There’s a time in your life were your parents took care of you. Right? Wrong, my parents had money. That’s not exactly taking care of your child. They gave me a lot (money wise) that a lot of children want so bad. One thing I feel I was not given was unconditional love. I tried to give myself that love at a young age. By age 7 my demons started to pry that love for myself. Around 10 all that love was gone, I felt like I didn’t have any more to give to myself. By 13 I tried to tale my own life, there wasn’t any love left. I went into the psychiatric hospital, where I was suppose to receive ‘help’ and feel ‘safe’ .. I was terrified, I got yelled at for everything. When I told them I was hearing voices and seeing things that others didn’t. They didn’t believe me, even after I told the cops that ‘man’ tried to kill me. (My most aggressive hallucination at the time) I wasnt in touch when the cops interviewed me. I wasn’t at the hospital after running at a patient with a rock, yelling ‘400 get away’ before getting tackled. We go into these places hoping we will be treated with kindness, recpect, and will get help. That wasn’t the case until I was much older 16, when I tried to kill myself again. Where finally a psychiatrist listened. I was hostile because no one believed or listened before. He observed me for 4 days before coming to the conclusion that I was schizophrenic and needed more evaluation. I spent the next 3 weeks getting ready to switch to a specialized psychiatric hospital to get further tested. At last I was safe, I was being heard, I was cared for, believed. Remember you don’t have to kill yourself, to be listened to. Just speak, tell as many people that will listen until your heard. Eventually someone to hear some where.
Picture To Live By
Everyone has their own journey.
Yes ❤
..It really is.. I will tell you when I get there!
This picture speak a lot to me. Its so hard to explain what is going on even to Mental Health Professionals.
Your thoughts?
You dont have to be perfect.. No one is!
This is a fear that I very STRONGLY have for my Fiance.
Yes!
Very strong !
If you have ever had voices this picture might make a lot of sense!
I promise it is ❤
We say don’t judge a book by its cover. What if we said don’t judge a person by their mental illness?
Eye Contact-Self Regulating
Eye contact is one of the hardest things for me. I cant stand when someone yells at me for not looking in their eyes, or they tell me Im not paying attention. It isnt that Im not paying attention. Its that I dont know what your eyes are saying, alot of times your body language and your eyes dont match. I cant read your eyes, they confuse me.
“Eye contact makes me feel threatened. I may not look at you in the eye but that doesn’t mean that I’m not taking in what your saying.”
– Jeanette Purkis’
The next thing that Im about to post about may seem weird, or that it will draw attention to you in public. The thing is, it calms everything. Once you decide that it doesnt matter what people think of you in public it helps everything (in my case anyways).
As soon as I get into a building (Doctors, Psychiatrist, therapist, even store, ect.) I take my shoes off. Here is my list of what helps me in public hacks!
- Sensory Backpack with all my necessary items (Wallet, phone changer, headphones, noise cancelling headphones, three sensory balls, fidget spinner, emergency medication, weighted lap pad, inhaler, and pretty much anything else that will help me
- I take my shoes off
- I cross my legs
- I rock
- Twist my arms
- Walk around with my shoes off (sometimes)
- Play with something in my backpack
- Draw
- Fun games on my phone (coloring, angry birds, music, Facebook, WordPress, ect) This is why I find it is SO important to bring the charger in case it dies.
These are my must haves. I need to have everything on this list as a option, to feel safe and like I know that I will be able to get through it. I dont always use every single thing in that list, the fact that I have it helps me get through stuff like waiting rooms, and loud restaurants, even stores.
Its important to remember to take care of yourself before worrying about other peoples opinion on what your doing, everyone will have a opinion, and not everyone will agree or like yours all the time. Doing something that is safe and helps you manage is the best way around it!
Why Change Scares Me
If you asked anyone that knows me and you asked “Does Lindsey like change?” the answer would be “absolutely not” .. I grew up with unpredictable by the time I was 6 or 7. By the time 13 came around it was bad, I hated change so much that even the slightest change would make me panic until I would self harm. I never knew when I would come home from school what waited for me that nice. My first question getting off the bus to my mother was “Is dad home? Is he coming home tonight?” If the answer was no to either or both I knew that It would be okay at least that night. If the answer was ‘yes’ or that he worked from home. I would know what that day would end in. Yes, unpredictability scares the hell out of me. After my first 4 hospitalizations in a row, I did not like it at all. I knew that eventually I would be sent home, that sooner or later I would return to a monster,and my judgmental town. I was sent to a psychiatric hospital in town to a residential inpatient program 6 hours from home, then I was to(violent, Actually what it was, was I was hearing voices and they kept telling me that I wasn’t) Sent to a locked unit 8 hours from home In a different state, down to a state runned psychiatric hospital. Then home, in a total of 5 months. You could say my life was flipped out of control in 5 months. I started going down hill around 11. I started to seriously self harm(cutting, burning, ect..) Too just getting in-school suspended for a full 3 or 4 days. 8 hours in a little room. To me though, It was 8 hours I didnt have to talk to anyone, 8 hours that I could sit in a quite, dark room, 8 hours not required to try to socialize. This was really nice for me, eventually I would purposely try to get suspended in-school. This meant I did my work from 8 classes while I was in there, this resulted of me getting them done in maybe 3 hours, and the rest for me to be alone.
So yes, I dont like change because change makes me fear something horrible with happen. I will get hurt, someone else will, and it sends me back into a flashback.
Keep preparing on my mental health warriors
If you or someone you know is in danger Its never to late, call 911 or go to the closest Emergency Room
Why Do Children Lie SO Much?
