An Introduction

It all seems rather ... defeatist, final, doesn't it? Well, that particular day I had felt conquered; beaten down by the unmistakable realities of life. Maybe though I did jump the gun a bit with my first rambling. I guess I just wanted you all to have a brief glimpse into a very troubled mind, but not so much as to scare you away. Unlike that disturbing day, many times I will instead write something much longer, more specific to what drove me into my private world. In order to understand these with some form of clarity, you will need to know me, to see perhaps what life has dealt me and how it can effect one such as myself; for now I feel the time has come for an introduction....

My name is Laura. I am 43 years old and I have suffered from mental illness since about the age of 12. As a child I was diagnosed as suffering from Manic Depression, also known as Bipolar Disorder. By the age of 16 though, and with the change of doctors as I had "outgrown" my Child Psychiatrist, I was re-diagnosed as having a Severe Personality Disorder, with Sociopathic Traits; although this analysis I wouldn't find out about until many years later. Imagine my 'feelings' when I discovered that this particular doctor saw me as not having any morals or social conscience. This same 'Specialist' also continuously termed me as "being trully crazy" to my face during our sessions. Now THATS some professional medical diagnosis! Nice eh? This opinion would stick with me until I once again changed doctors at around the age of 23. Many years later, at around the age of 41, I was seen by 2 Psychiatrist's over the period of a few days. Both concurred that I did in fact have what had been coined as Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD. That being a very simplistic reference to my mental health over the last 30 years, now let me acquaint you with a small part of my 'normal' history. I was adopted as a baby, brought home to a family with one other child, a daughter 11 years older than I. At the age of 19 I was married to a man 18 years my senior and gave birth to our first of 3 children 11 months later. By the age of 23 I had had my 3 children, 2 boys and girl. My youngest child, at the age of 3 months, was diagnosed with Severe Spastic Cerebral Palsy. I left my husband shortly after our sons diagnosis and began the long, hard and unknown road of raising 3 children on my own. Seven years later I married for the second time. This would last only 3 years. From that point onward, I have been completely alone, without so much as a coffee date for a total of 9 years and counting...

Well, there you have it. A very elementary, to the point rundown of the 'Life of Laura.' I intentionally gave you very little detail but enough to have a basis to work from, an awareness of where I came from and the people around me. Hidden inside the unknown though are hundreds of memories, stories that need to be told. For somewhere out there, I can only hope, is someone who might actually be able to relate, to understand and maybe finally someone who can look me in the eye and say, " It's ok, you done good kid....it's alright to let go now."