Beyond The Label: Breaking Free From The Stigma (and Clutches) of Mental Illness, Naturally

A brave portrayal of how an over-achiever ended up in a psych ward and went on to create positive wellness within herself and others.

—

It is often hard to pinpoint the exact moment when mental illness begins in one’s life. A question we are taught to ask patients is: What was going on in your life when you were first diagnosed? I find that the answers I receive in response to that question vary — some people recount a stressful incident such as the death of a loved one or divorce, while others have a vague memory of their past and it all seems blurry. Suffice it to say, there is no ‘one-size fits all’ scenario. 

When I look back on my childhood, I can remember a few incidents where I struggled with my mental health.

What’s difficult to discern is how much of that was ‘normal’ childhood experience (kids being kids) and how much of it was actually clinically ‘abnormal.’

It didn’t help that my own insecurities and anxieties seemed to be on overdrive from the moment I entered the world, given that I was adopted. Truthfully, I think this fact may have clouded everyone’s judgment. As a result, most of my behavior was chalked up to the fact that I was adopted versus the fact that I had a mental illness. 

From the beginning, with the way I processed first learning that I was adopted to overhearing the negative comments made to my parents from some family members who said things like, “blood is thicker than water” — cast a strong belief within me very early on that I simply wasn’t good enough — I wasn’t truly wanted. It all fed my feelings of inadequacy, which then played out on the school grounds and I became a prime target for kids to pick on. Despite my insecurities around adoption and being picked on in elementary school, there were no other traumas in my childhood. All