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. 

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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.

            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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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.

I was first diagnosed with major depressive disorder when I was 13 years old. By the time I reached 16, a few more labels were added to the MMD. These included borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, post traumatic stress disorder and OCD. Fun stuff. Medication was the only treatment available at that time. My parents decided the best place for me to be was hospitalized in the mental health unit of a large teaching hospital. I felt and thought the reason for such a drastic change in my life was for their convenience, not what was best for me.

Little background, my father, a surgeon, was diagnosed with severe bipolar disorder, treatment was medication. When the medication no longer controlled the symptoms, he would stop working and sit staring blankly at the television for about 3 months. At some point, my mother would notice and send him out of town for a series of ECT. He would return from his “vacation” zombie like but after a few weeks or so, would return to his baseline personality. He always had a flat affect most of the time.

So, apparently I inherited the gene or genes for mental illness of one name or another.

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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.

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Hi! I have been diagnosed with Type II Bipolar Disorder, Clinical Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder and PTSD.  I have been in treatment since 1994.  Sounds like a mess doesn’t it? I’ll admit for many years there were times I thought I was crazy. There were times I thought I had two personalities, which I found out I don’t.  Some doctors have tried to diagnose me with Borderline Personality Disorder as well. After reading about it, I believe they could be right about that too. Many of it’s symptom also fit me. 

The reason I am writing this is to say that there is hope!  I wasn’t diagnosed with Bipolar until I was nearly 45.  I am now 61.  I knew since my teen years that there was something wrong with me, but I didn’t know what.  I didn’t know back then that there was help. I didn’t know in my 30’s or 40’s there was help. Mental illness wasn’t talked about then like it is now.  I was ashamed at first, but you know what?  I talk about it freely now.  Mental Illness is no different than having heart disease, or diabetes, or kidney disease.  Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.   Your brain is just as much an organ as your heart, the organ that regulates your insulin, and your kidney.

I have accepted the fact that I have to take my “psych” meds, as I call them, for the rest of my life. Right along with my blood pressure medicine and potassium for my heart. It doesn’t make me weak.  It makes me a survivor!

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Mental illness runs in my family four generations.I hear voices and see things that are not there which is caused by my schizophrenia.  I have bipolar disorder because sometimes I am depressed and sometimes I am manic. I have PTSD because my biological father was not in my life and my mom could not take care of my mental illness due to her illness. I have borderline personality disorder because every time I get close to someone they leave or hurt me. I have obsessive compulsive disorder because I want everything to be perfect. I am a psychopath because I like to plan for the future. I do burn bridges because I am protecting my innocence and soul. Because of this stuff I am a terrible mom. Yet music, history and my family and animals help me. So hopefully that will help. A friend is someone that knows all about you, yet loves you just the same. My religion also helps me. I have zillions of blessings everyday.

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.

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1. I’ve had anxiety since 1st grade, depression since I was 11 years old. This was in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Nobody talked about, understood or even knew about mental illness. It was referred to as “growing pains”.
2. Unfortunately, I wasn’t diagnosed until the early 1990’s; also with compulsive overeating, bulimia, borderline personality disorder, relationship/male dependency, survivor of mental, physical and sexual abuse and rape, codependency, PTSD, attention deficit disorder, self harm (cutting), suicide attempts, etc. 
3. When finally diagnosed, mental illness was still not really recognized by insurance companies. Therefore, receiving proper treatment was limited and frustrating. I’m sad and angry that I wasn’t able to get the help I so desperately needed as a child, my life might have been brighter growing up. 
4. I was finally able to receive therapy along with medications to help cope with mental illness. It is still a struggle. Couple of times my medications stopped being effective and I struggled with depression and anxiety. My doctor and I kept trying different medications and ECT’s (Electro Convulsive Therapy) until we found a combination of medications that worked. The ECT’S didn’t help me, but I know friends that find them very helpful. It gets difficult at times, just keep working with your doctor/therapist and there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel.
5. I’m very glad that children and teens are able to be diagnosed early and can get treatment so they have a chance to a brighter future. Even though we still struggle with the stigma of mental illness, times have sure changed since I was a child.