, let me Introduce Myself . My name is Jenny. I'm 32, and I've Had Quite a life . A lot of good, and a lot of bad . To begin, I Had , What I Thought Was a normal childhood . A family full of dysfunction and a lot of love . I Was a bit of a troubled child, to You Would not Have Known it to look at me . I Was Able to keep a happy face you for Quite a while. When I Was In The 8th Grade , I Was Hospitalized for depression. It Was an absolute fiasco ! I Was Surrounded by drug dealers and gang members. Then There Was Little ol ' me in the corner Trying not to get in anybody 's way . It didn't feel funny Then , But Now I laugh about it . I Continued -through highschool Fairly Easily , Yet Still depressed . I Began HAVING flashbacks of Trauma That HAD Occurred When I was little , and Began to figure out Why I Felt The Way I did. I Thought That's Where It ended. i would learn how to deal and Would just go on to lead a happy life . Well , let's just Say I Was clueless .
After I Graduated from highschool , I went backpacking -through Ecuador , got sick as a dog , and HAD to come home early . Once I Recovered , I Had to prepare for school in Germany . I Was Thrilled about going to Europe , yet Not That Thrilled About the school . It Was a Bible school , and I Knew THEY Would not Know What to do With A Girl Who drank and smoked and didn't really Believe What They Were Talking About . The worst part, though , included none of argument. I started " seeing faces and Random Things . I would react to a person 's presence When no one else around Me That I Knew did " The Same . Soooo , I came home yet again , to go back Into Therapy and Have the doc tell me that I Was just imagining Those Things . I Had Developed year eating disorder and horrific body- image issues, just like a good dancer Does, Or So I Thought .
About 9 Months Later , I Moved to North Carolina ( Go Heels !) to stay with a friend of mine . I liked it so much That I got my own place. I wasn't Seeing Things At The Time, and WAS Thrilled To Have a job bartending at a bar on the Main street of a college town . I dated Someone for a while , and Became unbearably depressed When We split. I Could not sleep , eat , or take care of myself. I Called my mom 've I sat With A Razorblade On the side of my bathtub , begging for Anything That Would make me feel better. So , I drove home in the snow and Went back to therapy . This time THEY Decided That I Needed to Go to inpatient Treatment in Arizona. I Started out at a local hospital at home , Then TRANSFERRED out there . I WORKED hard and did " What They Told Me . I came out "a new girl " ( Or So I Thought ) .
Then The Cutting Began . It Gave Me Such A Rush , goal I Mostly Did It For Some relief Of The extreme bread I Was feeling. By Then I Had Been Sexually abused as a child , and raped Twice as year adult . I Felt like trash , to WAS clueless as to how-to changes That .
To shorten this up a bit, I Have Been Hospitalized 14 times in my 32 years . I Started Seeing Things and Hearing Things . First , I Thought There Was Blood Everywhere And That There Were people screaming . None Of The drugs helped , except I blew up like a balloon ( Which did " wonders for my self - esteem, let me tell you! ) . First I Was Diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder ( Went to a hospital for that) , Then Bipolar With psychotic features. Finally THEY Decided That I Have schizophrenia .
That Was about 10 years ago . I Can not Even Begin to Tell You How It 's Turned my world upside down . I Think That's Why I Decided to blog about it . So many people do not understand schizophrenia , let alone mental -illness . We Who are plagued With Some form of Mental Illness Often feel so misunderstood . I just want to shed a little light On the subject by telling you What I've been through. I hope it helps. Take it or leave it. I would love to begin a discussion not only about mental illness, but what role we've played in society. I'll try to stay away from the "work incentive" that they have for "us" that doesn't work at all, but I'm sure I'll hit on it. I hope you enjoy and get a few tidbits of information that you didn't know.....thanks :)
