Schizophrenia //Trauma Treatment &Healing 4 Nicole
Donation protected
CW: sexual abuse and mental illness. also, everyone that i am currently friends with right now on facebook: the sexual abuse i speak of is NOT about you, nor was it done by any family members- my family was not aware of what was happening until much much later.
As a teenager, I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia with split personality disorder, adhd, and bipolar tendencies. Though mental illness has been present hereditarily, it has become very clear to me lately through the power of mediation that the trauma I experienced as a child is a big cause for my mental illness, if not THE cause. So the reason I am finally doing this is because I actually have no idea what else to do. as I get older, my mental conditions have only seemed to worsen despite my efforts to prioritize my mental health as much as possible. As of lately, I have been feeling incredibly trapped in my own mind, unable to truly meet all of my basic human needs, and I have just been feeling really low on resources and//or the sheer will to continue on in the way I have been, causing a massive wave of unmanageable anxiety and depression.
I am not by any means writing any of these things to seek pity in any way because pity honestly only makes me feel worse, and it definitely doesn't help anybody. What really helps people is having goals, having a strong sense of self, admitting you have a very real problem, and seeking the right levels of support. I was told that if I did not take my diagnosis seriously, that I would not ever be able to hold down a job or live on my own, so I did everything I could from that moment on to do so. Also, i'm Leo, so hardly anything in this world will push me harder than when people tell me what or who- i can or cannot- do or be. so I made it my life goal from the moment i heard those words to be dedicated to living as high-functioning as humanly possible, proving anyone who did not believe in me wrong, as well as doing everything I could so that my mental illness would not cause harm to the people I care about.
I also learned very early on that talking about the problem never ever helped me. it would either make my symptoms worse or put intense focus on them, or it would only cause my loved ones to be sick with worry, leaving me feeling inadequate as a human as well as a huge burden. But honestly, my number 1 struggle since the day i was sexually abused for the first time, until the day I received any kind of diagnosis, and up to this very moment- is making sure i could never possibly feel as though i have burdened anyone. I have basically, just always caused a massive amount of pain for myself based on the ideas I have about how i ever make other people feel, just in general.
Because I rarely let anyone into this world of mine, it used to feel like it eliminated the need for people to worry or cause me stress by their reactions to my situation. but it has also been very hard because of all of this to ever even think about reaching out for help. This has caused me to live my life in a very serious and hardly properly explained isolation, which has also been the only times i am able to properly able to take care of myself- except the trade-off
ended up being the fact that I am 100 percent certain that it has been the number one reason that any of my important relationships have failed, are failing, or aren't what they have the potential to be.
in large part due to the incredible disconnect ive always felt as a result of everything just said- i learned quickly that I could actually achieve the human connection we all want in life through customer service, serving, and then eventually bartending, and event planning. I have been working consistently in this business for exactly 21 years, without one gap in my resume, with my longest standing jobs being Friendly's for 5 years, The Boston Billiard Club for 6 years, and Bishop's Lounge for almost 10 and 1/2 years. I have always actively tried to use my split personality abilities in my favor, as I developed the skill to
separate situations from each other early on in traumatic situations so that i am able to compartmentalize between different types of nicoles. Those who know me well know some of them, those who know me really well know most of them, but there is a particular nicole that i do not allow anyone else to see. This is because it would mean I would have failed in keeping my secret world, secret life, and secret pain from the rest of the world. I can no longer keep up the facade, and i have completely run out of resources and energy to pretend like I even care to anymore. Let alone the fact that i ever felt like i had to play a role of someone that i wasnt was an unhealthy behaivor in itself, and the only way i will get better is if i start living from a place of transparent truth, and if i start trying to begin correcting every single unhealthy behaivor i have.
since i started meditating earlier this year, things have been coming up for me that i had no idea weren’t dealt with. I am having thoughts, feelings,and psychosis that i need to admit to myself out loud that i am completely equipped to handle on my own. things happened to me inearly childhood that warped my brain in ways that are completely unsustainable. I simply did not have the tools at the time to do better then, nor do i have them to do better now, and that is okay. but all I want for my birthday this year, is the ability to go and find those tools, and potentially regain control over my mental illness that I once feel like I had, and that i know that with help- i can absolutely have again.
My birthday wish is to be able to learn how to get myself back, and i truly feel as though a 30 day program that specializes in trauma and mental illness, as well as some time to ease back into the real world so that i can slowly start learning how to implement my new practices- would help me to do this. I have a lot of experience with loved ones and friends that have been in and out of rehabilitation centers, and it seems to me that time once they arrive back home to get back into the swing of things is very important, otherwise- it seems everyone that hasn't taken the time has a hard time making the new practices stick. I haven't made any solid plans yet of which treatment center i would like to go to yet, or most importantly-- WHEN i will go-- because finances have slowly but surely become a huge issue for me since my mental state has been on the decline. I am in a massive amount of debt, and in order to leave for 30 days and potentially have another 15-30 days to ease back into real life, i will easily need at least $5000 to make it all work with bills, cost of living, and hopefully any fees or treatment costs that i will have to pay out of pocket. My bills are extremely high and out of control because of my debt essentially, and making the bare minimum payments towards everything has caused even more of a loss of control. I would never actually take the plunge to get the help I need unless i knew my bills were taken care of, and i feel as though everything has become a vicious cycle and slippery slope since i am unable to work more as my mental conditions become worse.
