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FULL DISCLOSURE

I am wanting to openly discuss my life with mental illnesses, yet I am not ready for my bosses, colleagues and friends to learn the good, bad and ugly of my personal life. I am writing under an alias name and I promise to come clean if enough people believe this has helped them. I do believe that someone struggling may find comfort that we will always be riding the waves for the rest of our lives, but we can ride them. I do believe that a friend or family member that is going through a mental illness diagnosis or episode may find comfort and knowledge in my experiences, so I had to start somewhere.

START A MOVEMENT

My goal is to be a breath of fresh air and start a movement where mental illness is encouraged to be in open conversations like diabetes and cancer treatments are. These things are shared freely between friends, parishioners, colleagues and so many other places. How amazing if we could share our mental illness struggles as openly as others share their health struggles? There has been great change to openly talk about depression, anxiety and postpartum depression and yet discussing bi-polar, psychosis or schizophrenia is still very much in the backgrounds and whispers of it between family and that is all. Let us openly share mental illnesses and turn illness into health. What a concept!

DRIVE CHANGE

I am a woman with health insurance and I’m on medications and I have a therapist. Which by the way is one of the recipes for success with mental illness. What about those less fortunate though? How can we change the way mental health care is given to the mentally ill? We need more money from the government, insurance companies, hospitals and then we need to give it to the police departments for social workers, homeless shelters and agencies for rehabilitation help back into society.  Then there are our brave veteran’s that deserve mental healthcare immediately after returning from live duty. We must start somewhere, and I want to help. Let’s drive change together!

The mental illnesses that I have are bi-polar disorder 2(but now it may be 1), depression, ADHD, general anxiety disorder and social anxiety. There is also therapy talk that I may have Boderline Personality Disorder too. Read how I handled this throughout childhood to adulthood- 44 years to be exact.

Please know these are my personal experiences and my perspective on my mentally ill life. I am not a doctor or psychologist but can share how I rode the waves of mood swings and all the things that come with being sick.

One thing I want to stress is how difficult this has been to my family and friends. This is why there are groups specifically for people that are family and friends of a mentally ill person. It is just as hard on them and I want to share hope and resources that may help them understand what their loved one is going through and the best ways to help.