Mental Health — From Shame to Seeking Help

There is a stigma against admitting you have a mental illness, like it’s something that should only be talked about in whispers.

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No Blurred Lines: Melissa’s Thoughts

“I had never heard the word ‘consent’ before I was married. I wasn’t really taught much of the concept either. Being a child limits your choices and autonomy as it is, growing up fundamentalist Christian limits them even more.”

To My Past — I Wouldn’t Be Who I Am Today Without You

“However critical I am of those in my past who attempted to control my life, I must also always be grateful to them. They gave me early experiences which formed my current worldview. They gave me tools with which I was able to break out of the prisons they constructed around me and then build my own life, a life which looks nothing like they want it to but a life which I inhabit very happily.”

Mental Health — From Shame to Seeking Help, Part Seven: Lana Hobbs the Brave

“I’m still pretty messed up. I still deal with depression and hypomania. I still struggle with the stigma and other unhealthy ideas from my fundamentalist upbringing. I will always be bipolar, and I might always have to fight against the negative self-beliefs in my brain since childhood. But I will learn to handle them better.”

Mental Health — From Shame to Seeking Help, Part Six: Unashamed of Taking Evil Pills

“I felt like all these people were flocking around me to praise God, without really caring about the state of my mind, body, or heart. They just wanted to hear a testimony. There, with the stress, the frustration at church, and the knowledge my solution was a villified little pill, I had a panic attack in the middle of all those women.”

Mental Health — From Shame to Seeking Help, Part Five: Fighting the Shame

“I had to accept other words for myself – hardworking but depressed. Struggling. Strong but needing help. Probably bipolar, or having something that mimics it closely. I felt trapped in my mind but at least now I was arguing to myself that this wasn’t my fault.”

Mental Health — From Shame to Seeking Help, Part Four: Shame Meets Truth

“I didn’t understand why my brain wasn’t working like normal. I felt foggy and frustrated and like a complete failure. And then one day, a breakthrough. A teacher, Dr. R, had us workshop a paper she had written. It was about bipolar disorder – her bipolar disorder. I squeezed back my initial, automatic reaction of ‘mental illness is rare if it’s real at all’ and read it.”

Mental Health — From Shame to Seeking Help, Part Three: The Shame Of Failing To Be Happy

“My unhappiness at home had my parents claiming I didn’t really love them. I once tried to explain that I was trying very hard to be happy, but that further offended them. I suppose they thought if I really loved them I wouldn’t have to fight. I didn’t know why it was such a struggle, but it was.”

Mental Health — From Shame to Seeking Help, Part Two: Learning Shame in Childhood

“I had heard somewhere that depression was a medical problem, but this was generally dismissed as a lie perpetuated by people wanting to drag others away from God, while medicines that ‘supposedly’ helped with mental illness – depression especially – were even called witchcraft by a pastor at my church.”