The journey back to wellness was harrowing, but the person Jeannette is now would not change these experiences for the world. She is stronger and more confident in recovery now than she was pre-illness. Her most significant lesson is that she is not her illness. Sure, she has one, but it does not define who she is and will not stop her from becoming the amazing person she is meant to be.
After many years of struggle, Jeannette has been prayerfully in recovery since 2015. Finally, aligning with the right doctors and therapist answered her and her family's prayers. She says,
"I cannot stress how important it is to seek help when needed despite the belief and isolating thought that no one can help you. It does not mean that you are weak. It means that you are courageous and want the best for your life. The right doctors, encountered for my last episode, and therapist taught me how to understand and manage my illness."
In closing, Jeannette would like to acknowledge the loving support of her family throughout her journey. Even though they did not understand what or why she went through what she did, good or bad, she will never forget the kindness, compassion, and empathy that she received from them. Jeannette could not have reached this point without them.
About BMM
BMM is the brainchild of Jeannette, a Mental Health survivor diagnosed with Depressive Psychosis in 2005. Each episode of her illness was life altering. It stripped her of everything she once knew and left her bare to put together the shattered pieces each time they occurred. Because of her illness, she became unrecognizable to those who knew and loved her.
The Diagnosis
Before diagnosis, Jeannette was an independent, confident, outgoing, assertive, single mother of a small child. The drastic transition from being the person many knew to abruptly changing to someone filled with immense fear, hopelessness, extreme anxiety, isolation, and extreme sadness was traumatic and created an unparalleled shift in her worlds view. These characteristics describe only part of her lived experience after diagnosis.
Most people view the bi-product of her illness, Depression, as "the Blues," but it is nothing like that. The Blues is sadness felt over a short period that we can surpass when we try. Jeannette's episodic and recovery experiences proves that Depressive Psychosis and "the Blues" are not synonymous.
The symptoms experienced from her illness for close to twenty years brought extreme changes in weight, irregular sleep patterns, poor concentration, memory loss, emotional binge eating, and deep rumination with highly negative thoughts, including suicide just to name a few.
Jeannette describes this as "mentally drowning daily with no sign of breaking through the water's surface to catch my breath. It was like being submerged and treading water; each adversity pulled me farther underwater, witnessing the rest of my life with blurred vision and a muddled mind." She further states, " I truly believed that the darkness that swallowed me whole would never end, and each life task I faced compounded the situation."
In Recovery
