Hello and welcome to my podcast, The Wellness Project with Des. On today’s podcast episode, I speak with Erin Wall about the obstacles she faced when it came to her mental health.
I’m Desiree, a Mental Health Therapist that is passionate about helping people improve their mental health and live a healthy and fulfilled life. One way I do this is by interviewing experts in the field of mental health and wellness as well as those that have struggled with their mental health but have gained control over it and now live fulfilling lives. In this episode, we will hear from Erin about the reality of living with a mental illness.
Erin was born in New York into a military family. She joined the Navy after graduation to become an officer. Unfortunately, when she left for Officer Candidate school she went into psychosis. She was scared, seeing things, hallucinating, repeating things on a loop, and in an extended heightened and panicked state. She was put on suicide watch. Being unable to continue her schooling, she requested to drop out of Navy school.
Once she left, she was in and out of the mental hospital for 2 months and was diagnosed with Schizophrenia, and Bipolar disorder. Erin coins her experience as, “a traumatic brain experience.”
Due to her mental illnesses, Erin struggled with keeping a job. Once she left the hospital, she was on a lot of medications that made her sleepy. Because of this, she wasn’t allowed to drive and was falling asleep at work. She needed to call out for doctor appointments and had a few panic attacks at work. Because she was unable to work regularly, Erin struggled with money and a lack of health insurance. This made it difficult to improve her mental health as a whole. She discusses having to choose between seeing a therapist or seeing a psychiatrist for medications.
Erin talks about the realistic struggles with faced from living with mental illness.
Listen to this episode to hear about the real challenges that come up when working on your mental health and healing.
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