Prayers keep a mother's hope strong

by Tamoa in Virgnia

I am just turning 35 years old and have lived with mental illness all my life. I remember asking my mother when I was little, "was I retarded like my uncle'" who is now 60 and has the mentality of a ten-year-old. I was crying all the time and could not sleep at night because I was afraid of things coming out from the bed or closets that I was actually seeing. My parents didn't think anything of it at the time. As I got older it became progressively worse.

The first major thing happened when I was in school and one of my kin had sex with me and I got pregnant (I didn't know any better at the time because I was a child). My parents took me to get an abortion even though I did not want to kill an innocent baby. Then as I got older I had gotten pregnant by a man who I thought loved me and left me alone to raise my daughter by myself. Then I got married to a man who gave me a son; we were married about two years. My relationships never lasted. But my son's grandfather raped my daughter when she was six-years-old. That really started off my mental illness because I wanted to kill myself for letting something like this happen to my baby girl! I divorced that husband because he did not believe that his dad did that to my daughter.My life has never been normal, and I have been on all types of medication and have been in the hospital more than 20 times. I have only experienced one NORMAL time in my life and that lasted 4 1/2 years. Then all of the sudden I took a plunge off the deep end and they put me back into the hospital three more times. I still don't feel normal. I am still suicidal today, and the doctor keeps messing with my medications. I hear and see things that are not here, hardly eat or sleep, or sleep too much. I know my kids are feeling my pain because they also have mental illnesses and ADHD, too. I will be so happy when the day comes that doctors come up with a medicine that will treat all mental illnesses and don't have to take the others. Just that one pill. To be back into those 4 "normal" years that I had would be nice, but more importantly the thing that has helped me the most out of all this is not the medicine or doctors, but my LORD, my friends, and my family. They have supported me through it all and I appreciate them very much. It's been rough, but I know one day it will be all over because I will be in heaven where there is no such thing as mental illnesses or heartache. THANK YOU LORD!! I just hope that someone can benefit from my story. GOD BLESS YOU ALL!! You all are always in my prayers!!