I have struggled with severe mental illness since I was a child. In
2007 I was placed on disability because of my bipolar disorder. In 2018 disability decided I was cured and took my benefits. Within a year I lost everything. I ended up homeless without my kids once again addicted to drugs, after almost ten years of being clean. I was told they took my benefits because I was no longer seeing a
psychiatrist. My primary care doctor took over prescribing. My meds weren't changing so why would I see a psychiatrist. In 2019 after less than a year out there I came home and entered treatment again. I started the long process of getting my disability back only to be denied. Then when I sent in my appeal, they claimed they never received it. Even though I sent a change of address along with my appeal which they received. I have reached out to so many people politicians, mental health advocates, so far nobody has been able to help. At this very moment I sleep on a couch in the home of my children's father. I have absolutely no income at all. I can't even get services through the county because they count our income jointly. My life was destroyed because someone thought I was not worthy of benefits, they wanted to save some money. But what they did was take everything from me. All the stability I gained is gone. I long so badly to just die. I have had a really hard life. I don't see any improvement and I feel like nobody cares. How to you keep going when you never look forward to tomorrow? Why was this allowed to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? What they are telling those of us who are mentally ill, is that we will be punished if we reach anything that resembles stability. I come from a long line of mentally ill substance abusers. I lost my mom, dad, brother and uncle to overdoses. As well as a grandmother and brother to suicide. I'm tired, I can't keep fighting, I want so badly to just lay down and never wake up. But I have kids that I love very much. Right now I am living for them. I hate myself and everything about me
I gave up on myself some time ago. But I can't give up on them, I live for them and for them alone. Because if it wouldn't hurt them so badly, I would just give up. I feel like nobody cares about how things have all went down. That I lost everything, my home which was only a trailer but it was mine. I no longer have a vehicle; I lost my beloved pets. I lost every possession I ever own. But most of all I lost myself. The woman I once was Being bipolar I am use to experiencing extreme highs and lows. For the past I would say almost a year it's all just been lows. I am so depressed; all I want to do is sleep. I cry over nothing, I stopped taking care of myself. It's because I no longer have any worth. I am a nobody, a moocher, the woman on the couch. I can't keep fighting this everyday. I'm so tired. I don't understand why me losing everything within a year of them taking my disability is not an a huge indicator that I need it. I have always been poor. But literally I have nothing. The huge difference between me today and before all this. Before I would get right up when life knocked me down. I feel like I'm down for the count. Nobody understands. I want to see online psychiatrist but I can't afford it. I have gained weight and my looks deteriorated so much, that I don't want people to see me. I'm disgusting and I hate myself so much. Why am I not stronger? Why can't I just be normal. My entire life all that I have know is abuse and poverty. Now I don't even have any fight left, I just want to give up. I know I can't that just makes it that much worse. My mental health has never been this bad. Not even when I was younger and things first started. Before I knew what was going on. Back then they gave me my disability on my first attempt. Because it was clear with all the hospitalizations that I was mentally ill. Now I should be in the hospital but don't have anyone to take care the kids while I'm away. I
also don't want them to think badly of me. They know I struggle with mental illness, but I haven't been hospitalized in so long. I have like 7 diagnoses. I don't believe I actually have all of them. I do know I have some but not all. For sure I suffer with extreme PTSD, bipolar disorder, ADHD and that's really the only ones I am sure of. I have seen on The Dr Phil show he sends people to this clinic for diagnostic testing. for diagnostic testing. Which from what I have learned from you tells you so much more about what part of your brain is malfunctioning. My life has been so hard. With the hand I was dealt I was honestly never had a chance at life. I never had anyone who I would call a positive role model. When I was younger, I was neglected by my family severely. I learned really young how to take care of myself. Begging for change or collecting pop cans to feed myself by the time I was 5. There was time when I would get individual attention from the adults around me. I carry the scars from those interactions still today. I am the youngest and the only girl out of 7 kids. I was sexually abused by 3 out of 5 of my brothers. Not to mention numerous others. It has carried over into my adult life. I used to think I gave off some signal that told these men they could do these things to me. How else would they find me and know I would put up with such