Introduction

In 2018, at the age of 42, I was diagnosed with Tick-Borne Illness, multiple Auto-immune Disorders, and a Chiari Malformation. I contracted Lyme Disease at approximately age 6. I have spent most of my life in and out of doctors' offices being told there is nothing wrong with me. Some were honest enough to say they "could not find anything wrong with me." I have been in and out of therapists' and psychiatrists' offices, trying to do whatever they told me to do. I read books, changed jobs, exercised, ate the right foods, slept, stood on my head, you get the point. I have also been sober since June 25, 2003. Unfortunately, nothing cured my symptoms. There were times I believed I was on the right path, but it didn't last long.

Surviving the hell that is our mental health system in this country is nearly impossible. I am sharing my story. Unfortunately, the story so many of us have and so many do not live to tell. You see overdoses and suicides as a failure. I see them as the result of terminal illnesses. No one treats as terminal. I hope you will take the time to walk with me in my shoes. To understand that I should not be alive to provide you with this information. No one I know understands how I am alive, so join the club if my story seems made up or unbelievable. Even I did not fully understand how difficult it has been for me to survive until I started writing.

I have developed some very unorthodox survival skills. Whenever I share these survival skills with therapists or doctors, I get shot down very quickly. I am treated crazier than they initially thought and dismissed out of hand, but I am alive, right? I mean, that should be the end goal here, right? Honestly, most of the time, while I was in "treatment" or "therapy," the end goal seemed to be to make me bearable for everyone else around me. My health and wellbeing never really seemed to matter. "Just make it so we can live with her." After that is done to you long enough. You do whatever you can to shut everyone up around you to make yourself "capable of being loved," whether it is best for yourself or not. Honestly, no one believes you when you tell them what you really need because what you really need would typically make you "difficult to live with." What cracks me up? Nothing anyone told me to do changed a damn thing, but I was also not supposed to do the crazy shit I did to keep me alive and sober.

We learn not to be a burden and take care of ourselves without interfering with anyone else's lives. Because we aren't really "sick," right? I mean, we haven't been diagnosed with a physical disease. It is all "in our heads." So why would anyone make sacrifices for us to live the way we need to live to be healthy?

This is The Price We Pay to Survive. If we choose to survive, we sacrifice so much of ourselves to survive. No one notices what it takes to survive. Most patients do it under the radar. It begins with a misdiagnosis or ignorance. It continues with ridiculous expectations being placed on individuals who indeed are sick. The final touch, mental health patients' ultimate desire is to prove they are "normal" and "not crazy."

Individuals who did not survive did not fail. They were asked to do the impossible for too long. It has become impossible to survive. Even in this mess, it is worth it, my friends, to choose survival. You are not alone, you are not crazy, you are being asked to do too much, you are allowed to say NO, and you will figure it all out someday. I hope my story helps you figure it out now and not 40 years from now.