This is my story. I was 6 when I first started to face challenges. My parents divorced when I was younger and we had to leave our mum to live with our dad I remember the day they told us with every detail. After that I was 11 and my brother got on top of me and assaulted me and it affects me a lot because I cant remember anything about it apart from how old I was and how old he was.

Hi, I wanted to share my mental health story, so here it is: I was neglected and emotionally abused for most of my childhood. Neither of my parents were in the picture, my father left willingly, my mom didn’t. I have severe ADHD that was diagnosed at age 7, and on top of that I was a “gifted kid”, all of this put a lot of strain on my mental state from a young age, but it didn’t get bad until I was in sixth grade. 

I didn’t realize I had so much anxiety, until I REALIZED I had so much anxiety. Anxiety was just part of my day to day life. It was my, “I’m an introvert and I need to recharge” excuse. It wasn’t until I was in the most peaceful place that I noticed how much anxiety I actually carried around with me.

Millions of people suffer from depression and the saddest thing is they suffer alone. They suffer alone because they are afraid to let anyone know they suffer. They isolate themselves to hide their condition because of the stigma attached to mental illness. They suffer alone and my heart goes out to each and every one of them.  

And that’s exactly what it was like, a dream. Until it turned into a nightmare. This nightmare was self-designed. A personal hell. I believed the government would eventually coerce me to commit an act of domestic terrorism. Unfortunately I lived in this nightmare for weeks. I struggled to get myself out of it because I had zero awareness that my beliefs were simply untrue.