Help Audrey Overcome Mental Illness
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Hi, my name is Audrey. I’m 27 years old, and I’ve suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Social Anxiety, suicidal mood swings, and an eating disorder for 15 years.
My Story:
At age 13, as a result of chronic low self-esteem and a persistent inner dialogue of self-hatred, I started cutting myself. Medication & therapy was intermittent during the following 5 years, and my mental illness still made me cut nearly every day. Over the years I have vacillated between starving myself, bulimia, and binge eating due to my warped self-image. At age 16 I cut myself deeper than ever before, requiring a trip to the ER needing stitches. Soon after this I cut myself dozens of times and I lost self-control so much that I no longer wanted to live.
Seeking help, I then went to a Partial Hospitalization Program; Monday through Friday for 8 hours a day under constant supervision of psychiatric professionals. I returned to high school to attend the Alternative Ed program, not having the willpower needed for the regular high school courses. Still cutting, I somehow managed to graduate with my diploma.
At age 18, I was again so depressed that I wanted to kill myself, but on the night I was going to do it a friend stepped in and saved my life. But I still could not find the emotional strength to carry on living a normal life. I lost all of my friends over the years due to my crippling disorder, and to this day I have not been able to form healthy new friendships. My condition forced me from one abusive relationship to another because my lack of self-worth had me believing that I deserved such treatment.
I had been a straight-A student until the onset of BPD, which affected my grades badly. I’ve attempted to go to college 3 times, but due to my mental illness and abusive relationships, I have never been able to obtain a degree.
Over the years I have grown suicidal more frequently, and the urges have only increased in their intensity. In 2017, I was planning on attempting suicide but joined an online poetry forum. The community there gave me the courage to leave my abusive relationship that I had suffered for 8 years, and I have now moved back in with my parents.
But leaving the abusive relationship after so many years has unveiled the truth that I have silently still been suffering from the horrors of BPD every single day. Within the last 4 months I have again cut myself and felt suicidal multiple times, even recently to the extent of making a plan to end my life. Every day is a battle to refrain from maliciously cutting myself. The smallest and most irrational of things can cause me to withdraw into myself as unwelcomed visions of self-mutilation overwhelm my mind.
In my adult years, I have often heard from others that I had so much potential, but a lack of self-confidence has prevented me from ever excelling to my greatest potential at anything I try to invest myself in. For 15 years I have worn a mask and struggled in silence to find the motivation to carry on. Every single day is a battle against BPD, a battle to live. I have been too afraid to speak up about my mental illness because of the stigma surrounding it.
But I cannot go on suffering this way much longer, and I am desperate to recover from this condition. Something has to change. I don’t want to feel suicidal anymore, I don’t want to feel consumed by thoughts of self-harm and self-hatred.
Hope For The Future:
The only effective treatment for BPD is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, but it is incredibly expensive. The DBT Institute of Michigan in Holt will cost $300 for intake. I am on a waiting list to enter the program, and I was told I should be able to begin in March or April of this year (2018). Each month, the DBT program will cost me $680 out of pocket. My health insurance plan does not pay for any of these costs!! =( The program is approximately a year long, and so in total my GoFundMe is asking for $10,000. This amount would account for the fees that are taken by GoFundMe as well as give my parents some financial relief for supporting me throughout the duration of this treatment program.
Any amount you can donate will help offset these costs… and could just save my life and provide me the possibility of a future worth living for.
If you can’t donate, there is something else you can do: pass this link on to your friends, family, and co-workers, and help combat the stigma around mental illness! I am an intelligent, artistic, and well-meaning individual, who has hidden my illness for over a decade in fear that others will judge me.
PLEASE- help save me and the lives of others who suffer from mental illness by helping to beat the current stigma surrounding mental health issues!!
I am Borderline: Self-Regulation Project
https://youtu.be/rZdjbLFPr5k
Learn About Borderline Personality Disorder
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml
Suicide Prevention
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Hi, my name is Audrey. I’m 27 years old, and I’ve suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Social Anxiety, suicidal mood swings, and an eating disorder for 15 years.
