Sharing Stories of Recovery
ROBERT:
My name is Robert Earl Alston. I am a 50 year old African American male. I was raised in a family of 3 sisters. My childhood was pleasant but uneventful. In high school I developed a desire to graduated high school as an honor student. I graduated from Carroll Park High School in 1978 having reached my first goal of being an honor student. In the fall I enrolled in the Fashion Design Program at the Community College of Baltimore. In 1986 I took a basic course in the field of Fashion Design at Parson School of Design in New York City, which I completed with a certified. Read more
MICHELLE:
Sixteen years ago, I fell ill-very ill. I went to my brother’s house, as he was the bravest and most powerful person I knew. I was a mess. I couldn’t discern what was real and what was the product of a very paranoid mind. I was unable to get out of bed and leaving the house was painful, as I felt I was being stalked. Looking back, it is clear that I had undiagnosed Bipolar for years, but the paranoia was new. I was obsessed with suicide and always felt unsafe in the world. As a result, starting in 1999 through this April, I was in and out of hospitalization and partial hospitalization for well over 365 days. Not consecutively, mind you, but all total. I once spent three months sitting in a window sill watching a lone tree turn from green to auburn to brown and then I cried, as I watched the leaves blow away completely. Read more
KATIE:
My name is Katie and I know that recovery is possible! I am proof that recovery is possible! For me, recovery is a choice that I make every day. It’s a life style. Of course it wasn’t always the choice that I made. In fact it wasn’t even a familiar concept for most of my life. I suffered with debilitating anxiety and depression for the majority of my life. I have felt broken from even my earliest memories. Broken is the only word that I can use to describe how I felt. I hated who I was, I hated how my family was, where we came from and how we lived. I just want to be someone else. Read more
LINDELL:
The invitation to submit this article began with three questions which practically guaranteed I would write it. Was your recovery journey the catalyst for your current career? How? Why?
It can be argued that for the first fifteen years of my life I was collateral damage in the lives of my family. My mother and father both drank alcoholically for as long as I knew them. They separated when I was four and I reunited with my father when I was fourteen. By then, the seeds of an alcoholic lifestyle had already been deeply planted; hanging with the outcasts, drinking whatever came to hand, and a contempt for all authority. Read more
SHIRLEY:
I Choose Life – Morgan
Where should I begin. Where indeed. When I was a child, actually from birth, I was the victim of severe child abuse and neglect. I know you’ve seen those words before and that anyone can deduce just what that abuse and neglect entailed so I will not bother you with the specifics. Such drama is not necessary. Let us agree together that it was very traumatic. In fact, it was so traumatic that my personality splintered and I became a conglomeration of “alters” afflicted with a condition known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (it was once called Multiple Personality Disorder). The abuse continued until I was fifteen years old and my father died. I had been protecting him from the horrible truth that was my life, so when he died I no longer felt it necessary to keep the secrets I had held my entire childhood and I spilled the beans on my abuser. Read more
IRENE:
Hi. My name is Irene O'Neill. The symptoms of my illness began before some of you were born. I graduated HS in 1973 – I was voted “Most Energetic” by my classmates. Three short years later, I dropped out of college, lost my p/t job, was afraid to go out of my house or see any of my old friends. I had no self-confidence, didn’t think I could ever go back and finish school or get another job. I continued spiraling downward and had my first hospitalization and a diagnosis at that time of Clinical Depression. I felt helpless, and I almost lost hope completely, but gradually regained it, as I learned that I could actually live an extremely fulfilling and wonderful life. Read more
Patty McCarthy Metcalf, Faces & Voices of Recovery
Matt Boggs, West Virginia
