No matter what people think after reading this, know I am still human. I am more than my illness…
It was 1990, I had just gotten into a fight in Junior High School. A bully had picked on me and my friends for weeks. One of said friends was a mentally challenged girl who was the sister of my best friend. The bully came up to us trying to intimidate us and I had enough, I told her to back off. She responded by spitting it hit my face. What happened next according to those who witnessed this, was I had a look in my eyes, I chased said girl into the school, into the girls bathroom and cornered her. After said cornering I punched her repeatedly until the Dean came in broke it up. I was a good student, made good grades, never got into an in school fight in my life. But something in me snapped. When my mom was called in, the school guidance councilor said clear as day in front of me to my mother, while bright he feared there was something going on with me mentally. And that my mom should seek help so that I would not waste my potential future. My mom being a proud type simply asked was I going to be suspended or expelled? Given the situation it was deemed that my reaction was justified. I don't see how but I guess because of my grades at the time and my standing as a “good student” no one wanted to harm that. Very unusual for young kids of color but I and my family were grateful. A year after that though I stayed calm, the summer before I started high school I was sexually assaulted. The veneer of normalcy slowly began to crack but still, my family did not want to address it. And in high school I focused on grades and being the good student, while mentally my mind was doing things I did not understand.
I learned to suppress things or mask myself early on in life…
I thought the sounds were whispers at first, just my over active imagination not being able to stop itself. After all I loved to write even back then, but this was different.The whispers turned to full on voices, ones Id respond to, not openly of course. No most would not have understood, I was cognitive enough to realize that much. At sixteen I had what should have been classified as my first nervous breakdown. It was glossed over, I don't remember much about it save once again a school official voicing concern about it and how help should be gotten. Help that did not come because no one in my family wanted to deal with the stigma of mental illness. So it was pushed down, the mask that cracked glued back together and the veneer of normal back up. I moved to Florida after High School to attend college, and unfortunately the path I took veered me away from doing so immediately. I choose in an effort to save money to live with a cherished aunt, she had gone to college was a strong, beautiful, smart woman. I knew of her husband, they had issues when we all lived in Staten Island. But he was great at keeping his own mask on. I found out shortly after moving with them to Florida how easily he fooled so many people, as he began beating the hell out of my aunt. I thought I could help stop this, but he had her so psychologically broken down, she began to take his side in our arguments just to keep him from beating her. While I did not break down, I had lost faith in one of the few people I always viewed as a strong person.
I thought I was learning to trust and have a stable relationship...I was still hiding behind a mask.
After meeting my first “husband” (I will get to why I put this in quotations further into this story) I left that volatile situation. I worked two jobs, did anything to keep my mind off the things I witnessed. I stopped talking to family and settled into a routine. Routines tend to help big time for me,knowing when things are gonna happen and rarely veering from such.But things never stay stable long when your brain is fighting you internally. I did the two job thing until the second job, a chance at a book keepers position opened up and offered me the kind of money I had never thought I could make at my young age (then twenty one). I jumped on it worked for years with my “quirks” but the mundane life of number crunching kept me calm. And when I was not at work my then boyfriend introduced me to online gaming, so two areas that truly kept me from my mind which was slowly heading towards a large breakdown. By 2003 my job had transferred me twice, first to the Clearwater office, then to South Florida. In clear water I was tasked with carrying a concealed weapon due to the amount of actual money that came in and out of the office I worked in. That was hard enough,but to add to this a miscarriage that I pretty much acted as if it did not happen. Even as my boss sent me home the day after I was released from the hospital because he thought “I should get some rest.” I just needed the routine to keep myself going, I did not understand why he would not let me work. When the offer to transfer to the South Florida office came, I jumped at it. I knew it would be a new area where I could set my own routine, and this time I would be a manager. I did not realize the stress of such, nor did I appreciate the limit my mind could handle. South Florida was new, it did workout well for a year then things fell apart...
Life and death came at me fast and hard and I could not keep things together mentally.
Even after my marriage (which I recently found out was null and void due to my ex being a bigamist.) I had to deal with a former manager who had threatened to shoot up my office. I left the job in after nearly five years walked away from a great salary after they insisted on moving the office I worked in into a high risk area. The fear of being robbed or shot was too great for me. I went into business with my ex and watched as most of the money I had saved go to a business that was not even treading water. The cracks on my mask and in my mind were building and it would not take much for them to burst open.
It did not take long either…
I remember talking to my grandfather Pop Pop we called him, he normally would answer the phone when I call to speak to my grandmother (who I reestablished a relationship with.) He never talked long only said hello and passed the phone over. But this time was different, he talked for a good twenty minutes with me about music, collecting records it was nice. I had no idea it would be the last time Id hear his voice. I got the call the day after he died in a doctors office of a heart attack, granted he was my grandmother second husband after my biological granddad died when I was three. But Pop Pop was a great man and losing him hurt. Right after him a great aunt I used to be closed to, and my favorite great uncle all passed right behind each other. Things like this happen in big families, I had lost many relatives in the past including my estranged father right after we began to reconnect. But for some reason these three coupled with the failing business, the thought of what I walked away from salary wise to help run said business just became too much. I don't remember the full day I was first committed by my ex using Florida's Baker Act. I just remember when I finally became lucid wondering why I was in this weird white room with a bed and the only door out had a one way window panel. Even then it was a few hours before anyone came and explained where I was or why. I had a severe nervous breakdown, it was the first and would not be the last...