We all did it, we all do it. When is it so far? I lied to escape from reality. No one wanted to listen to the truth, I would tell anyone that would listen about my dad molesting me. My dad was a businessman, and no one would have expected that evil lied within him. I told people that I was suppose to be able to trust, I told mandated reporters. The fact is that they didn’t report. I thought that if no one was listening to the truth I had to say, that I didn’t matter, that my lies didn’t affect people, because my truth didn’t either. I escaped reality in the lies I told. No matter what I told, to me it was better then what I was living. Even if the lies seemed horrific to other people, I would have rather been living whatever the lie was than being molested every other night. There were definitely nights that I would curl up in my bed and scream into a pillow, cry my eyes out, and feel like destroying everything in my path. The next day I would sit on the shower floor with hot water, and loud music so I could cry, scream, and wash away the ‘dirt’ off my body. Get out then go to school act like everything was ‘fine’. Fact was that didn’t work as well as I thought It was. I lied there, I lied to my parents, and I lied to everyone. Most importantly I lied to myself. I told myself that I didn’t matter, that my pain wasn’t valid, and my body wasn’t mine, and people shouldn’t respect it either.
I remember that every night I would sit in my bathtub, naked, hoping that If I scrubbed my body hard enough, the bruises from the night before and all the ‘dirt’ he left would go down the drain. I thought If I was pretty enough, skinny enough, and lovable enough. That it would just stop, it never did. I became overwhelmed in my own world, and the only thing that I could focus on was my lies. I just wanted something that freed me from the hell of reality that I lived every single day, because I knew the second he got home my reality came back.
Pretty soon my lies didn’t make me escape. I couldn’t breathe normally, and I couldn’t survive (As I thought). Resulting on June 25, 2010 I tried to kill myself, landing me in the ER, then my first psychiatric stay.
Keep surviving my mental health warriors
If you or someone you know is suicidal or being harmed, its not to late, go to the nearest Emergency Room, or call 911
Art-Mental Health/Illness
Like I advocate a lot on my page is mental health wellness. Not everyday is going to go easy, not everyday you’ll go to bed with a smile. The important thing is that we keep going to bed, and waking up the next day. Everyday is a new journey, everyday is a new opportunity to discover something new about yourself. Pain doesn’t always end after we take medication (like for a headache) Sometimes pain stays for a long time, its about how to manage it. There isnt going to be a magic medication that makes mental pain go away. There is hope though. Through medication, a team of mental health professionals, and therapy. Things get better, finding those good outlets are important. Mine are drawing, hope you enjoy the ones below.
^This one is what I call “Eye On Pain”
^This one is the best one I have drawn in a while called “FINE” It speaks to me in many ways. Why do many of us, just say we are fine? Without taking into consideration if we aren’t?
^I call this one “Eye Contact Of Depression” ..Not being able to make eye contact with people is a normal thing for me. I can stare depression in the eyes all the time, or whatever is on the floor.
Keep drawing my mental health warriors ❤
Do You Know The Difference? Hallucinations-Voices
Have you ever felt like your whole world is about to collapse in on you? This is what it feels like for me with my hallucinations. For me at times it becomes blurry on what the hallucinations are and people in reality. It gets blurred because the auditory and visual hallucinations are so bad and convincing that I really don’t know the deference
!
OCD Piece That I Wrote;
Im not trying to be mean, Its just when you touch me, and move my things I start to panic.
Im not paranoid, Its just OCD thoughts coming into my head.
Im not trying to make us late, I fear for your life if the door isnt locked twice, and checked 3 times.
Im not trying to be annoying, I just ask for you to confirm that my thoughts are just thoughts because I trust you.
❤
Guardian/Parent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Definition-
Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
A narcissistic personality disorder causes problems in many areas of life, such as relationships, work, school or financial affairs. You may be generally unhappy and disappointed when you’re not given the special favors or admiration you believe you deserve. Others may not enjoy being around you, and you may find your relationships unfulfilling.
My father definitely has this NPD. He manipulates really well into getting people to doing what he wants them to do. Now not all people with NPD are angry, aggressive jerks my father is. Growing up in this situation you learn how to survive. The best way is just to get through each day at a time, breathe and take each day as its given to you. Its hard to prove that your getting abused physically and sexually. Its super hard to convince someone that you need help getting out of a emotional/verbal abuse situation. Yet not impossible. Its extremely scary to think that this person that is literally capable of anything in your head, wont be in other peoples head. You live in and you are in it, they aren’t so WHY do they get to have a say in anything? Well because the system is broken, that is the best answer I can give you. In my partners Blog @lifeonwheels365 he might be going into depth on how foster care works, or even on how to get help in foster care. I know that everyone that has been in the system in some level, juvenile detention, foster care, Chapter 51, or privately hospitalized. They all know that this system is broken, people that know nothing about your care, sit behind desks and decide everything for you. I agree that its horrible and needs a lot of work. I am here to support you, and help guide you in whatever way possible that you need help in.
Keep strollin’ on my mental health warriors
❤
Panic-Cutting
Cutting is a coping skill, people may see it as not. Its not a good one and its harmful. All different people who use cutting as a coping skill do it for all different reasons. I did it because I was so upset and felt numb, just hoping I would feel something. Other times I would cut because of the voices telling me too. Other way is people want to see what they are feeling on the inside on the outside. Others what control over their body in some way, so they resort to this method. All are reasons, but its a temporary thing doesn’t solve things in the long haul. Just remember that WE all self sooth, WE all need coping skills. Don’t ‘punish’ someone for these behaviors, help them. They are in pain, and they need someone to listen.
Keep surviving my mental health warriors
Mental Health Healing 