My Mental Health Journey: Part One, "What is Wrong With Me?"
I had always known there was something off about my feelings and behavior, but always attributed those things to just being part of being a teenager and going through puberty. My parents and older sister always thought there was something off about my words and actions, but never brought it mine or my doctor's attention.
I had been in therapy off and on since I was about five years old due to my parent's rocky divorce and suspected abuse. But even the several therapists I saw couldn't pinpoint why I was the way I was, I suppose because they weren't really looking for something to be wrong.
The first time I knew something was wrong with my thought processes was at the end of my first serious relationship. I had started in a romantic relationship with a childhood friend who I had grown up with. Everything was going as well as it could for a high school relationship, until it wasn't, and my reactions to this change in our relationship were irrational and unnecessary.
This trend continued into my romantic relationships; things going well until something small would happen and send me off the edge. The relationship would end with me hating my ex-partner and me hating myself. I blamed myself for the demise of my romantic relationships but didn't know why it could be my fault.
I knew something was "wrong with me", and that became apparent after the end of my last high school relationship, during my first semester of college.
The relationship ended and so did my life. I stopped going to class and work, stayed in bed all day and binge ate junk food.
I began to have bad thoughts about wanting to harm myself, and soon after, formed a plan.
I was going to drive my yellow neon out into the country and call my recent ex-boyfriend, and overdose on pain medicine as I sat on the phone with him explaining how I didn't want to live anymore.
As I made this plan and sat in my driveway about to go through with it, I knew something was wrong and that I needed help. So, instead of driving into the country, I drove myself to the ER close to my college, and admitted myself into the psychiatric unit.
This began my mental health journey, and the first of three hospitalizations.
