My name is Amanda and I have Schizoaffective Disorder. The relief that I got when I was finally diagnosed for the third time with the same diagnoses was overwhelming. Because at that moment it finally made sense to me. I grew up with all of the symptoms, genetics, family history of addiction, in poverty, and it took me hitting rock bottom to admit what I thought was defeat. The truth is, I’ve had it this whole time and I have found a therapist willing to take my hand and lift me up and I have a psychiatrist willing to listen and change my medicine and not judge me and I finally after 35 years am looking forward to not lying in bed wishing I had the bravery to cut myself.

Several members of my family have struggled with mental health conditions- silently and not-so-silently. First was my father, diagnosed at 31 with schizoaffective disorder, which unfortunately became a big family secret. Because dad was ‘sick’ and I was only 13, and no one would say why he was disconnected & uncommunicative, I believed it was somehow my fault, as many adolescents do. It took years to understand his illness, but eventually my brother and I learned that it was no one’s fault: and that mental health conditions ARE health conditions and need not have a stigma attached.

I was lucky to have a great school guidance counselor…. who also helped me to seek help at 15, for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to a violent crime that I survived. I was also private about my pain, fearing abandonment or blame. Next was my own diagnosis of depression, and hard work with several wonderful psychotherapists. These amazing people have a hard job AND they sometimes save lives! They deserve recognition and pay EQUITABLE with that of other healthcare professionals!!

Gradually I learned to share my story with others. By the time I was 25, my youngest brother & sister were adopted from Romania, by my mother & stepfather. My brother was in an orphanage for his first 14 months of life, with poor living conditions, rampant disease and no nurturing. He survived undiagnosed hepatitis as an infant - with no medicine- he’s a survivor!! By age 5 in the USA he was diagnosed with ADHD, an attachment disorder, a mood disorder, and developmental delays. With special schooling, medicine & therapy, he was able to make friends, graduate high school, learn to drive, get several jobs, and lead a much better life (than would have been possible in Romania)!!

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I have schizoaffective disorder. I have been stable for over 8 years. You can find that stability too.

It took me a long time to get here. I have been admitted into the hospital several times and waded through many therapists, doctors and treatment centers. I have been on a ton of medications with changes and tweaks to those.

I was unemployed and living with my parents after my first full blown and frightening psychotic break that landed me in the hospital for 10 days, a diagnosis and a move back home. I was only able to see doctors that were appointed by the state to provide care for those people without income or insurance. Because I was not able to pay for anything, all the medications I took were sample packs, which in turn reduced the options of medications I could be on.

These medications were terrible and did not work without serious side effects. I blew up and gained about 50 pounds and was extremely tired and in a haze. I went on a cycle of getting medications, taking them, figuring I was not ill and then the inevitable trip back to the psych ward.

I did not really get well until I met my wife. We met online and began a loving relationship. I tried to hide my illness for a bit of time in the early stages. It was not until I had a full-blown psychotic episode at her parent’s house over Christmas - our first time traveled up to Boston/Providence.

I became extremely paranoid and manic. When we returned to our condo in Maryland, I had to check our cat for a birthmark on his belly to make sure my parents did not trade him out for something that could spy on me. It was time for real help.

As my wife does out of love and improvement of our life together, researched and found a therapist from a center for adoption.

I was adopted at birth to a loving couple and a sister who is 3 years older than me. I had 4 good years with my new family until my adopted mother passed from cancer. My father remarried a divorcee with 2 kids after a very short period of courtship. I realize now he wanted a mother for my sister and me.

The therapist turned out to be one of the best people my wife and I had ever met, not only in terms of therapy, but also just a great person. She helped in my treatment of my mental illness. She gave us the info for a reputable doctor. This guy saved my life of pain, misery, shame and fear. I was put on a good medication for the first time after I was diagnosed. It was a silver bullet to my mind’s disarray.

I had a breakdown that landed me in the hospital right before our marriage and we had to cancel and reschedule the event. We ended up going to the courthouse with just our parents. We had a great ceremony and stayed in a hotel. It was small and quaint and was probably better than what we had planned before.

We had a rough few years and it is a miracle we stayed together. I honestly don’t know if I would have made it if I had not met her. She was so strong and stood by me and held my head up when I was down. She said in her dating profile that she wanted someone who could stand in the fire with her. It turned out she stood with me instead.

We moved to Boston/Providence in 2014 to be closer to her family. We love it here and have an amazing, loving and supportive familial environment. We are blessed and fortunate. I am now stable, despite a minor episode here and there and a couple medication tweaks.

I see a psychiatrist once a month who manages my medication. I tried to get back into therapy after several suggestions from my wife. I have a lot of things that have happened and a lot of emotions bubbling under the surface.

