My past!

I have never done this before so I am going to give it a try. When I was 14 or maybe a little older I made my first trip to the Psychiatric Ward at Covenant Hospital in Waterloo Iowa. I was there for a couple of days. I don't remember much but crying a lot because I wanted to go home and the other kids scared me there. I was put on some medication and sent home. The doctor that put me on medication couldn't speak English very well and I could hardly understand him. He scared me.

The next time I was put in the Psychiatric Ward at the same hospital was when I was in High School. The teacher had seen me cutting on my ankle with a paper clip. Then a few days later I had a nervous break down in school and couldn't stop crying and they didn't know what to do with me. The first boyfriend I had ever had broke up with me and I thought my world was ending. I didn't know how to deal with that because I have never had anyone just up and leave my life that I had been so close to.

Over the next couple of years I had been on and off medication for awhile and I never took it when I was supposed to and went weeks to months without it. I didn't think I needed it. My parents worked a lot and were not home much of the day and even when we had summer vacation. The funny thing is I can't remember a whole lot from my childhood. I hardly remember anything at all. People say I just choose not to remember it but I honestly can't and it has been an ongoing problem with some people.

I graduated from Oelwein Alternative High School in 2003 and went to Hamilton University and received a diploma in Computer Science. The day I graduated from there I was fired from my job because I didn't get along with another employee. She was spreading rumors about me and I confronted her about it and things went bad. I never hurt her at all the manager just didn't want two employees that didn't get along.

I then moved to North Carolina and was living with a boyfriend at the time. I had a few jobs there and one of them wasn't the most respectable job but it paid the bills. I was there for a couple of months and I came home one day after a night shift at the gas station I was working at. My boyfriend at the time who I was going to marry most have snapped or something because he had started to choke me. I don't remember much just the cops were called and I was still unconscious at the time and they had to pull him off of me.

I then returned back home to Iowa to live with my father who was about to be remarried. I stayed there for a couple of months and then went into the military for awhile. I was then returned home from the Army because I had torn my ACL and wasn't allowed to stay anymore. I had to move into this apartment that I hated very much and was really lonely and didn't hardly talk to anyone. I did not go to my fathers wedding because I did not get along with my soon to be step mother. One day I decided to get high with the neighbor and wasn't going to take it anymore. I swallowed all the medication I had left for my migraine's and went for a walk. I ended up in the hospital. I was released a week later and had to see a therapist the next day. I went to meet with her and told her that I was still suicidal. She would not let me leave unless my mother or the police came and took me.

My mom took me across the street to MHI in Independence. I stayed there for about 16 hours and was so scared of everyone there I told them I had PMS and they let me leave. The next day I checked myself into St. Lukes in Cedar Rapids. I was treated by a great doctor who kept me there for 32 days. Got me on some medication that worked some and I was sent to live in a Residential Care Facility.

I spent the next year and 2 days in the RCF's. There they had changed my medication so many times that I don't think any of them had a chance to work. I convinced them enough to get out of the care facility and into my own apartment for the first time. I was on Social Security and was doing ok for the first time in a long time.

I fell in with a bad crowd and started to do drugs. I was dating a guy I met in the RCF and we went out a couple of times. He never let me meet his parents or anything because he was embarrassed of me. Over the next couple of months that I was seeing him I became pregnant with his son. He denied that the child was his and changed his phone number and moved so I could not get a hold of him at all. I was all alone in dealing with the pregnancy. I was scared and all alone. I had no clue what to do so I moved to Independence to be closer to my mother. She had helped me out some and I was able to have a beautiful son at 9 lbs 6 ounces 21 and a quarter inches long. He was a big boy with a huge appetite.

The day after they sent us home from the hospital the nurse came by to check him and he had jaundice so bad that he had to be taken back to the hospital for 4 days to be placed under the blue lights. I was scared for him and was also exhausted from being up all day and night. Doing all the work on my own was so hard but I was managing very well. I ended up moving back to Cedar Rapids because I wasn't getting help from my mother anymore. After the paternity test came back positive his father decided that he wasn't going to see his son until after the holidays. he seen him when he was about 7 months old.

His father would come over every now and then for a couple of hours to see his son but not more than 2 hours at a time. I was still all alone in taking care of my son. I did not have time to worry about me and my mental illness. I could not deal with it because I had so much on my plate. I was a single mother with no help from anyone. I was in some bad shape but I never let anyone know about it because if they knew I would get my son taken from me and that was the last thing I ever wanted to have happen. His father started to become more active in his life after he turned 1 and started taking him over night on the weekends. I was actually starting to get time to myself. I didn't know what to do with this time. So I cleaned and did my shopping without the baby.

My son is now 2 and a half years old and I just recently spent 2 weeks in the hospital for depression. The first time since before my son was born. I just couldn't take not feeling well anymore I had been doing it for to long.

That is just my background and this begins my blog.....