Hello all,

 

This is my first post, I'm trying to unlearn and "un-believe" my past diagnoses, and I just want to feel better.  And I don't really know where to even start.  So I will start when I "broke".  Let's queue the wayback machine to 1998, I am not sure how much of what I remember is factual, or fiction that I made up to fill in the holes, so bear with me.  I had been out in the working world for about 10 years, 7 of them doing computer repair.  I had started a new position with a major Phamacutical company as one of their network administrators, working in a team of about 6 people, things were going good.  My idea's for backing up the servers, data, and e-mail would reduce the amount of work and number of tapes required with minimum intervention.  Following the installation of the data archive jukebox (The unit held like 50 DLT backup tapes), I had an e-mail migration project, integrating MS Exchange into the other corporate branches (Some using exchange, others using other e-mail systems).  I was going to go far with the company, then one day I was working at my desk, and my bookshelf above my desk collapsed onto my head, I was stunned, and maybe knocked out for a few minutes.  I was out of work for about 10 days.  Things seemed different at work when I got back, I can't describe how, but they just were, people looked at me differently.  With Y2K on the horizon, there was lots of worry about data loss, corruption, and compliance.  I had been thinking that this is where I was going to shine, but I wasn't put on most of the conversion projects, and I found this very stressful, and was wondering why I hadn't been put on more of the projects.  Then my emotions just got worse, I found myself feeling lethargic, having no energy, and depressed.  I went to my family doctor and he put me on an anti-depressant, and things got worse from there,then he tried 2 other anti-depressant meds to no avail.  My mood swings got worse and I attempted suicide, thus going through my a series of many practically back to back hospitalizations in a psychiatric hospital.  (I had been hospitalized twice prior, as my first was 8 years prior that, when I washed out of basic training in the military, then one other time, but I can't recall what year).   Things got worse from there, I was unable to concentrate, unable to work.  I felt like a complete looser.  During the years 1999-2002, I had many downfalls, the suicide attempts, isolating myself, I had tried just about everything.  Just about every med available, many types of therapy, mixes of multiple medications, with the doctors always trying to "stablize" me.  I was told I have anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, schitophrenia, psychotic episodes, and the list goes on.  I went through almost 70 ECT (Electro-Shock Therapy) treatments, was hospitalized at least 17 times (with the majority of them preceeded by a suicide attempt).  There was one doctor who had me so overmedicated, that I could barely move, I staggered like a drunk when I was able to walk, and practically killed me with with the mixture of meds he had me on.  Finally, in 2003, I came to a realization.  Most psychiatrists are quacks, they just give you meds, do their ECT treatments, or whatever, and pretty much say good luck with that.  I say most, because I did have one psych who was truely a doctor and CARED about her patients.  She would come see me before and after my ECT treatments, took me off of a lot of the hard meds that I was on, and talked to me, trying to treat the person rather than the textbook disorder.  She eventally left the practice there, and I got stuck with another quack.  But the one thing I did learn from her, (I didn't realize it at the time, but not until much later) is that a minima