My daughter saved my life when I was 15. The thread was cobalt blue, and after I finished, I admired my work. At only thirteen, my embroidery was sloppy, but pride still swirled in my gut. The pride stemmed from accomplishment and mastery. Not a mastery of sewing skills, but as I stitched the letters [...]
PTSD: The Illness I Couldn’t See I grew up thinking an “illness” was either fever or croup. Illness was a stuffy nose – a sick-day, an excuse to miss a day of school. At 18 years old, “illness” took on an entirely different meaning. Illness meant waking up from a coma, learning that my stomach [...]
In October of 2004, I was the first police officer on the scene of a fatal motor vehicle collision. Within the first few minutes of being at the scene, I quickly discovered that the seriously injured driver was a close friend. He died in my arms as I was performing CPR on him. I coped [...]
I am honoured to have been recently asked by the international, non-profit organization Stigma Fighters to share my mental health story with them and their followers. The only requirement being that it be told in 1000 words or less…gulp…I’m always up for a challenge! I hope that by sharing my story with fellow mental illness [...]
I'm 41 years old and grew up as an only child in a family where violence, neglect, drugs and verbal abuse had a big impact on our lives. My father was addicted to alcohol and prescription drugs and was violent and abusive. He was also loving, creative, passionate, a wonderful musician and always wanted to [...]
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) vs. Posttraumatic Growth (PTG): Focusing on Symptoms vs. Resiliency in Survivors of Trauma I’m no expert. I may be a counselor-in-training, completing my master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at CACREP-accredited Messiah College Graduate School, but I’m not the authority on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Posttraumatic Growth (PTG). Here’s [...]
I AM A STIGMA FIGHTER I should make clear from the very start that I am not a soldier. Nor, am I or ever was a trained first responder. Far from it, at the time of the tsunami, I had recently graduated university and had just left my home in London to start a new [...]
Facing Life - Heidi DiTonno I don't consider myself mentally ill, although my diagnoses would disagree with me. They are stigmas for my way of having to cope with situations that I somehow had to find a way to survive. And they worked for me, here I am! Burned and severely facially disfigured at 9 [...]
Crazy, mental, out of it, slacker, sensitive, I've been called all of them either to my face or behind my back. I'm not allowed to have emotions. If I'm having a down day I'm getting depressed again; if I'm anxious about finances, he's having a panic attack. Even on my good days people talk and [...]
Terror. Escape. Shut-down. Repeat. I was abused, neglected, and traumatized when I was a kid. At-the-hands-of-a-sadist kind of thing. In the fallout I developed Complex PTSD, something that’s robbed me of most of my life. When Sarah Fader asked me to write an essay for Stigma Fighters I knew what would happen. Because I’d been through it so many [...]
