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neondreams Posts: 7297
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geni, What helps me the most when I want to give up is my tdoc's suggestion that I take things one hour at a time. If I can't do that, he told me to take things one minute at a time. I know all about hardship and challenges. I don't want to compare myself to you, but I would like to show you that you're not alone. I'm totally deaf and blind. I was born totally blind and lost my hearing in 1995. I experienced 4 types of abuse over an 18 year period. One of those traumas involved having my life threatened when I was 9. I lost my father to diabetes and heart complications in 1991, my first guide dog in 1997, one of my sisters to a heart attack at an early age in 2001, my mother to pancreatic cancer in 2004 and a dear friend to a brain aneurism in 2005. As a child, I was misdiagnosed as having a learning disability. It wasn't until my junior year of high school that I fought the system in order to enter the Honors program and academic decathalon. When I was a freshman at my local university I had testing done to determine whether or not I had a learning disability. All of the tests were negative and (not to brag) demonstrated that I performed at least 3 years above grade level on every subject. My writing equated to that of a college graduate and yet my high school resource teachers indicated in my IEP (an educational plan for students with disabilities) that I needed to improve my writing. They claimed that I wrote in a "flowery" manner and needed to learn how to write in simple sentences. I don't know where they got that idea because I won a college scholarship for my writing in 11th grade, placed 2nd in public speaking/oratory missing Nationals by 2 points and then placed 3rd the following year. When I entered my freshman year at university, I was placed in Honors English as well as an advanced math course. Going back to high school I was kicked out of the band because I couldn't read notes by sight (I'm totally blind, but didn't know Braille music at the time). My band instructor embarrassed me in front of the entire class and said, "You should join the choir. Maybe you can sing better than you can play the flute." As it turned out, when I auditioned for choir, I was placed in A Cappella (the advanced choir) and received a gold medal at the district music competition. Again, I don't mention all of this to brag or to put myself on a pedestal. My point is to show that no matter what obstacles we face, we can overcome them with patience. I forgot to mention that I almost died twice having weighed 2 pounds at birth. Doctors suspected that I would have CP, brain damage, profound cognitive delays, heart problems, lung problems, respiratory problems and congenital deafness. Fortunately for me, I only escaped with being born totally blind and losing my hearing when I was 24. I consider myself lucky. As far as mental illness is concerned, I've been hearing voices for the past 17 years. I also struggle with paranoia (7 different kinds). I had 2 types of paranoia since 1991 and the other 5 since my first manic/psychotic episode in 2006. I've been diagnosed as BP even though I displayed clear symptoms of the disorder (according to my pdoc and tdoc) since 1991. I was also recently diagnosed with PTSD which I've been suffering from for the past 20 years. Do I feel like giving up? You bet I do. At the same time, I look at life as giving us a series of challenges that help make us stronger. You have a choice. You can either look at all of the things you don't have or look at all of the things you do have. I choose the latter. How about you? Post edited by: neondreams, at: 02/21/2009 22:05 Bipolar I with Rapid Cycling
Meds:
Geodon 120mg
Prozac 20mg
Trazodone 100mg
Klonopin .5mg |
