Here’s Why I’m Qualified To Write About Mental Health Issues

I’ve lived with them, around them, endured my own and others as well as tried to treat them, by any means necessary, my entire life.

Warning: I will be divulging deeply personal information and family experiences in this piece. If you’re related to me, and have a hard time processing and taking in hard facts and truths, skip this one. Or don’t. Maybe try facing reality as it is, rather than how we all wish it was, but never will be.

My first real memory, was one from when I was about five years old. I had a doctor’s appointment, literally down the street from the apartment My Father, Mother and I shared, until that day.

Even at five, I was half neurotic and anxiety-ridden. I kept telling my Mom we were going to be late for the doctor's appointment. Then, I couldn’t find her. Eventually, I did, in the bathroom, drinking directly out of a rubbing alcohol bottle. At age five, I kindly informed her that was for boo-boos, not drinking. She knew that but what I didn’t know and couldn’t have possibly understood at five, was her disease didn’t. Or maybe it did and wanted to kill her. By the grace of God, she lived. However, it was the last time she’d ever be allowed back in what was once our apartment, without my…