I want to start off by telling you about me, I was the baby of the family. At an early age, I wished I had never been born and wanted to end my life at an early age. There was a barbed wire fence next to our house, I thought very seriously about raking my arm and ending my life. I never felt like I belonged anywhere, in my family, church, school, nowhere. I never knew how to talk to people.

As I got older, I didn’t have many friends in school. I was afraid to talk to people. I had a few friends in school. I remember in high school I was going to have a slumber party inviting some friends and no one showed up except my best friend next door. I stayed in my room reading True Story, True Romance and magazines like that. I knew I wanted a marriage like my parents had.

I never did get asked out in High School, so in 12^th grade I called a guy in Hot Springs to come up to meet me and we started dating. Mom told us to wait until we were married to have sex. I kept saying no until I couldn’t say it any longer. It seemed like that was the only thing he was after and of course my friends didn’t like him, so I broke up.

I was the one who followed the crowd. While I was dating him was when I found alcohol. We would drink and I would feel good and it made me go to the bathroom a lot. I was still afraid of drugs at that time. My parents warned me about it.

I got a job a year after high school and that was when I started drinking. I would drive drunk to the bowling alley. Earlier my friend next door and me would get in our parent’s liquor cabinet and mix whiskey with Kool-Aid, put water back in the bottle. In 1978 or 1979, I was hanging around with a new friend, and they kept asking me to smoke a joint, and one night I smoked a whole joint by myself and I remember the laughter. I got introduced to other drugs. I was sexually active at that time, and I thought if I got pregnant then I would have someone to love me.

Finally in 1984, I weighed 85 pounds and looked like death warmed over, everyone was rejecting me and I wanted to end my life. I remember saying God help me. A couple of weeks later I was in the hospital. I started remembering things to fast and was crying, the Director told me to take a shower, and, in the shower, I felt 2 forces fighting against each other. God won.

During that time, I ended up having a psychotic break and ended up in the psych ward, my first stay in the mental hospital. In 1996, I lost custody of my daughter, and I had another psychotic break with manic episode. When there, they labeled me as manic depressive not as a mother that lost custody of her daughter.

Since that time, I have ended up in the psych hospitals off and on. I’m a seer and have visions. Then I was labeled as Bipolar 1. In 2009, I had so much anxiety at work that I went out on disability. The psych doctor put me on a highly addictive drug, for the next 9 years, all that I could do was eat, sleep and watch tv. I was just existing. I ended up back in the hospital and was told that the psych meds that I was on were only supposed to be taken for a little while. I was a falling down drunk on a benzo. When I got out of the hospital, I called my psych doctor and fired him. I stayed on my medicine for maybe a year after that and quit taking them. I also went to a psychotherapist, and I never liked to be analyzed. I haven’t been to any mental health doctors since about 2019.

My faith in Christ is strong; I know that Christ healed me. Now I have peace, stillness and serenity. I’m calm and I can no longer watch a lot of tv or be on social media. I started unplugging from the internet and gave my nervous system to heal. I have become whole and am no longer fractured.

My daughter and sister don’t talk to me; I’ve learned the last year that they have their own soul path. I am becoming a better version of me. I stay in gratitude that my mind is clear, I just had to reprogram my mind. As in AA, God has restored me to my right mind. I love all of you.