I met with a couple of therapists, but they were hacks and I abandoned my search for one. I read a lot of self-improvement books and have tossed aside many that did not have the kind of content I am looking for.

I am stable and looking towards a bright future.

#IAmStigmaFree because I share my story at Crisis Intervention Team Trainings, public speaking engagements and conferences. I’ve been on the Board of Directors for NAMI Pinellas County for a couple of years here in Florida and I teach Peer to Peer as a mentor. But before I found NAMI, I was very alone in a struggle that went on for half my life.

At the age of 12, I began to experience depression and some mild paranoia, which I would only recognize as such many years later. At 15, I had my first suicide attempt. At 16, I was regularly cutting myself because self-mutilation had become my dysfunctional coping mechanism, along with anorexia nervosa, for which I was hospitalized for weeks at age 17, when I weighed 83 pounds.

However, none of this was the worst of it. Crippling major depression and an eating disorder were, I would realize later, much easier for me to live with than the psychosis that followed. At 23, I became floridly psychotic, delusional and paranoid, with constant auditory, visual, tactile and olfactory hallucinations. I believed, at first, that I had been heinously abused as a child and blocked out the memories, but then I began to believe I was a mind control victim of the CIA. I thought there was a microchip implanted in my body, monitoring my whereabouts and that people were communicating with me constantly through secret “double speak”, hidden messages and via reading my mind and sending me thoughts from theirs. I thought people on TV and the radio were directly communicating with me, and was sure that I had a personal relationship with Anderson Cooper of CNN, who I had never met.

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My husband has bipolar/schizoaffective disorder and before he got help it was difficult for him to be stable in life, he was homeless with no clothing on but his pants. When he got help, they had told him to apply for social security disability and other state sponsored benefits, they told him “because he won’t be able to live independent of those because of his mental illness.” Boy were they wrong! Today, he is stable on medication, he works a full-time job and has a side business. He has me, his wife and an 8 year old son who adores him. Although he has come this far in life, don’t get me wrong as an individual living with bipolar/schizoaffective disorder, he does have manic times and depressive times (not as severely because he is on effective medication) but I, as his wife have learned to help support him especially in those times to make sure he has a safe and stable home, which is extremely important. He always tells me that when he looks back on his life, where he is now mentally and where he was, he his blessed to be on medication and would encourage anyone suffering with the symptoms of mental illness to get the help you need whether just counseling or both counseling and medication, do not be ashamed of your diagnosis and the treatment you may need, it does not define you.

Hello, I wanted to write to those attempting to understand mental illness. My name is Jori, I spent my entire life not knowing or understanding why most people didn’t see the things I saw or heard the things I heard so I always knew I was gifted and a chosen one in my mind. My mother was diagnosed with 8 personalities and my father had severe mental illness too which I am not sure was ever diagnosed but because of his alcohol and drug addictions, I am not sure if people assumed his addictions were the issue which was just a bandage for the real problems in his mind.

I first began to notice I had something wrong when I was about 14 and I would snap, once attacking my mother whom I hated and throwing her to the floor in attempt to kill her. I was removed from the home and lived with a family which I observed kindness and loving relationships which was my first opportunity to see things in the home I came from were not acceptable as far as neglect and verbal, mental and sexual abuse.

I never graduated from high school and had two children with two different fathers who abandoned me during my pregnancies, leaving me to care for my children as a single parent. I did not know that I was supposed to bath my children and my oldest got an infection and had to have a surgery on his penis which flared up from never being cleaned by the age of 3. My fear was keeping him safe and not abusing him. I also would give my children a cup of chocolate milk and a vitamin in the morning and send them off to school without a lunch. The school finally began giving my children the free lunch programs so they would have something to eat. I never learned to cook or do self care until I observed friends caring for themselves. Life was tough, life was lonely and the loneliness has never left me for some reason I hold a hatred for my parents still to this day and I am 48.

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            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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My name is Robert Hagee and I have a mental illness, I have had the illness since childhood, it was believed to be schizophrenia when I was young but came to schizoaffective disorder. If I was to write anything about my illness it would be this: that without my mother who was very strong from her life struggles as a child and as an adult, I would not have survived; I look back and realize if I was to know of all my issues and struggles to come when was a young and not to know of the good I do not believe I would have continued. There are other issues with my health and the hardest thing I face is that my mother will be at my funeral and my only regret I would ever change is the fact that my mother has had to experience my life with me.

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And I knew I wasn’t right 

So I planned on going that Friday night 

And I knew I wasn’t okay

Making it the perfect place for me to stay 

See, for most, a mental hospital isn’t a choice 

It’s one of those things where you are left without a voice 

Brought there suddenly against your will

Then before you know it, you are given a bunch of random pills 

But for me, it was where I was supposed to be

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