I have records of everything number-wise that has ever happened on one of my shifts as a bartender, which turns out is special little side effect of being a scizophrenic princess. since the day I started bartending, I have always started a tab for myself at the bar where i always buy drinks for people throughout the night that either helped me do something, made me smile, or regulars that deserve one "on me" every once in a while. A large side effect of my trauma is giving away things that i don't have myself, as well as an unhealthy desire to people please- so lending money that i don't have to lend, giving money away that i don't have freely, and straight up buying people drinks simply because of social anxiety have all been things i have had big problems with since before i can remember. a really lowball average of the amount of money that I spend on my tabs for every shift is $30, and i say lowball because there have been so many nights where I spend $40, $50, even $60, and once in a blue moon i'll have a $20 tab ((which has always been the goal)) and when that happens I am always so proud of myself. but if you were to do the math in the most lowball way possible, over how much money ive spent on other people while at my job over the past 10 years alone, at the very least it would be $31,200. And this just so happens to be equal to where my financial debt lies currently.
if everyone that i have ever bought a drink for, returned the favor to me for my birthday, ((since no one has been able to return the favor for the past 12 years of my sobriety)) there could be a chance that i could go to "schizophrenia school" ((30 day treatment center )) where I could learn how to process what happened to me as a kid, and also learn the tools i need that will help me to maybe enjoy my life a little bit more, as well as maybe help others to do the same. if you asked me today what I would want for a drink at the bar, we actually finally have kombucha on tap, so i would probably choose that. 1 kombucha at the bar would be $5, and even just a $5 donation, or even sharing this link could really help me to actually save my life.
I have plans to update the gofundme until I reach my goal, to include donation tiers, and things that I could offer in return for a donation. if you happen to make a donation today, for my birthday- first of all - THANK YOU! and second- if you notice a tier later on once i have updated the page with them, please just send me a message at [email redacted] with which tier you would like your donation to represent. I actually have a lot to offer, but its just gonna take me a second to organize it all out and I just needed to make this live sooner rather than later due to the severity of my situation. thank you so much for taking the time to read this, share this, or donate- you will never know how much it means that any human would invest their time, money, or energy in me- and I promise not to let you down.
As a teenager, I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia with split personality disorder, adhd, and bipolar tendencies. Though mental illness has been present hereditarily, it has become very clear to me lately through the power of mediation that the trauma I experienced as a child is a big cause for my mental illness, if not THE cause. So the reason I am finally doing this is because I actually have no idea what else to do. as I get older, my mental conditions have only seemed to worsen despite my efforts to prioritize my mental health as much as possible. As of lately, I have been feeling incredibly trapped in my own mind, unable to truly meet all of my basic human needs, and I have just been feeling really low on resources and//or the sheer will to continue on in the way I have been, causing a massive wave of unmanageable anxiety and depression.
I am not by any means writing any of these things to seek pity in any way because pity honestly only makes me feel worse, and it definitely doesn't help anybody. What really helps people is having goals, having a strong sense of self, admitting you have a very real problem, and seeking the right levels of support. I was told that if I did not take my diagnosis seriously, that I would not ever be able to hold down a job or live on my own, so I did everything I could from that moment on to do so. Also, i'm Leo, so hardly anything in this world will push me harder than when people tell me what or who- i can or cannot- do or be. so I made it my life goal from the moment i heard those words to be dedicated to living as high-functioning as humanly possible, proving anyone who did not believe in me wrong, as well as doing everything I could so that my mental illness would not cause harm to the people I care about.
I also learned very early on that talking about the problem never ever helped me. it would either make my symptoms worse or put intense focus on them, or it would only cause my loved ones to be sick with worry, leaving me feeling inadequate as a human as well as a huge burden. But honestly, my number 1 struggle since the day i was sexually abused for the first time, until the day I received any kind of diagnosis, and up to this very moment- is making sure i could never possibly feel as though i have burdened anyone. I have basically, just always caused a massive amount of pain for myself based on the ideas I have about how i ever make other people feel, just in general.
