Hi out there,

Hopefully this will reach a few mental health consumers who can relate to my journey.

September 8 th, 1986 was the first time I actually tried suicide as a way out of living within my own skin. The thought of killing myself had been in the back, front, all sides and on mind since I can remember. 1986 was the year that the final drip which over flowed the every filling pail of feeling of worthless, dispair,incompetence, helplessness, hopelessness and etc. My love/hate relationship with my mother ended with her death the year before. I was in a second marriage with another alcoholic, which was failing miserably, The lights of life, my 3 sons were growing up and leaving home.

I survived the attempt of course, which I feel at that time was a call for help. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Subsequently there has been over 20 attempts, with last five, thinking I had finally figured out how to die. I have been hospitalized in psych wards 35 + times in 20+ different hospitals in eight different. The sort of ironic part of this thing is that I have lived in the same small town for 44 years.

I have been involved in the mental health consumer movement in my state since 1988, the first timeI ended up in a "State Hospital"the seed was planted. I spearheaded a group a mental health group. We started and ran respite/transitional house. It was fully staffed my volunteer mental health survivors, including the a psychiatrist, psychiatric nurse practitioner and over 8o other volunteers. It lasted about three years but due to shifts in mental health administrators, the money dwindled. That was in the early 90's. The 503 c still exists but it is on life support. We have tried to resurrect it but the state support just is not there. To be fair I also became jaded working with mental health professionals. In about 2005, I resigned the 18 various mental health, committees and boards I was on and decided to teach myself Spanish.

Thae moveto learn Spanish was not entirely a move from mental health system. In my various hospital stays I had seen several Hispanic individuals virtually ignored not only my their families but by the mental health system as well. Most of Spanish people I met on Psych wards could speak very little English or none at all. So.. its been slow but I am feeling better about reaching out to the Hispanic communities.

At the present... I am a 2 1/2 have years from my last suicide attempt and about three months from my last psych stay. This blog has been on my mind for years and I on my daily walk this morning I decided today was the going to be start for me to blog about experience strength and hope. I have more hope for the my future than I have for decades.