Mental Illness detected (Personal Story)
We each fight our own battles, I guess. They just come with different intensity. Most of us though don't fight the battle almost to the point of death when you have to decide between life and death.
I believe my mental illness did not start when it was detected and identified as a mental illness. Mental illness was unheard of in my days. In the 1960's I didn't hear a word about it. Just my mother repeating the words of the teachers to her, "Your child is very slow in school" or "Your child is so quiet", which is probably abnormal to a teacher, I understand. I went to countless EEG, that were a lot more painful and longer than they are now let me tell you. A lot more torturous, imagine having little blocks of metal (it felt like metal)
press against your cranium with a rubber helmet for 40 min. As a child it is painful! I had those supposedly imaginary epilepsy and convulsion. The real one happened at birth and according to my mother I almost died. My mother did what the doctor in Belgium told her and dipped me in ice cold water. In 1956, they didn't know better but she did what she knew. I say 'imaginary' because outwardly I didn't show any signs of anything but only on the long graph produced by the machine after a long time. Each time my medication had to be upped. Later on moving to Canada at 20 years old a neurologist dimmed my medications unnecessary. Now, I am on mental illness medication and knowing my problem helps. Not knowing about a mental illness is terrible, but once you know it, it's such a relief because you can arm yourself against it.
Now after my elementary schooling I chose a trade right away because in Belgium you could choose a trade without any high school. It was part of the apprenticeship, one day of school a week, the rest was in the shop where you lived as well. You were part of the family. In Brussels, there were a lot of bakeries in the 1970's. Even during my apprenticeship, my father was told by my employer that I was too slow and repeatedly I had heard the same tape. I was 14 years old at the time. There was a constant feeling of worthlessness and of not fitting in society as a normal being. I ended up having my life changed by God and kept at it with the same feelings. I got married and had children, one day after having been fired from one more job I ended up for a week in the hospital. I was diagnosed with psychotic depression.
Life is now a lot better, I don't have suicidal thoughts anymore and I am a lot happier with life.
This post could encourage you to go and see someone about your own struggles. Please don't ignore them, they won't go away on their own. You need counselling.
This is a link for you to check. All kind of articles and interaction about your mental illness.
This poem actually suggest a change of spiritual ownership.
A Happy Kite
Bernard Demaere
It was my first flight,
To become a happy kite.
I was free in the wind,
But held down by a string.
My owner was to me, un-known,
But I felt the pull very strongly.
So I could soar only,
A few feet above the ground.
So after a few years,
The string changed over hands.
Under a new master’s care,
He made me different as he was a man.
The string is no longer too short,
His strong wing carries me.
Into Eternal shores,
Where Freedom is not sin, but a different sort.
Now, I am a happy kite
That is travelling by night
But my master,
Leads the way to a new day.
Comments