Hi Everyone,

I just joined the forum and this is my first post. I am looking for some advice on how to cope with mental illness.

A little background: I had a very difficult childhood, I won't bore you with the whole story but cliff notes are that my mom left at age 2, my dad (who also struggles with serious mental illness) tried to raise me but eventually the state took me away due to abuse and neglect and I spent the remainder of my teenage years (14 - 17) in foster care in over 2 dozen homes, most of which were extremely unhealthy environments.

Suprisingly I did more than just survive my childhood, I actually did ok for myself. I was so determined to turn my life around, that despite failing out of every high school I went to (missed too many days) and having no support network except a long term boyfriend who committed suicide at age 17 (he also suffered with mental illness), I was emancipated at age 17 and went on to get a high-school diploma, put myself through college and then went on to obtain my MBA. Today I am a well-educated and well-paid professional, I just got married last month and we bought our first house. From all outside perspectives, you would think it was a happily-ever-after tale but sadly that is not the case.

I kept thinking that I could turn my life around, but no matter what I did or how much I accomplished my mental health continues to deteriorate and although I have built a life to be proud of, I have never felt more suicidal than I do now. I live a very sad and lonely life that is void of purpose, almost like the struggle gave me something to live for and to try for; now that I have accomplised almost everything I ever wanted - I feel empty.

I have been diagnosed with several different disoders including depression, PTSD, GAD, Bipolar and Boderline (BPD). I have no doctor of any kind and take no medications (other than recreational drugs that I use to self-medicate).

My mental illness is causing a huge problem for my new husband, he is a good person (and loving husband) that doesn't have the slightest clue what mental illness is. Recently (after buying a house and getting married) my mental state began to worsen dramatically. My husband is gone at least half of the time (he travels for work) and I find myself lonely, depressed and suicidal; my mania/ hypomania episodes are fewer and further between but can be extreme like a few months ago when I went to italy by myself for 10days due to borderline agoraphobia (self diagnosed after-wards).

My illness is affecting my job and my marriage. It seems that I was ok when I was by myself but apparently being in a "healthy" relationship is more than I can deal with. I don't want to commit suicide becuase I know personally how much pain it causes loved ones and I don't want to leave my husband so it seems like the only other option is to take medications but that poses some big problems for me.

With so many different diagnoses it is hard to know which doctor to trust (my therapist wrote me a Dr note to go to Italy - I realized afterwards isolation causes agoraphobia to worsen and stopped seeing that dr and now have no doctor - yes I have tried finding a good dr, it is much harder than one might imagine) and what (if any) medictions I should take. I can't just try something and see how it works, these are chemically addictive substances that can take a month to fully work and even longer to get off of them and many of them can make my condition a lot worse (i.e. antidepressents are bad for bipolar, Lithium is bad for depression, ect) or they could put me in a disassociative state and I risk losing my mania and any happiness or any excitment that I have left. My biggest concern is that every medicine that I have researched lists "increased suicidal thoughts or actions" as a possible side effect and I simply cannot push that button any further, I am just a little to close-to-the-edge with my suicidal thoughts and sadly I don't have anyone to "watch me" or monitor how bad my suicidal thoughts are so this is particularly risky.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences that you can share with me to help me?

Thanks,
Lonely1985