mental disorders- have you had one? how did you overcome it?

ericraven2003 · **ericraven2003**

I like to do drugs on social occasions, but nothing other than that and thats not frequent.

I did grow up with a unmedicated shizophrenic mother from the time I was 9. Really my grandmother raised me. I have always had a love/hate realtionship with my mother. To a point my childhood was ruined due to her illness. Even though, I know her actions are due to a disease. I hated her for it. I only see her once a year at Xmas and then for limited duration. It still causes me great distress being in the same room with her.

Having a bad childhood did cause me to have more ambition.

Geri_Berri · **Geri_Berri**

ericraven2003 · **ericraven2003**

To me, in a way, my mother died when I was 9. She became someone I did not know. I am 34, and can literally be brought to tears by just being in a room with her. She is still unmedicated(can't makeher take meds if she is not a danger ). Last xmas she started ranting when my 6 year old was around. I could not allow that and left immediately. I think I moved so far away so I would not have to deal with it.

Geri_Berri · **Geri_Berri**

Hmmm up till you where 9 years old...so something happened to her ..geee I sure hope I dont get pushed...although I feel I am

Eric you prolly sit and think about what it used to be like and cling on to those memories...thats understandable...

Same with my sister...up untill she was 13 yrs old she was a great kid

I dreamt once she had died....ever since then she had turned into a raving nut that b*tches every sec she gets...she aint the same sister I once knew...it was almost as if the dream I had was telling me something
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El Bandito · **El Bandito**

Geri...I have a sister like that also....I come from a large family...there are 6 of us..me being the youngest...The sister that is the closest in age to me is just a raving B#$@% all the time...and I always said..."The baby that cries the loudest , gets the most milk"...she is my moms favorite so we all have to go along with her off the wall rantz...it's sickening...can't believe I'm related to someone who has no respect or appreciation for me at all..and what really gets me is she tries to mother me..and sometimes over steps the boundries with the raising of my kids when she doesn't even take care of her own...Ok..I'm done...I just can't handle the way she treats me....El Bandito
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Never fear the dead, fear the living, they are more dangerous...."Trust Me"

Repoman · **Repoman**

Hello all. This is my first post here and this seems like as good a topic as any to jump in.

I was in the 82nd Airborne and helped invade Panama in 1989 and Iraq in 1991. Everything was fine for about year after I got out of the army. Then I stopped being able to sleep at night. I could sleep during the daytime, but at night a could not turn my brain off. My eyes and head would be buzzing and I would be dead tired but if I started to nod off I would jerk awake instantly and sometimes scream. I couldn't go anywhere without a gun on me. Any sudden sound or any break in a pattern of sound (like on TV a clock ticking and then suddenly stopping) would cause me to jump up and I would get an adrenaline rush like crazy. I slowly turned into a twitching bundle of nerves.

I self medicated with alchohol for most of the 1990s before finally going to a doctor. Luckily, I had a good job with great health insurance and was quickly diagnosed with PTSD and placed on benzodiazapines.

I also attended therapy sessions and came to realize I also had mild OCD. This manifested itself in my always having to keep things balanced between left and right and clockwise vrs. counter-clockwise. For example, if I turned around to left, I saw that as unfair to turning right. So I would turn around to the right twice. So left was unfair for going first and now right was way ahead for going twice in a row so, to make it even, I would turn around to the left one final time and, to me, this made it "fair". So I would have these stupid episodes where I would do things 4 times instead of just once. Or if I turned on the hot water I would turn off the hot water turn on the cold water twice and then turn the hot water back on. A, BB, A. Sometimes I would nest these behaviors several times deep and end up with the pattern of A, BB, A - B, AA, B - B, AA, B - A, BB, A.

My other manifestation was in not being able to enter a building until I had counted exactly 10 birds. If I only counted 9 birds, I wouldn't go inside until I saw 1 more bird. If I saw 2 more birds, then I had to find exactly 9 more birds to make an even 10.

Luckily, this behavior wasn't even noticed by most people as I was able to control it but the nagging feeling would hound me all day that I needed to even things out.

My OCD symptoms pretty much disappeared after I started seeing the doctor and getting some yummy meds.

I have been fine for the past few years. Off all medication except a few Benedryl to help make drowsy at night and a few beers to stop me from fighting the sleep.

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There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn
- Albert Camus The Myth of Sisyphus