Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I was born August 19, 1985, in Spokane, Washington. My three brothers and I grew up poor, and my family was and is dysfunctional.

There is a great deal of mental illness and substance abuse in my family. My father was an alcoholic and died in 2006 after getting drunk and wrecking the BMW he built. He had been a premier mechanic, the regional expert, and was finally making good money six months before he died. The hospital did not want to deal with a drunk driver and let him die. My mother won a settlement against the hospital years later.

My mother is an alcoholic. This developed later in her life from health issues and probably her own experience with despair. I didn’t come from nothing after all.

My youngest brother was a junkie. We used to be best friends, and he enjoyed doing different drugs like acid and research chemicals he found online but then got into heroin. I didn’t see him for about five years and figured one day I’d get a call that he was dead or in jail. He was in and out of jail too. Then he went to rehab and got out when the pandemic started and the whole world was on lockdown. For the first time in his adult life, he got a job and was living in a sober house. But he did bounce from one addiction to the next – benzos, alcohol. Under the influence of benzos he was arrested for breaking into a house he thought was mine – but it was not. He narrowly avoided prison time for what turned out to be an assault charge, and was referred to mental health court. He is under strict supervision, with requirements for counseling and group therapy. He was put back in jail for a couple weeks when his probation officer conducted an inspection and found liquor bottles in his room. Then his PO made him go back to rehab after that. We were both locked up at the same time – he in rehab, me in the mental hospital.

My older brother is five years older than me and spent most of his teenage and adult years in prison. I was the oldest child, from the outside looking in. He was gone when I was barely seven or eight, and I didn’t see him again for many years. Just before joining the army, I ran into him on the street. He was with a girlfriend and they already had two kids together. I had baby nieces. Unfortunately he committed a violent crime and went back to prison. This was 2004. He always had major anger issues. I didn’t see him again till about 2014, when he was released. It has been about 10 years, and he has finally grown up. He works, has another girlfriend and a stepson. Even his anger issues have mellowed out, but that’s normal as we age, and he is about to turn 45.

I was a rebellious teenager, and spent some time in juvy for shoplifting, vandalism, truancy, and drug possession. I did do well in school, however, with the exception of classes I didn’t care about, like algebra. I found school to be rather easy. I was an accomplished singer, even by then. I went to regional and state choir championships. I sang in my high school’s competitive concert choir, trying out for and getting many solos. I sang in churches and nursing homes. I am a male soprano.

I was on probation for shoplifting shortly after my 18th birthday. I was also in college early, my senior year of high school, which confounded the judge when I showed up for court. “How are you going to college early and simultaneously committing crimes and potentially wrecking your future?” She asked me. I didn’t know. I was bored, I guess. Listless, with no real goals or plans for my life.

I had been thinking a lot about the army, however. I wanted to go to college but there was no way that would happen with the way things were going. There was no way my flaky parents would fill out the FAFSA, give me their tax info, etc. They didn’t even have that. My mother kept us a very asocial family, refusing to allow us free/reduced lunch at school, not allowing a phone in the house “because then people can just come in through wires” and making sure no one knew our business, how poor we were, how food insecure we were, and the like. “It’s better to starve than go on food stamps.” So, I joined the army shortly after high school. I was on probation at the time for theft, and had to go to court to ask the judge to end my probation early. I had completed the community service. She readily agreed, and my recruiter paid the fines. I shipped off to basic training in the spring of 2005. I was barely 19. I excelled in the basic training environment, winning a bayonet combat contest and achieving squad leader for a time. When I was stationed in Fort Hood, Texas, after AIT (Advanced Individual Training – I was a signal corpsman) I qualified as an expert on the grenade launch course. Later I entered the military idol competition. At the time, American Idol was a huge show so the army did their own version of it. I won the Fort Hood competition and qualified for nationals but my first sergeant said no, we’re going to Iraq. I was crushed. But the mission always comes first.

My father died on my 21st birthday and my bipolar began to manifest itself. Bipolar disorder onset occurs between ages 20-23, so I was the perfect age. At first I grew manic and had a high amount of energy, talked very fast, was tangential, and my commander drug tested me for substance abuse but I was clean. They sent me to a military psychiatrist. I quickly decompensated and tried to OD on all the seroquel they gave me. I spent a week in a military psych ward, which was very difficult for me. It was strictly regimented and we still had to do PT and have a lot of room inspections. We were required to make our beds in the morning. I just wanted to die.

I knew then this wouldn’t end well. By October, I had grown so depressed, meds not doing anything, and I began to think it was partly the environment. Fort Hood sucks ass. Texas sucks ass. Flat and brown. My company did not like me and I really struggled to fit in. I was raped and reported it but that went nowhere. It never did in those days. I picked the wrong job – I did not like the signal corps. If I could go back and do it all over again, if I made different choices instead of rushing into it…maybe things would have turned out different. I wanted to be in for life. It is my life’s first profound regret, and many would follow.

I was medically and honorably discharged by fall of 2005. I went to California, not wanting to go back to Spokane just yet. I finished my first two years of college there, as I still qualified for the GI bill. I went back home a couple years later after being accepted to a university here in Washington. They paid for both my degrees and I graduated with no debt in 2011. I became a 70% service connected veteran by Spring 2019.

My family dynamics are complicated. My brothers are all felons, my mother does not like me because I moved out of my own house last year the day I got out of the psych ward at the VA. I bought the place in 2016 and she moved in the next year. She is very difficult to live with. I think she has borderline characteristics. I am frustrated with her alcoholism and constant complaining. She bitches about my house, bitches about being “forced” to work (she doesn’t work) and is overall quite dramatic. I am more subdued when not manic, a bit introverted. I couldn’t do her emotional labor anymore. I moved out on a rather manic whim, and felt so much better. I bought a new car, and spent a lot of money and had a lot of sex. My libido was insatiable. Then the decompensation happened as it always does. It is so hard to see it coming now, so hard to act on the worsening symptoms. Sometimes it feels hopeless so why bother? But I’m still alive after a few suicide attempts in life and currently holding a job (barely) and I live on my own and I try to stay grateful for my ability to function on the right medication.