“Everyday people with mental health issues are chained to the stigma that nothing we do will change who we are or how we think. It seems like we are thrown to the curb like trash, like people hopelessly caught up in a whirlwind of medications and psychiatric appointments to make us “OK”. But there is more than trash and chains I see. I see people every day making the effort to “Get Better” to “Be normal”. Everyone has their problems, EVERYONE. Some people just recognize what they are faced with and want to try and “fix” themselves and their behaviors. We are not chained to our mental health diagnosis we are above them. We are not trash, we are not to be thrown away. We all need to understand that and to be patient with each other. We all have something to recover from we all travel on the journey called recovery. I work on my recovery every day as well as many of my friends and family. We do not give up. We can’t give up. We will never give up because we have hope.”
– Ashley, July 29, 2016
