Your mental health matters. No one heals the same.

Mental Health Matters, You matter to someone

I haven’t touched on this subject during Blaugust all that much because I sometimes want to pretend that I’m fine, and well truth be told. I’m not fine right now. No before it’s asked, Blade is not the reason I suffer in silence. Him and I have quite a few dark talks because he knows it’s hard for me to let people in. Especially since he knows that the pain I feel can not be avoided at the moment, and he’s trying his hardest on finding us a new place to live. He now sees why I kept myself locked away from letting anyone see the pain I endure in silence. He has witnessed my mother (yes you heard it right), talk about me like I’m nothing to her friends. She’ll talk about her step-children have written her out of their lives, but yet when someone mentions me, she’ll go, “Oh her, she’ll always be there to care for no matter what. Her feelings don’t matter much to me.” Or she’ll be talking to a total stranger and be little my mental health status by telling them that “OH she was difficult to raise, and she didn’t turn out how I wanted her too.” Blade has heard both of these statements, and was a little taken back on how she treats me. I remember standing in her hallway one day while she was on the phone with one of her friends and I overheard her say, “She’s my only regret, I wish she would have died during birth.” That was just a few days ago while Blade was at work. I haven’t told him this piece, because he’s already on edge around her himself after hearing all those things, then me telling him how she said I should not have been a mother. He’s ready to rip into her , and same with when I told her what I’ve held inside for over 30 years to be told. It doesn’t matter, you’re feelings don’t matter to me. He sat in our bedroom right off her kitchen, ready to come defend me, and when he realized what I was doing. He stood in the doorway to help give me the strength I needed to confront her, and speak my truth to her. He knows I don’t let this out often because I have told him in the past that when it comes to me. I don’t fucking matter to her. I never have ,and I never will. He did not believe it at first but now he’s seen all this torment first hand and has apologized for pushing me to try and work things out with her. He apologizes all the time for this because he believes by pushing this onto me, he’s wrecked more havoc into my mental health, but I told him not to apologize for not understanding, or seeing her truth because she’s a manipulator. She shows what she wants to show people and eventually that her true colors surface.

Depression will cripple a person | Photo found on Unsplash

Never feel like a burden

I’ve felt like a burden to everyone in my life at one time or another, and truth be told I still do from time to time. It’s why I don’t always run to Blade when I get depressed because he is afraid he’ll lose me, and that is something I don’t want him fearing. I’m not ever suicidal, but I have no issues with inflicting pain physical on myself to help lessen the pain I feel inside. One time I use to cut myself, anything is capable of cutting oneself. I even went through the periods of burning myself with lighters, I’d punch walls, put my hands through glass, but never once went to someone I could trust and talk to them about what I was feeling, or going through because the people that were suppose to there to support me, and help me, weren’t. I can’t really hold my father responsible for walking away because he was dealing with his own inner demons at one time. He has always tried to be there for me, and still is. Anytime I need the reassurance that I’m loved by parents, I can pick up the phone and just talk to him for 5 to 10 minutes. We always end our conversations with “I love you Dad”, and he responds with, “I love you too kiddo.” He knew I had a darker side than anyone in our family because he was always there when I had to go see a counselor during the summer, when our school district decided that I needed a little more something else in a way of specialized schooling. It was a reminder back then that I always would have at least one parent that wouldn’t be ashamed of my mental health issues. Where as with my mother, well she’s ashamed that I have a dark side, and that I do embrace it. I’m not afraid to share my story with the world. It took me years to come to grips with the cold hard truth about my mother. Truth be told it took 30 years before I finally embraced the fact that I was unwanted by her. It was this year that after she said all those hurtful things to me, that the truth finally sank in and I realized I was never wanted by her. Of course it all made sense too because there was their divorce where she had no issues giving up her parental rights to me just so she could be free of my father.

