My 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.

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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.

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I’m MERLIN.I have been dealing with mental health issues for many years, more than 25+ .I have taken all different kinds of of meds and have tried to stop taking meds more than 8 times and have ended up in the hospital.a mental health hospital can be a scary place but the people are trained and are there to assist you with your recovery.Since dealing with mental health issues over 25+ years I have decided to turn the tables on MENTAL HEALTH and train to be a PEER SUPPORT ADVOCATE.i want to help other people dealing with mental health issues and let them know that there is light at the end of the road and what they are going through is only temporary.i want to share my faith and help educate,inpire,coach and be an example to others.medication and counseling 

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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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I wanted to take a moment to share my story and individual struggle with mental illness, the system we all live in and why it is important now more than ever to advocate on behalf of those living with various mental illnesses. My name is Dan Olson and I have been involved in mental health and treatment in one form or another for the past 25 years. I was removed from the home as a child due to severe physical and mental abuse. I placed in various foster and group homes because I was born into a cycle of poverty and alcohol abuse and when removed from my mother’s care, there was no support system there for me. This was the early 90s and I was acting out at the time due to severe mental trauma and was diagnosed as ADHD and placed on medications. None of the juvenile treatment programs was able to break through to me but they did plant some positive seeds that were able to bear some fruit in the future. My rebellion and lack of structure led me to harder juvenile corrections more focused on punitive philosophy and eventually my actions led me to the State Correctional Facility. From that point on for many years I was lost in the system, lost in my own mind and anger. But I had hope. I had a child and he stuck with me always in the back of my mind. I was determined to not allow him to succumb to the same problems I had, I was committed to being a father and self-improvement.  It was a struggle and many mistakes have been made on the way but I earned a Clinical Psychology Degree, and through the intellectual understanding of my mental blocks I was able to overcome them.  I wish I could say that education is the complete answer but I don’t believe anything is so simple. My education introduced me to ideas and concepts that continue to place me in direct opposition of authority. I belief in the mental health field today there is entirely too much focus on profits and pharmaceuticals.  This knowledge and struggle against what inevitably can only be described as the double bind of society and attempt to solve an unsolvable problem led me to have a psychotic breakdown. To those familiar I relate this breakdown to Carl Jungs own psychological experiment into neurosis. I had more run in’s with the police and at one point was actually beaten and tazed.  Today I am diagnosed as some latent form of schizophrenia. I can if I am not aware spiral into psychotic episodes that seem to be based in ideas of dissociation. With the support of my psychiatrist we are on a test run of allowing me to be in charge of my own treatment using principles of mindfulness. It is my hope that possibly I can discover new ideas and treatments for mental disease while continuing to work on my own self-improvement and recovery.  I hope to be returning to education soon and to the MASC (Masters of Communications Studies) studies program at Edinboro. I have found that intellectual stimulation, goals, and sobriety great benefits to my attitude and mental health. I hope that I can be a beacon to others struggling through the same dark rooms I once did and can combine my street knowledge and prison experience with my Clinical Psychology and Communication Studies to become the kind of leader and advocate people suffering with mental illness deserve.

I am a mother of a young-adult son, Nathan, now 26, who suffers from the debilitating mental illness, paranoid schizophrenia. Since his age of 19, I feel that he has been in hospital more than he has been out. I know that I am not the only parent who has experienced this with a child. It is heart-breaking, and true, and every day, in our hearts, we cry in grieving for these lives and minds of our children who we often feel powerless to help.

The facts: 1-in-100 individuals suffer from schizophrenia. What does this mean? It means that each and every one of our lives will be affected by this illness - it may be ourselves who will become ill, or it will be our child, or another loved one, friend or colleague. This illness has very real physical, emotional, economic and social consequences, for the individual, families, communities, nations and the world.

A part of me died inside the day that I received my son’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. It came only after a long number of his teen years where he suffered increasingly difficult anxiety, on and off depression which led to self harm and impulsive actions. His first psychosis is an image that will never leave my mind.

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My name is Robert Hagee and I have a mental illness, I have had the illness since childhood, it was believed to be schizophrenia when I was young but came to schizoaffective disorder. If I was to write anything about my illness it would be this: that without my mother who was very strong from her life struggles as a child and as an adult, I would not have survived; I look back and realize if I was to know of all my issues and struggles to come when was a young and not to know of the good I do not believe I would have continued. There are other issues with my health and the hardest thing I face is that my mother will be at my funeral and my only regret I would ever change is the fact that my mother has had to experience my life with me.

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In August of 2019, I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes and my doctor recommended exercise to treat it.  This all started in 2005, when I was diagnosed with a postpartum mental illness and treated with medications that have known metabolic side effects.   My diagnosis was later changed to Schizoaffective Disorder.  Every time I’ve been taken off medication, I’ve gotten sick again, so I need the mental health medication, even though it has side effects.

My work provides the benefit of points towards a gym membership. So, I joined the gym after I learned about my diagnosis. As part of joining my gym, I had a free consultation visit with a personal trainer. At the end of the visit, we sat down, and he took out his notepad.

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Poem 1( for today) ninth poem sent

STILL  MORE  MEMORIES  OF  THE  PSYCHIATRIC  HOSPITAL

In the NHS Psychiatric Hospital, Lucky had a Single Room,

For 2 Months until Diagnosed with Schizophrenia in March.

I then Shared a Room with 5 other people, Enough Space.

I was Allowed to go Home, Saturday Morning to Sunday Evening,

This was the Pattern from the start.

I Read Many Books on the First World War,

Which made my Problems Worse without Me Realizing,

Despite having Nightmares about the War.

Did not speak to other Patients nor leave my Room, First Month.

“I shall enter the Smoke room and Talk to Fellow Sufferers.”

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