I have bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, and anxiety. I have struggled with mental health illness since I was a child and because I was misdiagnosed with depression at the age of eleven, have suffered for quite some time.  I also struggled with alcoholism for a few years, having inherited it from my Dad.

I’ve been on many medications, seen several therapists and psychiatrists, made numerous suicide attempts, and self-harmed. I felt broken. I wasn’t thriving and I didn’t expect to survive. Then there was a miracle. I conceived my daughter. She was born in December of 2008.

I needed to at least live for her sake at that point, but I was still barely surviving. It was the spring of 2015 when I decided to quit alcohol and to go into the hospital because I was severely depressed and suicidal. The doctor changed my medications and a few days before my discharge date the doctor made me realize that I was still in a deep depression. I still needed help. I decided to do ECT.

It was a major decision but it changed my life. The combination of ECT, medications, and therapy have helped me onto my road of recovery. I’m not 100% and I still have my episodes. However, have my treatment team, my friends, and my family to guide me and help me. I’m not alone.

Everyone struggles with something in life. Some struggle for brief periods of time and some struggle every day. I belong to the some who struggle every day. Since I was 5 years old I have constantly struggled with mental illness. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, ADD, ADHD, PTSD, and attention deficit Disorder. My dad, step mother, and Step Father physically abused me for most of my life because they didn’t understand what I was going through and my Mother was the only person in my life to try to help me through everything I was dealing with. Unfortunately I did not trust anyone around me due to how I was treated at home and because I was constantly bullied at school because I was different. Eventually the abuse I was facing at my step fathers house led to me going into a state of shock and I tried to hurt my mother because I was so out of it and thought she was my step father. I was 15 at this point and was detained. 

Keep reading

            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.

Keep reading

I have been struggling with mental illness from a young age. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, adhd, ocd, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, psychogenic seizures, and a learning disability. I also am I recovering addict. I would like to spread my story to those in need to show them that the darkness does fade as long as you have the strength to flip the light. The goal is to inspire everyone but if that is not possible I aim to touch at least one person.

Who am I? I am a wife, mother, sister, friend, Marine and a proud American. I am loving, kind, compassionate, impulsive, stubborn and often difficult. None of those labels define me. I have Bipolar disorder, PTSD along with Borderline personality disorder and I have a tendency to self-harm. Those do not define me either. I am who I am. I am me. Mental illness is like any other illness in the fact that it affects your way of life. It may not present itself with physical symptoms but that makes it no less real. My story may not start like most. Many may find themselves feeling uneasy or unwilling to continue reading. And yet I ask you to try. Try to make it through to the very end. Hopefully you will learn a little more about mental illness and maybe a little more about me. I’m tired of the stigma often associated with mental illness. In order to properly help those in need we need to rid the world of these obvious stigmas. Some are born with a form of mental illness. Others attain it through life’s experiences. I am not sure I fall into one category over the other. And so begins my journey with mental illness…

 As a little girl I grew up loving Barbie dolls, roller skates and my dog Lacey. We lived in a normal middle class neighborhood. We knew most of our neighbors and considered those next to us as family. Maybe that is why what happened became overlooked and went unnoticed until now. As I mentioned above some might find what I am about to say unnerving but please continue on. As a little girl, with long brown pigtails, meticulously braided by my mother and with big brown eyes my neighbor first molested me. This teenage boy took my innocence at approximately 5 years old. It wasn’t just him though. I had an older male cousin that felt the need to molest me as well.  Both continued to steal a little piece of me for years. Like I said no one knew and I was too scared to tell. Still I consider my childhood a happy one. One full of love, excitement, wonder and joy. I began going to Catholic school as a Kindergartener. I stayed at the same school for 9 years. I am still friends with many of my fellow classmates. They were like family to me.

Keep reading

I am diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is on top of my other diagnoses of bipolar II disorder, ADHD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. BPD affects four areas of my life:

1. Emotional Dysregulation:

• BPD is very exhausting and confusing to live with. I’m never sure whether to trust my emotions, if they’re justified or if I’m just overreacting.
• My moods are mostly always triggered by something in my environment, but if something good happens five minutes later, I’ll immediately feel euphoric.
• Every emotion I feel is amplified; they can change at the drop of a hat and can last only minutes or hours.
• When I am in a severe crisis where I am experiencing intense emotions, I will sometimes dissociate to deal with it. It will feel as if the situation isn’t actually real and that I’m watching myself from outside of my body.
• I have had difficult controlling my anger and have often succumbed to attacks of extreme rage - throwing things, screaming, crying, etc. It is usually very inappropriate for the situation and I can be very sarcastic and bitter.
• It is during these episodes of rage that I am most likely to intentionally hurt myself. I am much more in control of this symptom now with the help of medication, but I still have my moments.
• I also usually feel very internally restless, like something is missing. I get bored extremely easily and sometimes feel like a hollow shell. I never have a sense of fulfillment.

