by Tony in California

My name is Anthony, and I was injured while serving in the Gulf of Oman. I served with VFA-97, on board the USS Kitty Hawk CV-63. The reason for this message is very complex, but I will try to summarize. You see, I was discharged from the Navy back in 1995 with a very small severance pay of $5000. Before deployment I met a young lady close to my base. We fell madly in love and couldn't get enough of each other. That was back in 1993. We got married and started our family.

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by Stephanie in Maine

I suffer from a variety of things. The first is being brought up in a household totally unaware of 'Mental Illness' and being 'disciplined' as my father was disciplined. My grandmother on my dad's side was the first person I believed to have a problem. My father has always had a very 'hard' way of living and was always the very first to tell us, 'stop crying' if we were being punished.

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by KM in Florida

I guess I have been prone to PTSD since I was a child. My father had epilepsy and when his seizures became uncontrolled by medication, he was unable to drive (and subsequently our family suffered financial devastation). My mother decided to divorce him, saying she was only going to date a man with a Mercedes. I stayed with my father and my younger brother went with my mother. I was only 13.

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by Karen in Wisconsin

I am 30 years old, married, with one son. We are a happy family, but I still struggle from time to time with mental illness. It's something that runs in my family - my grandmother was one of the most severe cases, and had multiple suicide attempts; my grandfather committed suicide when he was 82.

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by Jeanne in North Carolina

I lived, or should I say, existed with depression (dysthymia) for over 30 years. I know that my depression started as a child, though no one ever considered this possible back then. We moved a lot when I was a child, so starting new schools didn't help. My mother was very angry back then and often took it out on me. This, plus no friends led to a lonely childhood.

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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.

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by Kimberly in Florida

I was 8 years old when I had my first panic attack. I was so scared and thought that I was going to die. My mom reassured me that everyone had them. None of my friends were having panic attics nor were they being mentally and physically abused by their dads. As I got older, I became more overwhelmed. I think the only reason I kept it together was because I was so afraid of my dad.

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by Charlotte in Kentucky

Even though I had only a high school education, I was very fortunate to find a career that I loved. I got a divorce when my son was six-months-old and for 20 years held down two jobs simultaneously as a court reporter and legal assistant. I also did some fashion modeling and TV commercials.

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by Jerie in Georgia

Hello my name is Jerie. I am presently residing in Georgia undergoing the stigma, labeling, and misdiagnosing of Mental Illness as a result of one call over twenty years ago. I have been in and out of ER, hospitals, mental health facilities. I am out of work, involved in criminal abuse, and medical abuse. I am improperly medicated, and kept from providing for my family, church, and normal life for over half of my life thus far.

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by Michelle in Virginia

Mental illness has affected my life in that it has changed it forever. The things I aspired to do before I got ill have been hard to achieve. I always have a tougher obstacle to climb than others. Sometimes life seems so impossible and other times it seems too easy, until I crash.

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