Navigating a world that often feels cold, insensitive, and unaccepting of mental illness is lifelong work, a healing journey with ups and downs that has no end. As a highly sensitive person who has lived with anxiety/depression/OCD/ADHD since childhood, struggled with self-harm, substance abuse, and eating disorders, and is a rape and domestic abuse survivor, I have sought out many forms of therapy over my lifetime, both traditional and alternative.

One concept that I became familiar with in Dialectal Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is having a toolbox. Every individual’s toolbox looks different and will evolve over time. It is essentially a list of our skills and techniques for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness. I would like to share some of my go-to tools for self-soothing and traversing times of heightened anxiety/the unknown: 

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Mental Illness has been a part of my entire life. My mother was diagnosed as Bipolar with episodes of psychosis in her 50’s. She passed away in 2011, alone in Georgia. Three years earlier she became so sick that my brother and I tried to have her hospitalized for fear of her hurting herself or others. We called NAMI of Georgia for help. We went before a judge and she was taken to a Psychiatric Hospital. Unfortunately, they released her after 24 hours. After this she decided that we were “dead” to her including her grandchildren. This totally broke my heart. I loved her very much. When she passed away, 5 days went by before she was found in her house.

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I thought that I had accepted my mental illness long ago.  After all, I was taking medication and attending counseling after being hospitalized for months in a state psychiatric hospital.  Here I was an “advocate” for mental health but refused to disclose to anyone that I was suffering.  It wasn’t until I moved back to my hometown and got involved as a mental health advocate for NAMI that I realized what exactly accepting a mental health diagnosis meant.

Accepting meant that I was going to no longer stigmatize myself for being ill.  A condition, is a condition, is a condition.  I wouldn’t treat someone with diabetes any differently for being ill so why was I holding myself up to such a ridiculous standard?  Accepting meant that I was not afraid to stand in front of a group of 20 strangers and disclose what I thought was my biggest secret in order to educate the community.  For so long I wanted change to the system, change to mental health care.  The only way that change is going to happen is if we all accept our conditions and reduce the stigmatization.  Through acceptance and education comes change.

That change is exactly what I am seeing in myself and my community now.  After going through facilitator training for the NAMI Connection Recovery Support Group program I started a support group for adults with mental illness in my community.  I now sit on the advisory board for my mental health agency and my local NAMI affiliate as a mental health consumer.   I am no longer afraid to say that I have a mental illness and advocate for those who have not yet reached that stage in their recovery or are unable to advocate for themselves.  There is help and there is hope.

This year has been the year I’ve really worked on my recovery and my overall mental health. From a very young age I was depressed, fascinated with death and constantly anxious. I developed major body image issues as a child that turned into an eating disorder. I grew up with a biological father who was an addict, alcoholic, abusive and mentally ill with Bipolar Disorder.

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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.

Thank you NAMI for being there.  Thank you Phyllis Arends, then the Executive Director for South Dakota for getting myself and my partner, Timothy Flaskamp involved in starting a Connections Recovery Support Group.  Since  almost 5 years ago, Tim and I have become “In Our Own Voice” Presenters and Trainers also.  I had onset at 42, with a Bipolar Disorder, a PTSD, and a Panic Disorder.  All the while, fighting with a back injury. 

After the second surgery, I was told I was terminal.  Yes, the therapist had her work cut out for me, and TIm’s support and understanding was crucial. Oh, and Yes, I am in the best relationship of my life, a gay one with a remarkable man, who himself could be called “Mayo Clinic’s Miracle Man”.  I was overweight, diabetic and the Doctor said a gastric bypass would be the answer as she had to get the weight off me right now. 

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Yes I am a member of NAMI Kansas and NAMI Topeka. I have a mental Illness and I was born with it.Every chile hood

illness you can think of I had like seagers ,ADHD, depression,anxiety, some borerline eating disorder.

That is all I can think of oh I have a learding disability two.I have taken several groups with the state of Kansas like leadership times 2,these groups are out of Wichita I am also on the CAC board you can check the CAC web site as it is CAC.ore and it will tell you a lot so this is just a small amount that I do.

     I am a member of the Michigan chapter of NAMI~ the National Alliance on Mental Illness (a national organization with chapters in each state). This amazing program not only brings much needed awareness about mental illness to those who do not understand it (which, frankly, includes most everyone who does not struggle with a mental illness), but they also consistently fight government legislature, health care/insurance companies, etc. on the rights of those who have mental illnesses to have just as much insurance/coverage/A CHANCE as those who have physically visibly illnesses. After all, the brain is an organ, a physical part of the body, yes? So why on Earth is it viewed so differently, stigmatized, and WHY is this particular organ not considered equally when it is sick as any other member of the body? I will never understand it, and I will admit I never tried until I was diagnosed with multiple mental illnesses, most of them as an adult.

     It would take a LONG book (and there are many great ones out there) to go into depth about this issue, and a blog is not the place to do it (let’s face it- no one wants to read that much). But here are a few scenarios to consider:

     Have you ever been denied medical and/or psychiatric treatment due to previous physical and/or mental diagnoses by insurance? I have. Many times.

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It was Easter morning in 1987 when I found myself sitting alone on the floor of a bus station in New York City. I had no money, no home, no job, no food, no friends, no family and no God. I was crashing after a night binging on street drugs. I had moved to NYC after an un-diagnosed manic episode caused me to drop out of pre-med, honor studies at Loyola Marymount University of three years. I went against the pleas of my family and friends to just change majors or take a break from college. I had been using alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and food to self-medicate since I was 12 and exhibited a duality of personas. On the one hand, I was the Golden Boy. Everything I touched turned to gold. I was well liked by my mentors, teachers, priests and community leaders. I was an Eagle Scout, attended Boy’s State, was three year Varsity Letterman in swimming and diving, graduated 15th in a class of 560 students, held down two jobs, was A.S.B. Treasurer, received thousands of dollars in scholarships and was dating a beautiful young woman. However, I was seen as hedonistic, selfish and addicted by my classmates and peers. New York was the result of a life spiraling out of control for no apparent reason. Finally, after living in New York for 2 years, I was at my wits end, terrified, silent, confused and catatonic, my  roommates had me hospitalized in Elmhurst, Queens and I was diagnosed as Bi-Polar. I returned to California beaten and barely alive.

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