Keep reading

My name is Amy and I have bipolar 1 disorder. Both my parents had mental health issues: Dad bipolar 1 and Mom borderline personality disorder so i am genetically predisposed to my condition.

I have had episodes of severe to mild mania followed by depression of equal intensity. Though I am relatively stable on my meds it is still a struggle, sometimes daily.

I’m embarrassed to say that I often tell people I have an anxiety disorder vs. bipolar to account for times when I can’t sleep or when I have a panic attack. Particularly for upper management where I work. I find that people can relate better to that vs. bipolar which brings about images of serial killers and perpetrators of mass shootings. It’s just that bipolar is not well understood and I have lost my marriage, some friends and family. Some people are visibly afraid of me because they think I’m unstable or judge me for times it was hard to parent my kids.

Having said that, I have come a long way in my recovery. I have a great job with a flexible schedule. I’m compliant with my meds, have a superb psychiatric and a solid bond with my therapist. Wonderful friends and family support too. I’m also doing my best to repair my relationship with my kids.

In fact, I am a NAMI Certified Support Group Leader and I can tell you that people with mental illness can get better and manage their disorder. We have good days and bad days but keep hope alive and don’t isolate. NAMI has fantastic resources to help you along. I use them all the time, follow NAMI on Facebook and donate when I can.

Have faith and remember you are not alone.

Amy

It’s mental health awareness month. My mental health is something that looking back on my life is something I have always struggled with it my whole life, I was just not aware of depression being a illness. My official diagnose is borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, Generalized anxiety disorder, I’m suicidal and I also have been a cutter. Then dealing with losing my mom when I was just five days away from turning 17 and then losing my Dad at 19 has played apart in my depression too. 
But even before losing my parents I was depressed, it has been a struggle everyday for me, I have been dealing with thoughts of wanting to killing myself and sometimes thinking I was never good enough, that I was just a waste of life and it went on for what seems like forever. It seems I have always been thinking how my life is horrible and thinking I wish I could die.

I feel that my feelings started to get more intense when I was in high school. I would always look at other people at school and think how can they be so happy, and why do I feel so sad all the time. But I was afraid to tell anyone how I was feeling because I did not want people to think I was weird or crazy. So sometimes I would cover up how I was really feeling by trying to be one else, I would say things that were not true to make people think I was normal, because in my head I thought I was a freak, and because I was so depressed and I didn’t want anyone to know that I was thinking about killing myself everyday or how at night I would cry myself to sleep because I was so depressed and scared to tell anyone. Like most teenagers I just wanted to fit in and I thought if anyone really knew how I felt I would be ostracized. So all the feelings I had, I kept to myself and I would make up stories to tell other people because sometimes I had wished that maybe if I say something enough times even if it was not true, it would come true and my depression and my suicidal thoughts would go away. In high school I also began cutting. It was a way for me to control how I was feel, when I felt everything else was out of control. Even though I knew it was wrong, it was a release. But today I can say I happily don’t cut anymore.

Keep reading

I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), PTSD, Major Depression and Anxiety.   I took Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) in 1998 and graduate in 2000 at Phoenix Interfaith Counseling.  I was so grateful I took that class. It help me with impulsive cutting, how to set boundaries, Interpersonal Effectiveness just to name a few.  It took me a year and half to learn it.

I’m so grateful for Shirley S for being patient, caring and able to talk to me when needed.  I don’t know where I’d be if I did not take DBT.  The class save my life.  I blessed those who help me like Millie, and  Mary. We had group after we learn the DBT. 

Those of you who have BPD I would suggest taking DBT class and if you don’t understand it have your therapist help you understand.  They are really caring people at PIC.  After learning the DBT I use it everyday for situations and prevent myself from self harming.

I discovered NAMI in 2015 when I saw a flier in my psychiatrist’s office.
Hi. My name is Nicholas Lima and I am 31 years old. I was diagnosed in 2002 at 16 years old. I have struggled with bipolar disorder, anxiety and depression. After years of being a psych patient, I feel amazing, thank God.
Together we can!