I have always had one main goal of helping as many people that I possibly can before my time on earth is done. To me that means a lot of things like the career I’m going through college to get to, a licenced clinical social worker which the career I feel I would be the best as with all considerations, though I do have a great tdeal of personal and professional work to go through before I get there. Another way I saw me being able to do this is by my work on this blog and the youtube channel that goes alone with it. The only problem is I haven’t really been posting on here because I haven’t been able to manage my time well enough to do this and school and all of my medical and mental health appointments (plus a lot of deep dives on youtube pointless facebook scrolls when my time could have been spent in other ways). but I’m working on that. for now, as far as this post goes, I want to tell you all a bit about who I am and why you should trust me to talk about mental health and other related topics.
I have quite a history of traumatic life situations and mental health difficulties with a wide range of events, health outcomes, and lessons learned. I came from a different family than the one I currently have. My mother was a single parent had mental health and addiction struggles and that had its affects on my life. she did not have the best time choosing relationship partners and I ended up experiencing over 14 years of physical, sexual and emotional abuse as well as severe neglect by all but a couple people in my biological family those were my uncle and my grandfather who passed when I was 10. At 12 I was sent away by my mom to live with my dad who I first met when I was 10 and we were back in my hometown in Connecticut after moving around all over Northern New York. My mom and I had left him when I was one because of issues she had with his mother, my grandmother. he ended up senting me to his sister’s house who sent me back to him and I went back to my mom who had finally sent me back up to New York to live with my aunt who was her sister. I thought things would be better at her ouse but there was a problem. I was still being abused by my older cousinnwho started abusing me when I was 9.
Sadly, I couldn’t even escape him when I was taken into foster care at 13 because along with my other two cousins and one sibling who was already at my aunt’s house, him and I were all sent to the same foster home. My aunt had abanoned us to meat someone from online that I had helped her meet. I did feel guilty, but at the same time I felt a bit releived because I though he would for sure stop now that we were in care. He did not thoug and my social worker was the only one who did anything about it The moment I told my caseworker on my cousin I realized the importance of having a social worker who actually cares about you as at the time my aunt had gotten my whole family but my birth mom to stopped talking to me, I was the only one not taken from the foster home as everyone was taken out one by one, and my usually nice foster mother yelled at me because she almost lost her foster parenting license since he was still abusing me in her house.
My social worker did all she could to help me and made sure no one in my birth family abused me again even though she was also my cousin’s case worker. A few years later, I felt the fear of almost aging out of the foster care system with the fear of homeless again. My final foster mom and now adoptive mom said I was welcomed to stay with the family even if I didn’t want to get adopted, but I felt torn still as I felt misplaced guilt about leaving my birth family especially the two siblings who still lived with my birth mom. I ended up staying and getting adopted so my one brother who had no choice about getting adopted wouldn’t be alone without any birth family. In this new family at least for the rest of my childhood (from years 15-18) the abuse stopped, but my problems did not.
There were many situations where I was taken advantage of as a teen by men on the internet, then assaulted more both as a teen and in domestic violence situations with further assaults as an adult. Also once I was finally away from all the abusive people in my birth family, all of my mental health issues like the Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or CPTSD, and depression started. because of the ptsd I started having seudo siezures which is siezure like activity but that doesn’t affect the physical parts of the brain and is just a result of flashbacks. I started having those and fainting spells everywhere like at home and school. I had nightmares and deep depression. at that time it was diagnosed as clinical depression. There was also a time around that age when I was diagnosed with Mutiple personality disorder, even tough I didn’t really have it I do disociate which means it feels like I’m out of my body or my mind goes somewhere else to excape when painful stuff is happening, but I don’t have more than one personality, just one big unique personality. I know what it is like to experience a mental breakdown to have a history of suicide attempts with some being almost fatal and to have self harm urges. I understand the both the necessity of and the struggle to find a reason to stop ever relapsing into another suicidal episode.
Because of a combination of genetic inheritance, in eutero trauma, and the abuse, I know what it’s like to live life with the mental illnesses of Complex PTSD, Bipolar 2 with hallucinations and paranoia, an eating disorder and high anxiety. I know what its like to go through a system that is quick to diagnose and over medicate and I know what it is like to have competent care providers who are creative and thoughtful and who are able to find other ways to manage trauma than just with medication which I see as being an important aspect when working with actual human beings who may not always benefit from such treatment. I know what it’s like when it feels like your mental illness is taken over all while even family don’t believe you are suffering. I know what it’s like to hate the word victim because it makes you seem weak, but to also dislike the word survivor at times, because you don’t feel like you’re actually surviving anything.
I also have a history where I was diagnosed with the developmental disability of autism and to then identify as a person with autism feeling like it all finally makes sense only to then be told recently that I may not actually have autism as it seems that many of my so called symptoms are just from a traumatic past because sadly there is some major overlap in symptoms. I understand living life every day with a chronic and life long physical illness; what it’s like to struggle with treatments and procedures and learning to cope with the fact that you will need these interventions for your whole life. I know what it’s like to live in fear as you learn that the illness affects every system in your body and how some days I can’t function today isn’t just an excuse but a reality for that day.
On the subject of social diversity, I understand the world from this perspective of a white child and woman with mental physical and possible developmental disabilities both abused and criminally assaulted or victim of domestic violence and with both the points of view as an ethnic minority in her home town but a majority everywhere else she’s lived. I recognize that while I can learn as much as possible about and be open minded to other people from other cultures I will never fully understand it from their perspective, though I believe there are links that connect us all.
I also have a frame of reference as someone who is not actually heterosexual but still not sure of what label to use and who has been bullied and verbally abused and threatened because she isn’t straight.
I am also open minded to all religions and know how important religion is in society and for the people who have one. I just think it’s best if we can all accept each other despite these kind of differences and if we can just live our lives without forcing others to share our values as long as the values we have aren’t harming others just by us having them.
My main values are Compassion, the importance of Community, Fairness, Growth, Honesty, Kindness, Respect, and Trustworthiness as well as open mindedness which was already mentioned as well as creativity in any form, and an appreciation for learning in all ways and in all forms.
I am a poet and growing writer who still has a lot to learn and who hopes to one day be an author. I do personal and school related research on topics about mental health and social issues which affect people’s day to day lives, and I am always trying to learn more about myself and life in general.
I can’t say the bad stuff that has happened to me hasn’t affected me, because it has, but I have also grown a great deal because of it and because of the good resources I have found in my life. I am not completely perfect and I still have problems in life, but I am far from where I started after my adoption at 15 and even from before the pandemic started as that has helped me grow as well. I have been moving out of different comfort zones. and have found key areas I still need to work on (like my energy and will to clean and the will to give up pepsi every day). As we enter into this new year I will be coming back to doing things depression has lead me to give up, like walking and this blog and the youtube channel. And the bottom line and the reason you should trust me, is that I have the knowledge, skills, and experience which all will allow me to hopefully help you, the reader find some calm, peace, and growth in your life too. Though I’m sure you are capable of such things on your own I really do wish to offer any kind of helpful experiences or tips I can and most of all I want you to know that you are not alone and there are people out there who do care about what happens to you and people who can relate to you (not to your exact situation as that is impossible even if the same thing happened to the both of you, but to the emotions you make be feeling and a similar enough experience to what you may have had).
Mental Health Blog | Fight4mylife | United States 