I Am a 61 yr old woman who has dealt with mental health issues all my life. Sometimes life just becomes too hard for me. I try to navigate the systems that are there to assist us but when I am in a downward spiral my brain does not think and cope as well as it should. I like many people with mental illness are alone. I also have had people close to me use my mental disability as a way to control or hurt me. It takes me a lot to ask for help out of fear that I will be locked up in a mental ward and forced to take medication that either does not work for me or is not good for my mind and body. What I don’t understand is why society thinks that doping a person up to become a slobbering, shuffling idiot with no feelings is better than working with that person first and foremost cognitively instead of numbing their minds and feelings. Ups and downs in life is a part of life but the stigma of being mentally disabled does not make me different than most yet the way society thinks that I need to be put away and medicated to the point of zombie gives me great fear to speak up and ask for help. I have been suicidal in the past since I was a young girl but that doesn’t mean that I still am or want to be yet society drama once u do something u will always do that. Well I don’t want to do that. Some people change and mature and others don’t want to Admit defeat and turn there like me ,yet I am threatened if I open my mouth and let others know how I feel, they will use this in ways of control and do more damage and make the situation worse. I fear if I openly admit I need help because of my mental disability society thinks they have the right to do things against my will that hurt matters instead of help.