This the continuation from my first submission , it got sent on an accident and it wasn’t completed.  So what I was saying is when I read Harvest time on NAMI’s not alone page when she talked about the Good Seeds & Bad Seeds , I understood what she meant plant good seeds and receive a good Harvest, and throw a way the Bad Seeds an don’t pass them on to anyone.  I realize that that is the truest statement that I read , I realized that that is what I’ve been doing all my life, with my children , husband, with everyone and allowing others to throw there Bad seeds on me.  So With that being said, I’m going to do my very best to cope and plant good seeds and throw away the bad.  I going to go to this DUI school  an get my license back , continue my therapy ,continue my Meds and most of  all plant good seeds an take care of myself.  and know truly,  believe that there is no HOPLESS SITUATION. 

Coping with anxiety and depression has been a constant in my life.  I’d developed decades worth of coping skills and silently fought my way through, wondering why things always seemed to be more of a struggle for me.  In the summer of 2017, after having 3 babies in 3 and ½ years and outside responsibilities mounting beyond what I could manage, I suffered a debilitating bout with anxiety.  I couldn’t sleep or eat, I couldn’t function.  As I read and studied and prayed and reached out for help, I decided to hope.  For the first time in my life, I discovered hope isn’t just a feeling that comes, it is a decision, an action, a verb.  I chose to cling to the knowledge that things would get better, and they did, and they always will.

Sending love and hope and healing out into the universe.  Keep fighting.

**Trigger Warning**

Hi. I used to be really mentally ill. I have had panic attacks, the worst case of obsessive compulsive disorder, bi-polar, anxiety and depression. I have struggled with substance abuse.  I have struggled with self-harm and suicide. One year I tried to kill myself multiple times. 

Treatment:

Coping- I have learned several coping skills. They really help.

Recovery- I was inpatient at a mental hospital. It really helped.

Therapy- I usually see my therapist every other week. It really helps.

Medication- My medication really helps too.

I hate the stigma!

Growing up I had some difficulties with my emotions and coping in general.  Around middle school those emotions evolved into something more dark and harmful.  While I don’t discredit my dysfunctional up bringing,  I do believe I’m just wired differently.

 At first I was diagnosed with depression then that diagnosis changed to bipolar.  I also have trichotillomania,  which is a hair pulling disorder.  I’ve been on countless medications and have seen numerous doctors since the age of 5.  At my current age of 22, I can say it gets better.  As with many,  I’ve struggled to stay on medication. But the biggest problem I faced was my idea of happiness. My goal was to be normal and happy,  but the truth is happiness is a temporary feeling even for the “normal”.  I’ve learned to focus more on being stable and content (which happen to rely on my medication and therapy) .  Happiness follows suite,  as with other emotions.  When those normal bad human emotions come,  it’s easier to cope with while being stable.

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I am starting to write poems for my 33 year old son who has been homeless since Aug. 1, 2014. He does not communicate with us or acknowledge our attempts to communicate with him, however I know he reads our emails. We believe he is currently in Casper Wyoming in a Natrona County homeless shelter after fleeing Albuquerque N.M. in March while my husband was trying to navigate the legal system there to help him home. Our son had a brush with the law in the Albuquerque homeless shelter when he lost the lottery in the shelter and asked to return to the streets one cold December night. He was arrested with a misdemeanor and a fourth degree felony for refusing to leave the shelter in Albuquerque. Currently the Casper homeless shelter is not able to confirm he is their guest because of privacy issues. Our son has a right to be lost to those who love him and care about his welfare. How difficult to accept and how tragic for us and especially our son.

How do we know he is in Casper? He seems to have access to technology this time and periodically places postings on his Facebook page. He has left a trail of clues here and there.  I am currently blocked from his Facebook page, however other family members keep us informed. I pray for confirmation of his postings just to know he is seemingly OK and alive.

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Depression, for me, is genetic. The fact that I cannot point to a specific event that triggered my symptoms makes the disease seem more nebulous. I’m more susceptible to believing that well-meaning person that says “You’re young! You have a beautiful family! How could you be depressed?” Maybe, I think, I’m not sick. Maybe it’s my attitude. 

