I’m not sure where to start. I think the best place to start is how I’m doing today. I’m 48 years old and I’ve overcame many challenges in my life the biggest one of seeing my mental health not as a flaw but as a special attribute of mine. In my story there’s abuse starting when I was 4, addiction when I was 10,  and it just continues from there. It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I accepted who I was, that all the bad stuff was just that bad stuff, I wasn’t bad. A rebel maybe but not bad. I’ve been prescribed all different types of medications for mental health since I was 18 it started with PTSD after I heard my biological shot and I was the one that my family called to go see what had happened in the house. After that I was diagnosed with depression, substance abuse addiction, 1st attempt at suicide I was 25, in a drug rehab I was trying to get custody of my children back , (which took me 10 years almost to do that) in and out of rehab. More diagnosis, more doctors, more everything. Well then that just became to much so back to the street life of drugs, prostitution, and avoiding all drs. Then in 2010 I was sentenced on my last prostitution case and was told that I couldn’t return to my hometown or I would go to jail. So being the person I was I left town and went to Missouri had a 2nd attempt at suicide, did my first stay at a psych hospital, lived in Missouri for almost a year and barely missed the big tornado that went through Joplin. Headed back to my hometown because that’s all I knew, I didn’t really know my family they had told me to stay away because I just kept hurting me kids. Fast forwarding to more positive things my current mental health diagnosis is Major Depressive Disorder (MDD),  GeneralIzed Anxiety Disorder (GAD), PTSD, ADHD. I have physical health issues that have alot of acronyms as well so it’s easy to forget, but back to the me writing my story. My life has been filled with tragedy and triumph, pain and progress, I’ve seen things that I pray I never see again, and this whole time I always thought I was broken and I needed to be fixed but the Dr’s didn’t know how to fix me, just take another pill. I was always the one that gave the advice that worked for others, but never for me. My 40s have been the most educational, most intense, emotionally painful and some of the best years of my life. I’m glad that my attempts at suicide never  went anywhere, that my lifestyle didn’t leave me for dead in the desert, because I’ve learned that what I see as flaws are really gifts. Today I stand proud to talk about all this and this is just a sample, I believe that mental health shouldn’t be a secret, and since I’ve learned how to embrace my diagnosis and accept them life has been so much better. For me personally my motto is ” what other people think of me is none of my business” so who cares if I take 1 or 10 pills a day as long as I keep loving me and embrace what I can do and who I am it’ll be ok. I hope that my story inspires positive change in those that read it and please understand this hasn’t been an easy road and it won’t be for you either. One of my favorite motivational speakers Steve Harvey said something to the effect of  ” Let them throw dirt on you, because flowers need dirt to grow” We are all beautiful and deserving of love and to have the best life. So when you wake up in the am just know I’ve been there and I get it and your not alone.