My battle with mental health

Mental health struggles have always been a huge part of my life even before I truly was able to put a term and knowledge to what I was and did experience. As a child being sexually abused by my mom’s daughter at the time, I thought what was happening was normal and I remember going to school and telling all my friends once I was in school about the fun stuff, I did with my mom’s boyfriend’s daughter not nothing at the time how truly horrible it was. To me it was normal, and she made it seem like something awesome, always associating it with candy. AT the time all my friends thought I was the coolest kids because of all the fun things I got to do, and they weren’t able to do. That all changed when I got to first grade and got invited to my first friend’s house and his mom drove me home and found out I lived in a trailer park and the bullying never stopped over where I lived. I always felt different and that I didn’t belong because of where I lived, and it made me not want to pursue relationships. Although I did give a few a try and they would always push to come to my house and as soon as they did the relationship ended. Let just say think hurt my mental health, but at the time I knew nothing about mental health and feeling depressed. Even when I faced my first huge mental health struggle, I still knew nothing about mental health or what I was feeling, all I knew was I didn’t want to live and was experiencing extreme mental and emotional pain. Even with my first suicide attempt I didn’t know there was help available. I just suffered in silence and fought each and everyday to get through the pain despite extreme mental and emotional pain of not knowing how I was going to make it past the next minute let alone the next second. I didn’t realize I could get help until my last mental health struggle. The difference this time I worked in healthcare and had people around me that pushed for me to get help. Although this ultimately led to the worst year of my life as I battled with new worsening symptoms caused by a misdiagnosis and medication that instead of helping my symptoms made them worse. I now had a newfound amount of energy that was even greater than greater than my normal requirement of little to no sleep to feel full of energy. This continued for over a year while I was given increased medications and dosages when I would go to the doctor and tell them my symptoms were worse. Mental health clarity didn’t come until over a year and a half after I seeked help when I finally found a doctor and psychiatrist that would listen to me and helped get me off the wrong medications and onto the right ones. Unfortunately for me this help came too late as I had two additional suicide attempts and am being charged with burning my dad’s house down. Still to this day even after a change in my life by getting off the wrong medications my primary care doctor and many others devalue me and tell me that I have no mental illness.