Personal Stories

Forced to leave my family and friends, the hospital became my home. Over the next year, I faced the biggest challenge of my life. At my lowest ebb, I had to find the courage to beat my anorexia.

I read that BPD was a mess to treat, that most professionals didn’t want to have to see people with BPD and that people with BPD were usually seen as treatment-resistant, difficult, overtly hostile and manipulative. Was that really me?

My name is Amber. I am one of the 1 in 5 adults in the U.S. who live with a mental health condition. I carefully chose the word live and not have. I live with a mental health condition, I don’t have one. I am not my illness.

No one wants to hear that something is wrong with their mind. Tell them they have a heart condition, diabetes, or any other myriad of “normal” disease and nine times out of ten they’ll handle it better than hearing that they have a mental health condition.

My story started at nine years old. Plagued with OCD and crippling anxiety, I wasn’t dealt a “normal kid’s life.” Instead of birthday parties and sleepovers, my days and evenings were filled with intensive therapy, lots of tears and relentless fighting with everyone around me.

Trapped in psychosis for years, I felt like my life was over. I had been in therapy for several years and we had tried medication after medication, but the voices kept staying in my life. 

It is this anxiety over losing everyone that keeps me up at night and breaks me down during the day. I worry incessantly that no one really likes me and that I’m not really worth anyone’s time.

No matter how inspirational it is to speak, there are the days when it is hard to get out of bed or days where it feels difficult to tell the same story one more time.

Who would have thought that going to see Wonder Woman would trigger so many emotions and renew my passion and purpose for being a mental health advocate? 

Many recent stressors have contributed to my heightened conditions. These stressors range from college, work, relationship, family and living arrangement changes. Although most of these changes are normal milestones in life, too much change too quickly can be debilitating.