Jacquelyn Richardson
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Psyched Out
It took a while to begin to explain the weight of what was welling up and festering as it grew inside of me. It can be hard to relay the struggles of an ill-diagnosed or misdiagnosed mental illness to other people when everything on the outside is a typical life in their eyes. However, nothing was typical about the games my mind would play on me to make me feel as if everything was constant danger, and that I had never really escaped one of my biggest fears; losing the people I love due to ties with the military. With only four years of military experience and one tour in Afghanistan, it was hard to come back. Even though I was never engaged in actual warfare with the bombs and shootings laying a little outside the lines where I was stationed, there was not much solace that could be sought in the small clinic where we worked to return soldiers back ready to fight from what conditions had been ailing them. I never thought that once stepping on the plane headed back stateside that I would be carrying a burden with me over the next seven years. I was living a life with a misdiagnosed mental disorder, and it was seeking to sweep me from under my feet right in front of the people I loved the most with no reserve for the fears of my family, or the tugs of mental sanity I tried to keep peace with.
By Jacquelyn Richardson4 years ago in Psyche
