Community Story: Jeanmarie

I was born in 1959. In 1975, at age 15, I was first diagnosed as mentally ill, but I refused medication for decades. My life was always a mess and I was a volatile, unstable person.

I started the year 2008 in and out of a psych ward. I attempted suicide multiple times between December 2007 and March 2008. My last brush with that stuff was in October 2008. No plan, but the thoughts were there. During early 2008, I finally got the help I needed. I was finally diagnosed – Borderline Personality Disorder, and severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I hated the symptomatic diagnoses I had previously been handed. Anorexic. Bulimic. Obsessive Compulsive. Rescuer. What do you do with that? You deal with the symptoms. You try to see that you’re emaciated and not fat, at 5’7” and 85 pounds. You stop yourself before you stick your finger down your throat after a healthy meal. Yeah. Right. Try stopping a freight train.

So how does one go from eating a bottle of Klonopin and waking up spitting mad and desperate in a locked ward to living in the best place ever, in an enthusiastic, healthy marriage and surrounded by loving friends and family? Healthy serotonin levels make the difference between suicidal, severely depressed and the ability to look out at the world and see love and beauty and joy and the capacity for peace on earth. I previously lived my life knowing something was terribly wrong with me, knowing that I was a terrible person, because I couldn’t hold my tongue or keep my temper. I cried so easily, so readily and so publicly, so many times, that I was sure I was ‘insane.’

Within two weeks of being on medication, I found my temper and triggers simply leveled out. I didn’t feel dull or witless, as I had feared. It takes A LOT to make me angry nowadays. And, even then, I can feel anger without losing my temper. I’ve gained way too much weight, but I don’t feel crazy about it, in fact, my weight (50 pounds over where it should be at healthy levels) has stayed level for more than a year. That’s a first, since I was 15.

My new year’s resolutions are all about eating right and exercising. I’m determined and confident that I can do it. Hooray for me!