I am a disabled veteran of the United States Air Force. I also live with paranoid schizophrenia, complex PTSD, and major depression. In the beginning of the breaks, I was left hopeless, mentally ill, and almost homeless. I recovered. I’ve fought my way through all of the symptoms, and now face a bright future. It took ten years, but I’m still here, having never committed suicide. I love, care, and nurture through volunteer activities. I was just recently admitted to nursing school, beginning with the CNA I class, and was accepted to Harvard Medical School’s HMX online program for the interested. I’m not stopping. A creative writer, I didn’t let the schizophrenia take away my words. I made books out of passion, a passion to communicate the most vulnerable times of my life. I’m applying to Cornell University’s MFA program for creative writing this summer. I also have hopes that I can complete my pre-medical requirements at Princeton University, and complete an MD at an elite university. Your life can be amazing, as mine has already been. I am fluent in French, and know other languages basically. I have traveled to over a dozen countries. I hold an MA in English with a GPA of 4.0. I’ve worked, and still do. Your life can be amazing, because you already are. Try. Try the medicine. Try to soar. It’s not hard for you. We are the challenged, yes, but we are the amazing, too.
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Offering Hope Hang In There
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
Middle School & Mental Health
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.
Mental Health Priority
Mental health coverage should be a top priority. Anybody disagreeing lives in their own bubble. And that bubble can burst anytime with family strife/hospitalizations/unrealized dreams/wasted and lost lives, etc. The monster of mental illness is not limited to the poor and homeless. It can cause strife and disaster for people in all walks of life. We need more research for better medications and better treatment and parity coverage with insurance. Most families know someone in their own family or friends/co-workers/neighbors who suffer from mental illness. It is vastly widespread and affects everyone. The affluent catering to insurance and wall street profits is doing immense irreparable disaster to our population.
From a Dark Hole to My Redemption and Light
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.
Enough Is Enough!
Enough is enough! The challenge of living with a mental illness has struck me and many members of my family, female and male, and today, I am taking a stand. I will be their voice…for anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and more. I will not walk in shame and defeat for my head is lifted to the sky. I will not let society put us in a category, define us, or mark us as “crazy” or “half cracked”. We have to address mental illness in our global society and aim to defeat it like any other illness of the body. It has no perspective race, gender, or culture and it comes to steal the joy of living on this beautiful earth.
Stronger Than Before
This morning I got fired from my job. I had the feeling they were going to try to fire me after a incident that happened last week. There is so much that I happened, but I don’t want to make this letter long. Just because people work in a mental health agency, do not mean every one knows how to handle a person with mental illness. I am a peer support specialist and that was my job title at a mental health agency. I had some good people that I worked with that really care about the clients, and also was a great support to me. Then there was others 😕 Stigma can be anywhere, but it is up to us to use our voices to help shatter that stigma. Through all that I have been through that I felt like I was crushed, misunderstood, lied on, and thrown away, I was not alone all the time. God was with me, and he saw everything. The strength that I feel right now I just cannot explain. All I know it is no body but God! Hold your head us and know that you can make it through the storm with God👼🙌👍
I do have a story to tell about my life dealing with depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and suicide attempts. I am working on it at the present time and it will be a long process to get it composed. I want to help others with my story and hope it will inspire others to not give up and know that it will get better.
Sincerely,
Shonna
The Hope for a Better Tomorrow!
it is my hope during the year of 2020 with so much chaos confusion and hate that we build for better tomorrow America and its Mental Health crisis is one in which we should all pay attention to they say the roughly one-in-four has a mental health concern but I beg to differ I think that was a challenging times that we face it can easily be one-third to have of all Americans and all of the Global Citizens worldwide has a mental health concern we must in these challenging times begin to truly understand the science of medicine and Med compliance exercise good food and serenity to the piece of joy that life has to offer so please my friends what I ask of you today if the take care of yourself because no one has the power to make you happy I want to thank you for reading my timely message of hope James Jerome Bell Cleveland Ohio (216)543-1118.
There’s a Fine Line Between Perseverance and Insanity
7 years ago I was plagued with an overwhelming reign of fear, confusion, anxiety and depression, to the point of suicide. I now know that my demise was the onset of schizophrenia. After several attempts with suicide and hospital visits I was finally referred to a mental health physician. He evaluated me with any insight and information I could give him. Unfortunately I was too paranoid to put all my trust in the doctors. I thought if I admitted all my ailments I would get locked away for good.
It took 4 years for me to get diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, mean while for the next four years living in unimaginable fear of everything. I was originally diagnosed as depressed. I can’t begin to explain the depression fear and confusion within these next 4 years but things kept getting worse and I didn’t care anymore if they locked me away. In desperation i broke down and finally admitted all my symptoms and relief was at my doorstep.
My doctor was able to put me on the right medication. Don’t get me wrong it took a lot of work on both of our parts to get the right dosage of meds but perseverance paid off. Don’t give up on the meds because you don’t feel totally right or they cause side effects. Eventually these wear off and you’ll feel like you again.
My Journey to Recovery
My father was a drug addict, paranoid schizophrenic, dealer and hoarder.
Growing up was traumatic to say the least, I ended up moving out at age 15.
Currently I am 28, a father to be, high school teacher and martial arts instructor.
My whole life I have been dealing with depression, anxiety and other mental health concerns.
I found that the best therapy came from writing my story, first in the form of poetry then in a book. Even if you only write for your self, please do it. It will help!