My Life Fighting Mental Illness and The Stigma

.  This year is supposed to be about starting new. We get to start over in away. For me it's starting from square one. I am moving in with my boyfriend. I am single. I have a stepdaughter. But mostly it's all scary because this is the first year in many many years that I can be my outspoken, outgoing, sometime rude, independent self. My ex controlled me a lot more than I even knew it. I had dated him since right after high school. He was my first. Not only that he was the guy I thought I would be with until we were told and gray. That's not what was written in the stars.    Right now I am typing from a place I never thought I would be. Alone. Not physically, my boyfriend, Dustin, is right beside me, but mental it feels that way. I had to learn to be myself. I am still learning how to take care of myself mentally and physically. It's not a walk in the park. I honestly thought it would be easier when we split up this time last year. I thought I had it all figured out. Da...

     Overthinking about everything is what I do best. Not that that is a good thing, but it’s the truth. I’m not really sure if it is a part of my mental illness or just a part of who I am. Maybe it’s a little bit of both. These days I usually don’t go in to a panic attack from overthinking, that brings on flashbacks, that causes anxiety. When I overthink 99% of the time is about the past. What I could have done different and just general crap like that, I know I have no control over.      The apps like Timehop and Memories on Facebook don’t help to much either. Mine has gone back 11 years and things have changed over that time. Most of the changes has been in the last year and a half or so. That is when my now ex husband started to leave and we began the beginning of the end. He didn’t see it, but I did. He wanted his way of the highway. I choose the highway.      Looking back at all those memories hurts some times. The ones from a year a...

   Well the holidays are over and things have started to get back to normal. We have all started and stopped our New Year’s resolution. The kids are back at school and we are back to work. The holidays have some of the highest suicide rates. I’m not going to quote them or anything, I just know its really high between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. I may not know you, but I am happy you are here.    I’m not going to lie, for many years after my dad died I didn’t want to be around family. Especially when the “whole” family is together and is trying to carry on and be happy. The first year after he died, I don’t think it had really hit me yet. I think was on “Do not Disturbe” mode or something. Some how even after his passing the whole family was able to get together and put on a happy face.      Maybe it was because we had just lost a huge part of our family. Maybe we were just happy to have the people we did. I’m not really sure. It was a confusing time...

   I’m sure some of you take pills for either your mental health or other things that your doctor told you needed to keep in check. Like if you have high blood pressure he/she is going to put you on something to make it come down, since your body isn’t doing it for you. Taking pills for my mental health is the same thing. My brain isn’t making the right chemicals to keep me “normal”. I use normal loosely. In this context I just mean that I’m not depressed or anxious and I can get out of bed most days.    You see where I put “most days”. Ya, thats because sometimes they don’t work. Every once in a while just like any medication, it just doesn’t seem to work like it should. This is usually because of something external causing me more stress. Let me use the person that has high blood pressure again. If they are under a lot of stress or sick, their medication may not work as well as is supposed to.    The number pills that I am required to take daily is: 8. ...

    I'm a paramedic is a very rural area. The service I work covers 502 square miles. Our closest hospital at any point is at least 20 mins away.  I have also worked where there are more than one ambulance service for the county I worked in. I have been in EMS going on nine years. I have a been a Paramedic for six of those years. My job is not all sitting around and eating. Nor is it just helping little old ladies off the floor. Mine job can be messy,hard(physically and mentally), rude, personal, and terrifying. At the same time it can be heartwarming, caring and bring you happiness.     When people hear that I work in my field, with depression, anxiety, and PTSD, they freak out. How could some one so messed up in the head do that kind of job where you have to keep a cool head at the hardest times? Well it's simple. A lot of people in EMS, fire and police have some form of mental illness. We have seen our fair share of crap no one should have to see or go throu...

     As you probably know, depression and anxiety for the most part are chronic. (A long standing or constant illness. Possibly lasting a lifetime.) Besides those two lovely things I also have been diagnosed with  Cervicaligia. Since I know you probably don’t want to Google that, it means chronic neck pain. It is not really certain what is really causing the pain. It changes when ever I go to a different doctor, but they all agree and the age of 28 years old I have chronic neck pain. I see a pain doctor, I have been through every test they can think of.      I have been to the ER more times than I care to count. Pretty much they treat me like I’m there just to get a high. Which sucks! For some reason, since I have mental illnesses that means I am a drug seeker. Just because they can’t see my pain, they think it is “all if in my head” just like everything else. It takes me a lot to go to the ER in the first place and then to be treated like that?! It’s...

     Let me start off my saying, please don’t judge my cousin. He made some mistakes (some where proven to not be him, but I wont get in to that.) He was not perfect and he wasn’t a saint. What he was is a loving man. He loved his family so much. The first letter I wrote to him he told me how sorry he was that he couldn’t have been there for us when my dad died.      My cousin Scott was on death row. He had been for about 14 years. Maybe longer. In I believe September of last year he was supposed to have lethal injection, but due to a new combo of drugs they were trying out they stop it. To my knowledge they had not set a new date.      On January 5th, 2019 he hung himself in his cell. You might be thinking that he saved the state money or what ever, but the thing is, he had a family, including kids. Many people believed that the crimes he was found guilty for, he was really innocent. He was a loving man who loved his family, no matter how ...