Because I rarely let anyone into this world of mine, it used to feel like it eliminated the need for people to worry or cause me stress by their reactions to my situation. but it has also been very hard because of all of this to ever even think about reaching out for help. This has caused me to live my life in a very serious and hardly properly explained isolation, which has also been the only times i am able to properly able to take care of myself- except the trade-off
ended up being the fact that I am 100 percent certain that it has been the number one reason that any of my important relationships have failed, are failing, or aren't what they have the potential to be.
in large part due to the incredible disconnect ive always felt as a result of everything just said- i learned quickly that I could actually achieve the human connection we all want in life through customer service, serving, and then eventually bartending, and event planning. I have been working consistently in this business for exactly 21 years, without one gap in my resume, with my longest standing jobs being Friendly's for 5 years, The Boston Billiard Club for 6 years, and Bishop's Lounge for almost 10 and 1/2 years. I have always actively tried to use my split personality abilities in my favor, as I developed the skill to
separate situations from each other early on in traumatic situations so that i am able to compartmentalize between different types of nicoles. Those who know me well know some of them, those who know me really well know most of them, but there is a particular nicole that i do not allow anyone else to see. This is because it would mean I would have failed in keeping my secret world, secret life, and secret pain from the rest of the world. I can no longer keep up the facade, and i have completely run out of resources and energy to pretend like I even care to anymore. Let alone the fact that i ever felt like i had to play a role of someone that i wasnt was an unhealthy behaivor in itself, and the only way i will get better is if i start living from a place of transparent truth, and if i start trying to begin correcting every single unhealthy behaivor i have.
since i started meditating earlier this year, things have been coming up for me that i had no idea weren’t dealt with. I am having thoughts, feelings,and psychosis that i need to admit to myself out loud that i am completely equipped to handle on my own. things happened to me inearly childhood that warped my brain in ways that are completely unsustainable. I simply did not have the tools at the time to do better then, nor do i have them to do better now, and that is okay. but all I want for my birthday this year, is the ability to go and find those tools, and potentially regain control over my mental illness that I once feel like I had, and that i know that with help- i can absolutely have again.
My birthday wish is to be able to learn how to get myself back, and i truly feel as though a 30 day program that specializes in trauma and mental illness, as well as some time to ease back into the real world so that i can slowly start learning how to implement my new practices- would help me to do this. I have a lot of experience with loved ones and friends that have been in and out of rehabilitation centers, and it seems to me that time once they arrive back home to get back into the swing of things is very important, otherwise- it seems everyone that hasn't taken the time has a hard time making the new practices stick. I haven't made any solid plans yet of which treatment center i would like to go to yet, or most importantly-- WHEN i will go-- because finances have slowly but surely become a huge issue for me since my mental state has been on the decline. I am in a massive amount of debt, and in order to leave for 30 days and potentially have another 15-30 days to ease back into real life, i will easily need at least $5000 to make it all work with bills, cost of living, and hopefully any fees or treatment costs that i will have to pay out of pocket. My bills are extremely high and out of control because of my debt essentially, and making the bare minimum payments towards everything has caused even more of a loss of control. I would never actually take the plunge to get the help I need unless i knew my bills were taken care of, and i feel as though everything has become a vicious cycle and slippery slope since i am unable to work more as my mental conditions become worse.
I have records of everything number-wise that has ever happened on one of my shifts as a bartender, which turns out is special little side effect of being a scizophrenic princess. since the day I started bartending, I have always started a tab for myself at the bar where i always buy drinks for people throughout the night that either helped me do something, made me smile, or regulars that deserve one "on me" every once in a while. A large side effect of my trauma is giving away things that i don't have myself, as well as an unhealthy desire to people please- so lending money that i don't have to lend, giving money away that i don't have freely, and straight up buying people drinks simply because of social anxiety have all been things i have had big problems with since before i can remember. a really lowball average of the amount of money that I spend on my tabs for every shift is $30, and i say lowball because there have been so many nights where I spend $40, $50, even $60, and once in a blue moon i'll have a $20 tab ((which has always been the goal)) and when that happens I am always so proud of myself. but if you were to do the math in the most lowball way possible, over how much money ive spent on other people while at my job over the past 10 years alone, at the very least it would be $31,200. And this just so happens to be equal to where my financial debt lies currently.
if everyone that i have ever bought a drink for, returned the favor to me for my birthday, ((since no one has been able to return the favor for the past 12 years of my sobriety)) there could be a chance that i could go to "schizophrenia school" ((30 day treatment center )) where I could learn how to process what happened to me as a kid, and also learn the tools i need that will help me to maybe enjoy my life a little bit more, as well as maybe help others to do the same. if you asked me today what I would want for a drink at the bar, we actually finally have kombucha on tap, so i would probably choose that. 1 kombucha at the bar would be $5, and even just a $5 donation, or even sharing this link could really help me to actually save my life.
I have plans to update the gofundme until I reach my goal, to include donation tiers, and things that I could offer in return for a donation. if you happen to make a donation today, for my birthday- first of all - THANK YOU! and second- if you notice a tier later on once i have updated the page with them, please just send me a message at [email redacted] with which tier you would like your donation to represent. I actually have a lot to offer, but its just gonna take me a second to organize it all out and I just needed to make this live sooner rather than later due to the severity of my situation. thank you so much for taking the time to read this, share this, or donate- you will never know how much it means that any human would invest their time, money, or energy in me- and I promise not to let you down.
Fundraising team (3)
Nickee Vincentina
Organizer
Northampton, MA
Josh Kloss
Beneficiary
Josh Draghe
Team member
