Under Construction - MHWA Retreat

Let's dig deep and try to theorize about our mental health for moment. Think about the following questions:

At what age did you first notice you might have a mental health issue? Did you know then that it was a mental health issue? Did you just feel different than others?

I can remember feeling like something was "wrong" with me at a young age. Maybe around 7-8. I can actually remember screaming that at my mother, begging her to get me some help because SOMETHING was wrong with me. She accused me of being dramatic and making excuses. But I can't tell you if it was because it was actually something mental or if it was because I didn't act like my mother wanted me to act, on top of the emotional and sexual abuse I was experiencing.

I can tell you that I felt completely different from everyone else. Due to actually be racially different then everyone else in my family though, I was often treated as an outsider by the caregivers I was left with and depending on whom I was left with, wasn't even allowed to play with some of my own cousins. I was sat in a corner and forced to watch them all play together without me.

Can you think of a specific 'triggering moment' for your mental health issues? Was there a particular instance that made you feel as though you'd sort of broken off mentally?

Although when I think back, I'm quite sure I had some mental issues even when I was an extrovert in my school years . I know the "triggering moment" for my current issues came sometime in my early twenties after my husband and I got together. I think it came after a work injury. I can't tell you a specific moment that caused it or what exactly caused it, I just know that suddenly I started having panic attacks and anxiety attacks and then suddenly I couldn't be around people or even leave my house without suffering an attack unless my husband coaxed me out on a short trip while I was attached to him by the hip.

Every instance in dealing with my mother directly made me feel broken mentally to be perfectly honest with you.

As an adult, what memories and mental health issues do you carry on from childhood?

I carry most of my childhood memories involving my mother. Though I've learned to "forget" them, or simply draw a curtain around them. She was the reason I nearly had a mental breakdown and got suicidal when I moved back with her after living in Washington for 10 years. After all the therapy I had to go through and the medication I had to be put on in the past couple of years, she finally stopped treating me like she did. At least she stopped saying all the shit she used to say to me, though I'm sure she still thinks it, we've been getting along pretty great now these past 2 years that she's shut her mouth. Now, she's all pleasantries and positivity. Maybe it's the grandkids, IDK, cause she's a blessing with them and honestly I don't care, as long as she keeps her negativity and criticism to herself.

Other issues I have, I try not to look at them as negatives. Yes some of my views on things are probably skewed because of the things I experienced, but we're all a product of our environment, so it's just how things are. I am who I am, I accept it the best I can, and work with it. Some of it works to my advantage, some of it doesn't.