I've had bad anxiety my entire life. When I was little it used to give me stomach aches. My parents called it being "nervous".

In high school I was totally fine. I was close with my very religious parents. I had a great group of friends. I was the fun and outgoing friend who would stand on top of very tall buildings, at the very edge, because I wanted to fly, as my friends watched in horror. I vividly remember feeling suicidal once and being disturbed by the way I felt, but it didn't last long. Maybe a week? I wrote about it in my journal.

Then, the summer after I graduated, I went to a two month long writing workshop out east. First time being out on my own. Eighteen. Very naive. Very green. Obviously a virgin. The entire summer there was a guy who kept on trying to get me to sleep with him, and I kept on saying no. He was very manipulative. Towards the end of the workshop I finally gave in (he was way pushy) and lost my virginity to a jerk while I was really drunk, so obviously my thinking was a little impaired (he obviously bought the alcohol because I was eighteen).

That was a little traumatic. Then, because I was so close with my parents at the time and had always been able to talk to them about anything, I answered truthfully when my mom asked me if I'd lost my virginity. I said yes. My mom called me a slut. My dad wouldn't talk to me. It was just horrible. Afterwards, nothing was the same. My parents were somewhat verbally abusive towards me (like everything was my fault, I was a disappointment, I was spending all their money by living at home while going to college, I had changed, I asked my then boyfriend now husband to marry me and my mom was upset because he was supposed to ask me, so they weren't supportive of me getting married, they told me I wouldn't be able to see him if I transfered to a college far away because they wouldn't let me take the car, etc.). It was very hard. I started self harming and drinking and just temporarily doing out of character things. I told my mom I was depressed and she just shrugged it off and told me I wasn't like that before the workshop.

So, that was the triggering event in my life. I moved out and never finished school because my parents were making it intolerable for me to continue living with them. I partied like any other 21 year old would, but I never stopped. At one point I was drinking an entire bottle of vodka a day. I would drink before work. I was always drunk. Eventually I got a DUI and had to take those classes and I went through alcohol detox on my own, which upon reflection was kind of dangerous? So while going through alcohol withdrawal, I was working two jobs so I could pay off my DUI fine and everything else that goes along with getting a DUI.

At the end of the classes, I told my counselor I was depressed. She referred me to a pnp. The pnp asked me about my past behaviors, etc., and immediately when she found out I was a writer she was like, "You may have bipolar disorder!". I told her I didn't have that. She put me on 25mg of sertraline to "see what would happen". No kidding, an hour after taking it I was above cloud nine. It was pretty intense. I ended up IOP, and then IP because I was out of control. I was put on lamictal and that flattened me out. The pnp diagnosed me as bp2, but I didn't really believe that.

After that I saw a therapist for a year, just to talk through and get over the workshop experience and the reaction my parents had to it. She told me my behaviors afterwards sounded more bpd, which I believe I did have then, but I grew out of it.

So life went on, I was stable and fine, and then at 28 I got pregnant. Surprise. Was not in my life plan. My husband was happy about it. I wasn't. At that time I had weaned myself off the lamictal, which was good timing I suppose, but I was sick and depressed about being pregnant, and I had to go off of alprazolam, so I was put back on 25mg of sertraline, except this time it didn't make me go over the deep end. Maybe pregnancy hormones or something?

Anyway, pregnancy fine, then after she was born I got PPD really bad and ended up in the hospital. I was put back on lamictal and alprazolam, but spent the first year and a half of her life mostly depressed on and off.

Then, I have no idea what happened (maybe parenting stress or something?) but I had some sort of mixed psychotic situation this past january, and since that experience (of course I ended up in the hospital again), which was horrible, I haven't been the same. Paranoia, delusions, hallucinations. I don't know why I'd suddenly develop these symptoms. I'm 32 years old. I mean, I'd had paranoia and hallucinations in the past, but now it's like paranoia concentrate or something.

Yes. That was long. But abbreviated.

It's interesting how everyone seems to have something traumatic happen to them that triggers the onset of symptoms. I just noticed that.