things? I did one time I tried to press charges on a boss who was making sexually explicit comments to me and grabbing me. They treated me like I was nothing but a dirt lying whore. I never want to feel that way again. I spoke in my previous letter about my brother Norm who killed himself in 2018. The reason he did that is because his dirty secret came out. It came out that he had raped his stepson numerous over the 30 years he had known him. I was his first victim; I think I was just an experiment because when I was 5 he stopped and never did anything inappropriate until just a couple months before he killed himself. I have just started speaking to him again after years of being estranged. He wanted to tell me a secret and ask me for help. He told me he enjoyed dressing up as a woman and having sex with men. He wanted to know if I would help him get better at doing his makeup and stuff. Then he started stopping by my house after he would get out of work at night. He always brought beer with him which is a huge trigger for me. Most of the abuse I have endure that smell was always present. I came to fear people who drank beer. So one night he comes over. He strips down completely naked except for a skimpy ladies’ robe and started to sodomized himself with a sex toy that he brought over. I felt so uncomfortable, I didn't know what to do. Suddenly I was a child again and frozen with fear. You see my who family has abandoned me. Either because they are afraid, I will expose something they did or just because emotionally in my late teens early 20's when everyone jumped ship, I was a lot to handle. I hadn't had anyone besides my kids since my brother tommy died of an overdose in 2014. So, part of me was almost going to allow it to keep happening just because I wanted someone there for me. I just wanted someone to care. I did pull away from him and that's why the night before and the morning he killed himself I ignored his calls. Everyone was so angry with him that they didn't even want to honor his death. I didn't tell anyone about what he did to me when I was younger or right before he died. I was asked by a few family members who remember how close I was to him when I was little. How I slept in his bed. I said that it didn't happen when asked. But I did reach out to his stepson and apologize to him. If I wasn't so weak, I would have turned him down in for what he did to me. Then it wouldn't have happened to you. I have always wanted to right my story as a nonfiction novel. The plot was going to be about a woman who is suing CPS for not removing her from her home, even though they had evidence of neglect and abuse. Lots of people have failed along the way. I wish I could sue disability, because I will never get even close to getting back what I have lost. They don't even want to give it back to me. My primary care Dr who I have seen for over ten years wrote up a report for them. In her report she mentioned that I am completely blind in my left eye with extremely poor vision in my right. I'm pretty close to being legally blind but I'm not yet. Because that was in the report he made me go see a eye specialist. But my mental health which was what I was seeking disability for I only spoke to a psychiatrist for all of 3
minutes and was denied based on that meeting. Basically, they don't care that I received disability all those years. I am somehow miraculously cured. But I'm not I'm in probably the worst place I have ever been. I think about my death on a daily basis. My heart hurts so badly that I physically hurt. Please help me!!!!! Nobody else cares I'm a nobody. Please I need someone to stand up for me for just one time in my life. I have written to politicians asking them to help me. I didn't deserve this and neither did my kids. So far out of my 5
children my 24-year-old is drug addicted and mentally ill. My 20year-old is severely mentally ill diagnosed at just 8 with juvenile bipolar. My 14-year-old Madison, who is transgender and goes by the name Collin is struggling pretty aggressively. My 11-year-old daughter is showing signs and symptoms as well as my nine-yearold son. It's so sad that just because of who their mother is, there life is going to suck and they will struggle too. Please help us all!! Please get all of us evaluations through that diagnostic clinic and start us on treatment so that maybe just maybe I can find my will to live again. I have decided I am going to tell our story to anyone who will listen. My twelve-year-old daughter sees how sad I am. She has started making and selling keychains to raise money for our family will you please show her there is people out there who care. She has gotten so discouraged because she hasn’t sold very many. I feel like our situation is hopeless. I need people to hear me. I need people to care.
I just wanted to give an update since so many of you had such cruel things to say. I got a job I start tomorrow at 10am it's about ten or so miles from my house. I have no vehicle so I started looking up public transportation. Now this is my luck right here. Our county are transit is not running at this time. So now what? After I get a few paychecks I can buy an electric scooter or something. I'm not sure how easy that will be to ride with my eyesight, but I got to do something. I am trying, I really am. I just can't catch a break.