It’s not. I am sick. Don’t let your depression be nebulous. How can you battle an enemy that has no shape or form? I tell my mom, who has suffered and fought for 40 years (yet still asks her psychiatrist from time to time: “Am I really sick?”) that neither of us should be ashamed to say that we suffer from clinical depression, or mixed mood disorder or major depressive disorder, whatever you want to call it. If depression is the reason that I struggle to get out of bed, or leave the house - anything - why should I be afraid to say that?

Breast cancer awareness has pink ribbons. Families of soldiers fly yellow ribbons. Autism uses blue. But did you know, we have a colored ribbon all our own? It’s silver. Just because people can’t see inside yourself and see the way you struggle to cope with basic tasks from time to time doesn’t mean it isn’t real. I don’t have a cast, or a port for chemotherapy, or a pacemaker, but I still am fighting a disease. I label that depression. I put a face on it. I do what I can to make it into something that I can fight. For now, I’m not going to win. I know there isn’t a cure. I’m still going to have bad feelings, terrible pains, like I’m free-falling out of control, or circling the drain.

But, if in the midst of those feelings, I can stop and say, “I am sick, and this is real”, then I can see my opponent. I can visualize him. And I can fight. 

Hey there,

I recall having an underlying depression in my teenage years. I developed extreme anxiety and sever depression in college. It lingers to this day and I sometimes have suicidal thoughts. I have developed many, many coping mechanisms and become a substantially more functioning person. Still, it has always been a stigma-and that has been a shame. I’m glad this forum exists to express my mental illness. I also believe the extremely sensitive person that I am-that allows for the mental illness- is also what makes me creative and compassionate. So, I am also glad for sensitivity! My mental illness/symptoms are often good barometers for when I need to make change and take action-so they can be helpful as well!

My own mind has been telling me I’m wrong, awful, fat, stupid, worthless, not deserving of happiness, better off dead, all of it, since I was about 12. I started coping by overeating, hurting my friends emotionally and pretending to be happy. I didn’t know why these thoughts were attacking my self esteem, so I tried to come up with reasons. I thought the uncontrollable emotions were punishing me because I had made mistakes in my past. I couldn’t forgive myself and the self hatred grew and grew as I thought about every little thing I had done, and I believed I caused more harm than good. Because of my negative self worth, people manipulated me. I thought if I gave everyone what they wanted at my own expense I could make up for my mistakes. I got so depressed that I stopped doing quality school work and the perfectionist part of me added my bad grades to my list of flaws.

I had anxiety and I coped by cutting, isolating myself, compulsive exercise and restricting calories. That was all by the ninth grade. In the first two weeks of tenth grade my suicidal thoughts became so bad that my friends called the cops on me. I didn’t want to go to therapy because I thought that would mean I was a psycho and I would have to hate myself for that, too. I had grown up with so much stigma in me against anything perceived as lazy or a failure. The therapy didn’t help at first. I surrounded myself with people who understood me, so they also were suffering. One of my closest friends starting cutting and drinking and doing drugs. Another friend took pills but survived. Eventually I couldn’t handle the self hatred and the manipulation and not meeting expectations and not being enough for anyone, so I took some pills.

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I thought I was alone but I wasn’t. What I did not know was that I always had ME.

I have made it to 58 years young with plans of going as far as this vehicle called my body will take me. It wasn’t always this way though. It wasn’t always this way though. There has been pain, loss, fear, darkness, grieving for myself, victim mentality, lack of awareness and coping skills, cutting, pills, wanting the pain to stop and the irrational voice telling me that killing myself was the only way to make it all stop.

I hid my pain, I splayed myself because of the stigmas attached to mental illness. I kept it all locked inside of me and struggled to put it all in place so I could understand it all. Despondent became the only word I could describe myself. So so much more to tell, so so much more to share and speak with dignity and pride. Every day I am a survivor of bipolar depression. Every day I take my medicine and read and learn and become more and more aware.

You always have you, like I always have me no matter what our brains may say to us. We have our shadows for sure but when we face them they sure have incredible flow and movement and grace.

Somewhere along the way medication and counseling helped the persistence to die to a persistence to keep living. Even when dying sounds so much better. So there are days when I would rather be dead. So what? Yup, I said it true and out in the open. There are days or weeks, months I would rather be dead, but…..so what! So darn what!!! It does not mean because I feel it at that moment that I have to act on it… Ever.

Be true to yourself, be consistent with taking medications and counseling, get good sleep, become aware, pay it forward, helping others is a great way for us to help ourselves. Sendings hugs and validation and love to all-DJV