I am a Latinx woman with Bipolar I and PTSD, as well as being an alcoholic in recovery. I have a brother who is also an alcoholic with Bipolar, but has gone untreated. My mother has untreated Bipolar. I count myself so incredibly lucky to have found treatment and to have found the will and want within myself to get treatment. Exploring my conditions in therapy has made me more self-aware and accepting of myself and others. I learned how to be vulnerable and accept the validity of mental health conditions. After getting so depressed that I dropped out of school, I pushed myself to do whatever I needed to to succeed. I grew the courage to have a conversation with my professors at the beginning of each semester: "Listen, I'm going to get depressed at some point. And I'm going to need some patience and extensions". Amazingly, I got incredibly kind responses. One professor, after not hearing from me for four weeks, reached out and asked to see me after class. I began apologizing and he said, "we can talk about the assignments later, I just want to know- are you okay?". I later grew the courage to express that same vulnerability in my relationships. Thereafter, the relationships I had with people, I would explain the nature of my brain- how I would need extra care and patience. With the partner I have now, I have made sure to tell him that he is not my caretaker, and he cannot 'fix' me. This is just the ebb and flow of a Bipolar brain. I have learned so much patience for my mother and brother. People I used to fight constantly with- now I understand the pieces of them that need extra care. And as a CPSW I learned that you can lead a horse to water, show it how to drink the water, tell it all about how good the water is and how much less depressed they will be after they drink the water- but you still cannot make it drink. It was a tough lesson. In my recovery from substance use, I watched myself spiral out of control and become someone so far from the self that I knew. I was hateful and nervous. I could only think about the next drink- horrified to be somewhere boring and not be able to numb the feeling. I can share these experiences with others- tell them how I know this despair and frustration. How I found out that this too shall pass. I still get depressed, I still find myself ebbing towards mania at times. But I am learning. When I feel a little sluggish, I ask for some more love. I talk about it in therapy, take longer showers, talk to my friends, have a treat, go for a walk. On the mirror in my bathroom it reads: sober and alive. I start my day remembering who I am and where I came from. I am studying social work and public health to help shed a light on these issues that so many of us face in the dark. I want the world to feel less lonely, and a little more forgiving. I want the people to skip so much of the pain I went through and put resources a little closer to their fingertips. Thanks for reading :-)

I’ve wanted to work in mental health for as long as I can remember. I initially went to college wanting to be a teacher who would become a School Counselor, but then I found a different path- now I am pursuing a dual master's in MPH and MSW at St. Ambrose University IA. I have bipolar and am a grateful recovering alcoholic- 5 years and then some in sobriety. I always say I got so LUCKY- lucky to have been just brave enough, to have been in the right places, to have found the people that helped things make sense. My older brother was arrested 7 years ago for negligent manslaughter. He killed someone drunk driving. I constantly recall the many times I spent driving under the influence. My brother is a bright and brilliant person. He is kind and funny. But he got so depressed and moved away from all of us- he cut himself off from community and resources. I am passionate about strong and persistent outreach. When I worked in the inpatient unit, I was so painfully full of joy. "These people made it here. They're letting us help them". Every person I sent off to a rehab or a housing center, I felt so much hope. When my brother got out, my constant refrain has been "how are you? do you have friends? are you happy?". Always "good good, no I don't have friends". As a peer support worker I had to learn boundaries and truths: I can't make you get better- or even want to get better. But the goal is to bring the water as close as I can. In the sober community we have a saying "we aren't bad people trying to be good, we're sick people trying to get better". I stop at street corners and hand out packs that I make. Simple packs that just have socks, granola bars and water bottles. I have started adding in a simple resource list that shares where the local pantries are, where our soup kitchen is, and that our local city bus is free. For people with dogs, I carry little bags of dog food. My family and I grew up poor, unattached to resources. I am a hispanic, bisexual woman with mental health conditions- not really set up for success statistically speaking. I spent eight years in undergrad and dropped out in the middle, trying to control my drinking. Then I found this magical group full of bad coffee and people who told me when the ‘light came back’ behind my eyes. Now every day I wake up and think about how lucky I am- look in my mirror that says ‘sober and alive’. And I carry this thought- that this is possible for everyone.Last year I worked in a youth home briefly, then in a sexual assault recovery center, then mostly in the inpatient unit. I fell in love with the unit. There was a man who came in who was so grumpy, talking about his daughters who he doesn’t get to see, how he can’t stop drinking. When I asked for his goals for the day he said ‘just to die somehow’. Later I brought in the piano and sang to them, and he actually smiled a bit! Then we talked some more and I told him about my history with substance use. How I couldn’t even imagine a future at one point. He couldn’t believe we had anything in common. By the end of his stay I had successfully convinced him to let us send him to a rehabilitation center.