My story about mental illness is essentially my entire life. Mental illness wasn’t something we talked about in my family, so I’m not sure I ever put my finger on it as a child, but an Introductory Psychology professor told the class of over 900 people that if we were in this field to figure out our own problems, they didn’t want us. Somehow I knew that he meant me, so I gave up my dream of becoming a psychologist. I was the oldest of six children, and as the oldest, I was supposed to set an example, although my next oldest sister was always the good example. But I was never good enough. We were a military family, and never ...