About Terri
My family life growing up wasn't the greatest although it wasn't the worst either. My parents fought a lot. Having parents who married at ages 18 and 20 and had their first child 9 months and 10 days into their marriage was not a good thing. I was the second of the five kids and I came 15 months after my older brother.
My parents were poor Catholics or should I say my father was Catholic and my mom wasn't but agreed to raise us children Catholic. Anyway I'm sure there are enough of you out there that you can relate to how it was growing up in the 60's with poor parents and 4 other siblings and being a very sensitive child who didn't do well in school and just never really fit in anywhere.
The one person I did feel was my savior was my Dad's mom, my Grandmother. She was my guiding light, however at age 7 my Grandmother passed away and I was left without her guidance and love. With her wisdom gone my family deteriorated further and by age 13 my parents separated.
I felt my world had ended. My Dad moved out and away but not out of our lives and my Mom had to work two horrible jobs to support us 5 kids. Being the oldest girl of the 5 kids it now became my job to step up and help my Mom out. Of course my younger siblings resenting the hell out of this, looking back who can blame them? If I were them I would have also.
As I reached the point of graduation from high school I never even took the psat's or sat's because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life but I did know that I didn't want to go to college. I was done with school. I was so tired of struggling to just get by.
This is where a cousin of mine stepped into the picture. I always called her Aunt because when she was younger my Grandmother and Grandfather took her in and raised her as their own child when her mother died. So she was like my Dad's sister and really not a cousin. My Aunt lived on the other side of the country in California and came home to visit over the Christmas Holiday's my senior year of high school. To this day I don't know all of what was said behind the scenes but she made an offer to me. She asked me to come and visit her over Easter break and look into going to college out in California, she would pay for my trip out there. Well of course I decided this would be fun and so I took her up on her offer.
I ended up going to California and to college out there but I never finished college because my Aunt and I were not getting along and out of the blue one day my Dad showed up and demanded that I return home with him or never come home that I would be disowned. Now at this time I'm 20 years old and I'm thinking to myself, omg my whole family must feel this way because nobody called to warn me he was coming or felt differently.
Within two days I quit school, two jobs, left a boyfriend, and packed up my car and drive cross-country back home to Delaware.
During the next several years my life is living between houses with Mom and Dad always trying to decide who's right and who's wrong and who loves me and cares about me. Also during this time I lost my Grandfather. Then while living with my Dad we get into a disagreement about my life. It escalates to the point of him throwing me out of his house and we stop speaking for 5.5 years. This is a long time to go without speaking to a person yet along someone you love. Thankfully both my Dad and I were given a chance to reconnect before his death.
We spent the last 10 months of his life together everyday. Now this isn't normal either. See my Dad was dying from emphysema and needed someone to care for him. Unfortunately none of my siblings choose to assist with his care. After my Dad passed away I was once again devastated, in fact this is when I lost it and had a nervous breakdown.
A few years after this is when I finally learned that in addition to Major Depression I had borderline personality disorder (BPD) and have also learned that I suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I have PTSD from a rape that occurred shortly after returning from college. I told myself for a long time it was my fault that my Dad died that because I was so weak and tired from caring for him I wished he would die. After a long five years it finally sunk into my brain that this was a normal response from someone who was overwhelmed in the caregiver role.
I spent a long time in and out of the psychiatric hospitals from 1993 to around 1996 in fact so much after 30 admissions I lost count. I'm not saying this to brag. I'm saying this to show that yes I suffered a lot and yes there were many times I didn't want to fight yet somehow I did. From 1998-99 I decided to accept the fact that I had BPD and to research it. At that time there still wasn't any real known treatment for BPD and most all pdocs and therapists just didn't want to deal with someone with BPD so it was very frustrating.
In addition to this add to it the insurance industry and lack of care, and you have someone who must be really determined to help oneself in order to survive. I see everyone with a mental illness as the strongest people in the world. Having a medical condition is different. At least it is recognized in the insurance industry and is easier to do battle with then a mental illness. With a physical illness, family, employers and strangers are more willing to be compassionate and understanding then with a mental illness. I guess it is fear of the unknown still and ignorance.
I currently don't have a therapist because I can't afford one. I do have health insurance but with the co-payments so high and living on Social Security Disability I can't afford to see a qualified therapist. I have tried to work within the mental health community clinic here in my state and to be honest it was more harmful then helpful. This is very sad but truthful.
Last year I purchased Marsha Linehan's DBT Skills Training Manuel and have been reading it and learning the skills on my own. This has been the most beneficial tool I have found to date. I do have a wonderful Pdoc and we work as a team to insure that I maintain a healthy life style.
I work very hard as a volunteer with my local Red Cross Chapter and at Mental Health Today.Com and truly believe that if we unite we can make a difference in each other's lives.
There are tons of new and exciting things going on at Mental Health Today and I'm proud to be a part of it all. Of course as you can see there is the main website but in addition to the website there is a number of communities, chat rooms, bulletin boards, ask the doctor, a bookstore, a resource center, an advocate center, a volunteer email group, a newsletter, and we also sponsor guest speakers on different mental illness topics. So there is much going on and if you would like to become actively involved please just contact us. We all have our own unique skills and everyone can help out. I'm sure you can to.
We would like to have someone help out with writing for grants. Are you able to do this? Can you help us? I challenge everyone to be involved in some way to help each other and to help themselves.
As you can see, I have no special talent. I'm just an ordinary person just like you. I hope this has helped you to get to know me a little better and feel as if I'm a person you can reach out to and talk to. I'm in the chat room a lot so come and see me or drop me and email at
[email protected].
Thanks for letting me share a part of me with you,
Terri