Then there was the fact that when they were married she didn’t want to visit me or even pick me up from the mental health hospital as a child, then there was the shocked look on her face when my dad took me back to her when I was 12 because he was placing himself in a mental health hospital himself for a nervous breakdown. There was also the 2 and half years I sat in a group home because she just couldn’t be bothered to fight to get me back in her house. By then she had moved on to a new family. Her husband had 3 teenage children from a previous relationship, and she was happy to be their “friend”, because she didn’t want to be a mother. I believe that if my dad could have come and gotten me back, he would have, but even though he was doing better, he was not ready to take that full time position back, course at that time I was still upset with him because it felt like he had abandoned me , or he just didn’t want me. So instead of fighting me, he just walked away leaving me with her. He did come after me when I called him though the one night her husband who was still her boyfriend at that time put his hands around my throat and tried choking me out because I called him a damn drunk. At that time I was 15 going on 16. It was then that my dad proved to me that he didn’t want to leave me ever in life, and proved that I could count on him. It was then I decided to start making decisions for myself that I knew would have repercussions on getting out of her clutches. It did hurt me because I would also have to leave my dad as his child, and become his adult child. Which he still considers me his baby girl in his eyes. I never wanted to hurt my dad by doing what I did. Him and I have talked about it, and he wasn’t hurt that I wanted to become an adult faster than he would have liked but understood my reasons behind it all. He too apologizes all the time for the mother I have.

The story never ends.

My story never ends. Each time I go see a new therapist I get a new diagnoses of my mental health. Over the years I’ve been diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, MPD now known as (DID), Bipolar 1, Bipolar 2, Major Depressive, BPD, BAD, and Anxiety (NOS), ODD, and the list just goes on and on for me. It’s all from my traumatic childhood, from being sexually molested by the neighbor, my parent’s and the revolving door with my dad walking in and out, their divorce, my mother straight out choosing her freedom in divorce over caring for her child. Then later on choosing her husband over me, then his children over me. Basically discarding me like yesterdays trash. Not including me into things because I’m too difficult to explain. My mental health is my fault, and I didn’t become who she wanted me to be. If you don’t know the letters for each diagnosis I have received for my mental health, well here is what each one means.

ADD- Attention Deficit Disorder

ADHD- Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

MPD (DID)- Multiple Personality Disorder,  (Dissociative identity disorder)

BAD- Borderline Adjustment Disorder

BPD- Borderline Personality Disorder

ODD- Oppositional Defiant Disorder

That is quite a list to be diagnosed with from the ages of 7 until now. I’ll be 47 in December, so might as well say for 40 damn years I’ve been something. It all started with being molested by that neighbor. I often joke about my mental health because it’s how I cope with knowing I don’t have a well mind. It also helps me realize that I am different, and it’s okay to different. I do not use this as a crutch in my life ever. I share my story with anyone, not out looking for sympathy, not to hear the infamous “I’m sorry”, or to make anyone feel that their story is any different. I share my story because I want people to know that our mental health, and that we matter to someone out there. Our stories do not define who we are, they define that we went through the worse a human being can do and come out on top of it and survived that hell someone felt the need to put us through. Our stories tell others of a time when life tried to break us, and failed because we became stronger, and stood up for ourselves eventually. Our stories are not shared enough and let others know that it’s okay to feel like this, and that we can live productive lives. Our stories strengthen our character, they give depths of how we became the person we are today. Our stories need to be shared, they need to be understood that this is not okay to do to someone else. Abuse and Mental Health are two factors in life that is sometimes considered a taboo that shouldn’t be talked about. I say we break that damn mold and talk about it. No matter how much it may hurt in the end, it needs to get out there. I grew up in a generation that was just starting to understand mental health. Today its talked about, but its still felt it likes a taboo subject because people don’t want to believe  it does happen and more common than you’d think. That little boy or little girl next door to you may feel like no one will listen to them, we need to show them that we will. That is why I share my story, why I share my mental health. It is why I joke about it, and to let others know that I don’t let it define me. I embrace it, accepted it, and found ways to put it to work in my daily life. Regardless of the pain I feel deep inside. I live with it, and I don’t feel ashamed by it.