My Story:
At age 13, as a result of chronic low self-esteem and a persistent inner dialogue of self-hatred, I started cutting myself. Medication & therapy was intermittent during the following 5 years, and my mental illness still made me cut nearly every day. Over the years I have vacillated between starving myself, bulimia, and binge eating due to my warped self-image. At age 16 I cut myself deeper than ever before, requiring a trip to the ER needing stitches. Soon after this I cut myself dozens of times and I lost self-control so much that I no longer wanted to live.
Seeking help, I then went to a Partial Hospitalization Program; Monday through Friday for 8 hours a day under constant supervision of psychiatric professionals. I returned to high school to attend the Alternative Ed program, not having the willpower needed for the regular high school courses. Still cutting, I somehow managed to graduate with my diploma.
At age 18, I was again so depressed that I wanted to kill myself, but on the night I was going to do it a friend stepped in and saved my life. But I still could not find the emotional strength to carry on living a normal life. I lost all of my friends over the years due to my crippling disorder, and to this day I have not been able to form healthy new friendships. My condition forced me from one abusive relationship to another because my lack of self-worth had me believing that I deserved such treatment.
I had been a straight-A student until the onset of BPD, which affected my grades badly. I’ve attempted to go to college 3 times, but due to my mental illness and abusive relationships, I have never been able to obtain a degree.
Over the years I have grown suicidal more frequently, and the urges have only increased in their intensity. In 2017, I was planning on attempting suicide but joined an online poetry forum. The community there gave me the courage to leave my abusive relationship that I had suffered for 8 years, and I have now moved back in with my parents.
But leaving the abusive relationship after so many years has unveiled the truth that I have silently still been suffering from the horrors of BPD every single day. Within the last 4 months I have again cut myself and felt suicidal multiple times, even recently to the extent of making a plan to end my life. Every day is a battle to refrain from maliciously cutting myself. The smallest and most irrational of things can cause me to withdraw into myself as unwelcomed visions of self-mutilation overwhelm my mind.
In my adult years, I have often heard from others that I had so much potential, but a lack of self-confidence has prevented me from ever excelling to my greatest potential at anything I try to invest myself in. For 15 years I have worn a mask and struggled in silence to find the motivation to carry on. Every single day is a battle against BPD, a battle to live. I have been too afraid to speak up about my mental illness because of the stigma surrounding it.
But I cannot go on suffering this way much longer, and I am desperate to recover from this condition. Something has to change. I don’t want to feel suicidal anymore, I don’t want to feel consumed by thoughts of self-harm and self-hatred.
Hope For The Future:
The only effective treatment for BPD is Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, but it is incredibly expensive. The DBT Institute of Michigan in Holt will cost $300 for intake. I am on a waiting list to enter the program, and I was told I should be able to begin in March or April of this year (2018). Each month, the DBT program will cost me $680 out of pocket. My health insurance plan does not pay for any of these costs!! =( The program is approximately a year long, and so in total my GoFundMe is asking for $10,000. This amount would account for the fees that are taken by GoFundMe as well as give my parents some financial relief for supporting me throughout the duration of this treatment program.
Any amount you can donate will help offset these costs… and could just save my life and provide me the possibility of a future worth living for.
If you can’t donate, there is something else you can do: pass this link on to your friends, family, and co-workers, and help combat the stigma around mental illness! I am an intelligent, artistic, and well-meaning individual, who has hidden my illness for over a decade in fear that others will judge me.
PLEASE- help save me and the lives of others who suffer from mental illness by helping to beat the current stigma surrounding mental health issues!!
I am Borderline: Self-Regulation Project
https://youtu.be/rZdjbLFPr5k
Learn About Borderline Personality Disorder
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/borderline-personality-disorder/index.shtml
Suicide Prevention
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Organizer
Audrey Anne
Organizer
East Lansing, MI
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