in even earlier stages of life. symptoms of schizophrenia look bizarre like hallucinations that include the senses such as seeing things that are not there. Visual. Hearing voices. auditory. Feeling things that are not there. Like there is something crawling on you, this is called tactile. And also smelling things that are not there. This is an olfactory sense. Another symptom is delusions. it is a state that occurs when the combination of the mentioned above, interact on the psyche where reasoning and rationalization what he or she is experiencing become distorted. Another symptom i experienced was catatonia. It was my body frozen just staring up into space with no thought process. It has been a challenge, schizophrenics are not crazy. We are always stigmatize. With proper medication I’ve been able to accomplish goals like getting a degree and also creating Sweetly Wicked, my t-shirt design aimed at giving back 20% to Nami. I also enjoy music and create rap music. Wherever my endeavors take me I plan to give back to Nami. And I plan to succeed. This schizophrenic is not going down without a fight. I will fight with all my might to give back to the underdog. Because I believe in the underdog. To fight stigmatization. I will advocate and vote legislation that puts more back into the mental health system. As a schizophrenic I never enjoyed being labeled crazy in the midst of my symptoms around so call friends.it always hurts like hell when I think of all the years and all the trials and tribulations being labeled that way I never felt complete as a person. I can’t begin and I can’t end. Disorganized is another symptom of the thought process and speech. Who will speak my words. But I. And you. I’ve been torn down many times but I’ve always built myself up stronger. With that, my faith has become stronger then it’s ever been in my life. Things will turn around for you, you watch and see. You must try. You are significant. You are worthy of love and respect. I was made DEFIANT you are too.

These words were written while I was under heavy psychosis. I must have felt compelled to tell my short story of my life because I’ve felt the pain as long as I have lived. I’m here though. While Wally aka DEFIANT is on planet earth, I will live out my destiny to the best of my abilities. Low functioning or high functioning. NEVER GIVE UP !!!. My deepest sympathies go to those who aren’t able to function, I pray breakthrough for them. A tear runs down my face as I feel there pain.

The Heart of an Outcast. God bless. DEFIANT.

I am a victim of mental illness. When I was in high school, I met a guy who knew exactly how to make me smile, laugh, and eventually pull at my heart strings. He started hanging around the wrong group of friends and eventually went downhill. This included abusing drugs, dealing drugs, and yet was able to keep that side of his life not a part of mine. He is now in prison for 10 more years. This is when my anxiety and depression developed. I was very irritable, emotional, and paranoid of my self image. My father has struggled with mental illness and was fortunately able to persuade me to see a doctor. Since then, I have been on four different medications and a handful of different dosages. A year ago, I entered a toxic relationship. The suicidal thoughts took over my brain. Having suicidal thoughts and being suicidal are two completely different situations to be in. I vividly remember driving on interstate to my hometown from the city I went to college when I experienced the worst suicidal thoughts. My mind kept making me visualize myself slamming on the breaks and turning my car, making it flip off of the bridge and roll down into the ditch. I immediately broke down into tears. I could not make these thoughts and visualizations go away. I called my mom and told her that I was bringing myself to the ER as soon as I got to town because I cannot handle the miserable thoughts anymore and I needed help ASAP. My mom, who was in denial of my suicidal thoughts, thought I was overreacting and wouldn’t allow me to go to the ER. Instead, she made me go home where the miserablity did not get any better. I felt like I had no one to talk to, no one who understood. The following week, I scheduled an appointment to see a therapist, hoping it would work this time since my last therapist didn’t seem to help my condition. Luckily, she was supportive and is the reason I am alive today. I have become one who is not afraid to talk about my problems. I have a bracelet with the saying “The World Needs You Here”. Whenever I am having a rough day, this bracelet gives me hope that the rough waves will become calm.

The first time I tried to kill myself was in fourth grade. It was a Sunday night in early December, just two months shy from my tenth birthday. I was laying in bed, surrounded by the bright pink walls of my innocent bedroom, struggling to calm myself down from a panic attack. I remember thinking about how much easier it would be to just end it all and not have to deal with anything anymore. Not having to go to school and wake up early in the morning, having to suffer from panic attacks day in and day out, and most importantly, I wouldn’t have to face the harassment of my peers that made me feel like I was worthless. I tried to suffocate myself by putting a pillow over my face and, yes, I know today that this would never work, but back then I was naive and thought I would die from it. I slammed the pillow down hard on my face and felt the air leave my lungs, a sudden hollowness filled my chest as my lungs screamed for air, my heart begging for me to stop. The pain was what stopped me, and made me realize what I was doing. 

I threw the pillow to my bedroom floor and burst into tears. That night I told my parents what had happened. I remember my mother’s eyes filled with anger. I did not understand why she would be mad at me, did she not want me to tell her what I had done? Only now do I realize that the anger in her eyes was not directed toward me, but toward the world, for the unfairness of it all. She had lost a child to a miscarriage just one year before my birth, and now the world was trying to take away her nine year old daughter as well? It didn’t seem true. She sent me to my room and I later heard her yelling at my father, my name being brought up again and again. At that moment, it seemed as if I was more of a burden than a blessing to my family.

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My mental illness has been with me most of my life. I want to start off by saying I am a Christian and that I believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior! This road of mine has been a long road. There seems to always have been an attack on my life for a very long time and the enemy is Satan. I have had nightmares of my death at seven years old and many awful times and I do believe that Satan is trying to get me to be ineffective for God. He will not win. God has saved my life by allowing me to go through a mental illness since I was 18. I struggled when I took medication and had a few suicide attempts and four hospitalizations. At one point I was struggling so much in my head that I thought I heard a voice say to go kill yourself.

My thoughts were so troubling I didn’t see another way out but ah yes….what could have been me taking myself out, God used this struggle and saved my life that day. I thought I was under an attack of the enemy and what could have killed me made me the person I am today. I am recovering now and am safe. I have lived in a group home for a year, been on medicine and am thank God only have to take an injection four times in a year! God has truly blessed me and saved me!

I am working now for 10 years with senior care company and am volunteering with NAMI who I hope to work for within the near future. The day will come. I know this. I have always wanted to work a full time job and I do know I will get there one day as a peer support specialist. I can see my dreams becoming reality. It’s been a battle for so long with just my thoughts but I am getting control of my life now and am getting help from my social worker on how to handle my negative thoughts.

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