Black Bear May Prompt — Your Mental Health Journey
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
At Black Bear, we love hearing stories about your mental health journey. Since it is Mental Health Awareness Month, I would love to dive deeper and I hope you will submit a story for the prompt!
I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2 back in 2018. I’d been feeling highs and lows for many years but didn’t think much about it. I thought that was just the way I was.
In my journey though, I had been self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. Each time I would try to quit, I would see a therapist. Many would refer me to psychiatrists and over the course of a few years, I tried many different anti-depressants. Each of them made me feel worse and like I was coming off of meth, which was not something I was after.
They didn’t do what the doctor promised. I never felt any better so I continued to go back to drinking.
But, in 2018, I was slapped in the face with my behavior. My daughter was relieving pain, in her own way, from my meltdowns and ridiculous behavior. A dirty dish or an unkept room would send me over the edge. I was even starting to bother myself.
I began to put the pieces together and decided it was time to change, for everyone’s sake. While I didn’t stop drinking altogether, I…