Two more times between August of 2003-May of 2004 I was in and out of Memorial Regional Mental health ward. Between the crippling hallucinations that felt real...I mean you feel things, you hear things, scenarios happen that feel so real only to be told no you were just wandering and talking to yourself. The lows when they hit made me want to kill myself. I couldn't take the pain of life. I was told I had Schizophrenia. Which after a few years was updated to Schizo-Affective disorder. The update was due to them finding I also have manic mood swings that are attributed to Bipolar disorder. I was placed on several medications, they made me feel zombie like at times, numb other times, but I was able to not hear stuff all the time. By then any access to fire arms were kept from me because I had the clarity even then to know I could and would end my life if I kept a gun around.
I had one more low point before my life changed forever.
My ex was not truly understanding of what I was going through, he was stressed about having to go back to work after our store failed. I could not work after the third time I was put away. I spent most days when I was not in mandatory therapy, sitting at home trying to keep things together. I still had going online as a refuge. There I chatted in Yahoo depression chat. Played a friend's Mud client game, and met my best friend and the person who helped me put things back together. It was a faithful night in 2005, I was having severe stomach pains, was hitting a real low. My mind kept telling me why am I suffering like this? When the path of ending my pain was there. So that night when my ex went off to his night job, I had gathered the means to end it all. But I had wanted to have a few hours of escaping first. I chatted in depression chat, talking with a friend who always had positive things to say. And in the other window spent time in the mud game with my then friend (who is now my SO.) Both kept me up all night that night, not on purpose they had no idea what I had intended to do. But for some reason both of them just had the need to keep me chatting with them. By the time they said goodnight the sun was coming up. My friend told me I should go to the emergency room for my stomach pains and made me promise him id do so. I was so tired I agreed. Then instead of doing what I had intended to do, I warily waited for my ex to come home and cried to him I need to go to the emergency room. I thought for sure Id be turning myself in to their psyche ward, but I explained the pains in my stomach instead, and after an ultra sound found out that I was expecting...and thirty eight weeks had passed already.
I made a conscious decision to accept help and make sure I continue to seek such for my illness.
It was at that moment I realized what I almost did, letting that low hit me so hard I nearly destroyed two lives. It was when I stopped shirking getting help and got things back on track, its still not easy. I still have episodes, though they are lighter than before. It took me moving away from all the things that stressed me, finding work that is easy to do and mundane. Writing and finding folks who understand even if its not fully, what I am going through. After ten years of having my back my then friend asked me to start dating. And though I was scared to at first, I accepted August 2015. I have not regretted living life again. But even with my new found happiness, including the ability to write and help others I still felt as if something was wrong. Then I realized the answer, too many people still have no idea what living with a mental illness is like. Too many believe the Hollywood interpretation of what it is. They deem us violent, our plight only comes up when something tragic like a mass shooting happens. These stigmas normally make people like me (1 in 10million Americans diagnosed with a serious mental illness) clam up. Afraid to speak up about how we are more likely to hurt ourselves than others.
Now at Forty I realize I cannot just seek help for myself I must speak up!
Its why I began to speak up, well tweet up on twitter, its why I support NAMI (National Association for Mental Illness). Its why I am done hiding after all these years. My life is not picture perfect, there are days where things affect me still, but I carry on. Many of us do, and too many of us still suffer in silence because of lack of resources for mental health issues. And from constant stigmas due lack of understanding by society. I tweeted about this a few weeks back and it holds true. Many have no idea as they toss the term mental illness at every horrific mass shooting act, how many people maybe saying it to someone who silently lives with our conditions and feels shame after hearing such. We feel it when people say mass shooters are us, we feel the negative societal leans when people accuse our group in whole of heinous acts. And even speaking up we deal with those who dismiss us because some believe the mentally ill are not intelligent or capable of having intelligent thought. So I decided I had to start speaking up! No longer will I allow myself to be shamed into silence. In doing this I hope to help others still afraid to admit they may need help. Or for those who do get help but still feel they have to hide their illness due to lack of understanding to know they are not alone. You are more than your illness. And you are not a stigma.
It should not take a school shooting for mental illness to be on people's lips. Sadly as society scapegoats it seems to be the only time people ever think of us. Thank you for reading this, it is a bit longer than I planned, but I wanted to lay out the path I was on. To let people see that mental illness is something that can be lived with. Its a twisting journey but one many of us traverse and it would help if more understood our journeys. Please feel free to share your stories in the comments below and always Thank you for reading.