My name is Monica. I’m a 27 year old African American Female and Ihave Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety and ADHD. For about 13+ year I had“classic symptoms of ADHD.” So that’s what it was just good ‘ole ADHD.That is what I told everyone in school as I grew up.Being diagnosed two years ago was like a [...]
August 11th 1994. I was 15 and for quite some time my mind had beenspinning out of control. The previous year I had been sexuallyassaulted. And I had been harboring the secret. It had catapulted meinto a life of confusion. I was in the midst of a serious eatingdisorder. I could not concentrate at school. [...]
According to NAMI, 60 millions adults (1 in 4) in the US suffer from mental illness, such as depression and panic disorders. Out of these folks, 14 million people (4 in 100) have a serious mental illness, ranging form bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, and and severe depression. An estimated 15 million children (1 in 5) suffer from [...]
On January 20 of 2010 my husband had me committed to the psychiatric ward in London, Ontario. He persuaded our daughter to call me and to ask me to meet her at a restaurant so that we could talk. When I arrived a police officer took me under a warrant. I was taken to the [...]
I suffer from depression. I’ve struggled with my mental health since my teens, though at that time I didn’t really know that’s what it was for the longest time. It has taken many subtle forms which I didn’t realize were part and parcel of it, or really abnormal in any way. A lack of focus, [...]
It wasn’t until after I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder at the age of eighteen that I could see the signs of mental illness throughout my childhood and young-adulthood. The “hyper attacks” and moments I called “mad scientist” were early manic episodes. The times when I was too angry or sad to [...]
STIGMA AND ITS HARSH CONSEQUENCES “There is a perception that there is no stigma. But know, that it is alive and thriving” Mental illness can strike anyone at anytime! It knows no age limits, economic status, race, creed or color. Yet despite widespread efforts to reduce the stigma attached to mental illness, Americans still perceive [...]
Over ten months, I morphed from a skinny blonde into a 45-pound-heavier brunette. From being praised by my workplace boss for a great job of managing change in our organisation to struggling to explain to my husband the changes happening inside me. I went from a woman who could buy a house to a woman [...]
“Why are you doing this? Did someone hurt you?” My parents looked up at me from where they sat at the kitchen table. Pacing the length of the room, I tried to answer their first question. The second question was simple: no, no one had molested or abused me. I was fifteen and, from the [...]
Do you remember that kid who was always last to be picked for any sports team? The one who was always tagged “it” because he/she was easy to catch? I was that kid. I grew up as the only black head in a sea of blondes. Growing up in a bilingual household with a mother [...]