It wasn't until I began to heal that I realized how much stigma I had encountered. Studying to become an Advocate for the Mentally Ill really opened my eyes. (Advocacy Unlimited in CT rocks!) I was used to doctors ignoring my complaints, saying it was all in my head (even though three of those times I ended up in the ER or surgery). And I had heard the line "All you need is a kick in the pants" enough times to believe it. My own mother told me I was too crazy to be loved and my husband told a doctor once (and trust me - ONLY once) "She's the crazy one, not me." That was in our first year together. The remaining 27 taught him a thing or two.

I'll never forget when a local meditation class turned me down because they didn't want to have people like me among them and that I should get professional care. I was already recovered at the time. Or when I was laid off from a job shortly after developing MS, in spite of just having increased company profits (publishing co) by 120% in a sales promotion to our 3 largest customers. The most blatant was the dentist who fired me saying, if I had known you were crazy I would have never hired you!" When my last day arrived he wrote a wonderful letter of referral saying that I did "fine" work. The one that got me most of all was when I interned for a major Mental Health Advocacy Association and THEY treated me as though I was well, incapable of dialing a phone or making copies. Give me a break!

It's funny, it never ends. Even though the worst of my problems occurred during my 20's (I'm now 52) and I've healed for the most part, I still get nervous filling out health intake forms in doctor offices because as soon as they see my history, they look at me funny . When prescribing meds I usually do not get refills without having to go back for a follow-up. I've come to live with lying about my past, just so I can be treated like anyone else. Am I Normal? Nah. Who is? It's a philosophical question and as Dr. House says, "Normal is Over Rated".

However, the fact remains, I suffered from BPD and DID, with a touch of BP-NOS thrown in for good measure. I could not say I was suffering from an organic illness or chemical imbalance. No. Something was wrong with my "personality" (all 7 of them). I was lucky though, one of them was a shrink. I could perform group therapy with my selves. Please don't take my levity as intent to be rude. I laugh only at myself and don't mean to offend anyone. For someone who attempted parasuicide (to the brink, but with enough control to prevent going over the edge) over 100 times in a two year span and then another 50 or more through the following years, I've earned that right I think.

During my early 40's I had to undergo 25 ECT treatments. I had enough electricity run through my brain to light a small city. It was all in an attempt to remove me from 20+ pills a day a unscrupulous doctor had placed me on, each of which counteracted another's side effects. I was toxically overdosed and my kidneys were beginning to fail. Now how do you explain ECT without raising an eyebrow or two? It left me with cognitive impairment. This one time honor student in college is no longer smarter than a ninth grader. But I still have the fifth graders beat! My memory is shot - both short and long term. It's like Swiss cheese. I can't do math worth a darn and I don't know my right from my other right. Spell check and GPS are my constant companions and even they get fed up with me. It's funny, when you have memory problems, people talk slower and louder to you. Someone asked if I had Alzheimer’s. I told them "I forget".

I've come to live with the fact that I will never be 100%, and I do worry that all my blogging and Tweeting about mental illness from an inside out perspective may hurt my husband's career by association - he's a pharmaceutical chemist and I'm anti-Big Pharma. But he supports me. Maybe he's still trying to make up for the "she's the crazy one 27 years ago.

Tags: Stigma BPD DID BP MS Advocate

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