Why I'm here......and why you need to join me!

Bipolar, OCD, ADHD, Anxiety, Social Phobia: All disorders that duel daily in my head. I've started this blog to inspire, to support, and to get talking about mental illnesses. We've been silent for far too long. The time has come for us to speak up-we want medical funding so we can find out WHY we have these disorders, and how to treat them. We want the opportunity to walk down the streets and claim "We have a mental illness and it's OK!". We want to be treated like everyone else in the hospital when we have to go into a psychiatric ward. We want the whispering and stares to stop if we accidentally drop the "M" bomb.

I haven't always felt like this. Until about a year ago, I hid my illnesses from almost everyone. Luckily, I have an extremely supportive family, hubby, and best friends who were able to take care of me during my (many) relapses. I hid it from everyone else. I made fun of the "crazies" like all my friends did. I joked about "killing myself" over something as stupid as wearing the wrong shoes....even though I did try and kill myself when I was seventeen, and came very, very close to succeeding. I hid it from every job, even though letting them know may have meant I would have been able to make special arrangements which would have perhaps kept me from relapsing so often. So what changed? I finally realized-this is not my fault. I felt embarrassed a few illnesses that had taken over my brain. The world wouldn't blame a person for a physical illness that was obvious to the eye.....why should I be blamed for something just because they couldn't see it? That's when I realized I was wasting so much energy on keeping my illness inside, and hiding myself, when I should have been focused on fighting all these stigmas we deal with daily. I should have been talking to people, educating them, helping them to understand that the mentally ill are no different than any other ill people-we need love, care, and support. So that is my goal through this blog. We need to work together. I promise you, this blog will be honest and truthful. I will have my good days, and most definitely, my bad. But I hope to encourage and inspire (and I hope you will do the same) and together we can make a difference.