by Angela in North Carolina
My strength is derived from my passion for advocating for those who suffer from mental illness as I have shared their pain. I am a highly-motivated individual who chooses to use my own mental illnesses as an asset rather than a liability.
by Cathrine in Michigan
My name is Cathrine. My birth was traumatic and a root cause of my mental and physical conditions. I suffer from BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), Depression, ADD, Anxiety and panic disorders. Some of my mental problems I have suffered from all my life and some have gotten worse and developed due to my hypothyroidism and my environment.
by Deborah in California
From childhood, I vividly remember sitting on top of my shoes inside of the closet, as I hid away and cried. I would cry for hours, if no one caught me and yelled at me to stop. Sadness was my existence; I did not have the words to articulate my experience. Almost every day, I went through an inexplicable pain; not only did I suffer with depression, but also I was being sexually abused, and I did not have the words to voice my experience. Living in a small, rural town during the 70's meant that family secrets prevailed. A book about molestation did not exist in the town library.
by Jacki in New Jersey
I have had mental illness starting at age 14. My illness has disrupted my life and the lives of those around me. At any given time, I have been very disruptive to myself. At the young at of 15, I was not the child you wanted to be sitting in your child's math class.
by Stacy in New York
I am 22 years old. I have been fighting this battle successfully since I was 14. I have attempted to quit many times. I believe God has been trying to tell me something by keeping me here. I fight against the depression every day and win. Thank God for big miracles. It isn't easy. I try to eat 3 to 4 balanced meals a day. I try to sleep regularly. It is hard. Just when life is tough enough, something else comes along to test my abilities to stay sane.
by Mikayla in Arizona
My story is one of parental rights and mental disability. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 30 with major depression. Eleven years later, I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I was very high functioning and worked as a corporate travel agent for 22 years. I was also attending college earning A's.
by Bonnie in Pennsylvania
I have lived a life that I would not want anyone to live. At the age of 13, I went on my first diet even though I was not overweight. This was when my life began spiraling out of control. It took about four years to get a diagnosis and that diagnosis was anorexia nervosa. I went from 110 pounds to 90 pounds to 69 pounds over an eight-year period.
by Shannon in New York
I have been struggling with mental illness since I was a child. At the age of seven, my mother and father separated. I started pulling chunks of hair out of my head. I would wake up with a pillow filled with hair or the way I saw it, shame. Shame has been my biggest M/O for relapse or suicidal thoughts.
My mother and father took me to a dermatologist where they diagnosed me with alopecia arietta. I lied and said the hair fell out. I held on to that secret until years later.
by Paula in Pennsylvania
My diagnosis is major recurrent depression with a personality disorder. I should have been in therapy as a child, but only started in my late 20s. I am in my late 50s now.
by Ellen in Massachusetts
My story is a story of others holding hope for me for a very long time until I could find hope for myself and find the meaning of hope. Basically, my story started the day I was conceived, but it came to fruition in 1981. I graduated from high school in 1981 and to a lot of people's surprise I applied for college. To my surprise, I received a scholarship from my school's booster club and off to college I went.
