Treatment sought for co-occurring disorders

by Madison in Pennsylvania

Because of my mental illness, I had to leave my profession in social work and claim disability. It put a strain on my marriage, resulting in a divorce and emotional strain on my parents and brother.

I became sick in 1990 but there were signs and symptoms in my early childhood. I was a self-mutilator and mutilated my dolls. I was psychically, sexually and emotionally abused as a child and raped as an adult.

My first hospitalization was in 1990 in a drug and alcohol facility where I was diagnosed with alcoholism. A year later, I was hospitalized for bulimia. From 1991 to 2004, I was hospitalized a minimum of 35 times in 17 different institutional settings and hospitals. I was in a halfway house for approximately 10 months for alcoholism and in the state hospital on two occasions. During these hospitalizations, my diagnosis included: alcoholism, bulimia, multiple personality disorder, schizoid-effective disorder, borderline personality disorder and major depression. I have received in-patient treatment, partial hospitalization programs, individual and group therapy, and ECT.