My first mental breakdown came just about seven years ago after I bought my first home.

My daughter and I lived with my parents from the time she was 11 months old until she was seven.

I was making about $13.00 an hour then. I worked for Voest-Alpine Intertrading at them. It was a good job. I worked as an accounts payable and receivable clerk.

I decided it was time I moved out on my own, take charge of my life. I found a house that I liked and decided to purchase it.

I had the house inspected and there didn’t seem to be any major problems that could be seen from the inspection report. I made an offer. A contract was drawn up and signed by both parties. A closing date was signed and everything.

Problems began to develop. The people, Ronnie and Betty Hopson, selling me the house kept postponing the closing date. Arguments errupted between us and it turned pretty ugly. I ended up having to pay extra closing costs because of their delays.

Eventually we closed on the house and Kat and I moved in.

Nothing but one disaster after another would occur.

We moved in the latter part of November. As the cold weather set in, I realized we were getting no heat into the house. The heating unit would run and run all day and never shut off. The temperature gauge on the thermostat would never reach above 65 degrees. I had a company come out and look at the unit. He put in brand new thermostat, which did little to rectify the problem. It wasn’t a day later, my hot water heater went out. So here we were, a seven year old girl and me with no hot water and no heat in the house. I talked to my boss and she recommended an air condition and heating company to come out and look at my unit. My electric bills for the first two months were nearly $300. I could not afford an extravagant bill.

He spent two hours up in my attic. He was amazed to see that the unit was in such deplorable shape. He said that the ducts were to big for the plunem and they had been sceezed together and forced into the plunem and that no air could get through. He also said that the ducts had been walked on and crushed in places, and that the plunem itself was too big for the unit. There was so much wrong with it that the whole unit had to be replaced at a price of $1200.

I purchased a new hot water heater, around $400 to $500, that was being installed on the very same day as the heating unit.

The hot water heater worked for about 30 minutes, then after the installers left, it went out.

They returned back to the house, looked the unit over, and determined that it wasn’t the water heater that was the problem. It was the breaker box. It was old and worn out. It needed to be replaced.

So I called an electrical company out. They replaced the unit for over $500.

By this time, I had spent everything I had left in my savings account.

I was depressed and angry and grew very despondent.

To make things worse, Kat was not adjusting to the move at all. She wanted to go back and live with my parents because that was the only home she had ever known.

I took the Hopson’s to court. Presented evidence against them for neglecting to disclose these problems initially before the closing of the house. Unfortunately, the judge could not make a ruling on either party.

I grew even more upset and depressed. I had lost my entire savings and nothing could be done to recover my losses. This led to my first breakdown with depression.

I locked myself up in the bathroom, and could not stop crying. I wanted to do harm to myself. I wanted to die. But all I kept thinking about was Kat. My daughter. What would she do without me?

So I called 911. I cried so hard that my right hand had curled up into a knot and I could not hold the phone anymore.

I explained to the woman on the phone what I wanted to do. She kept me on the phone until the ambulance arrived and then the sherrif. All my neighbors came to my aid. They all showed their concern and interest in my well-being.

Sandra and Keith took Kat with them until my parents could come and get her.

I was registered and placed in the mental ward at the local hospital. I cried for 24 hours straight. I stayed there for four days until the suicide urges were gone and I was more able to cope with my situation.

I had other groups members that I talked with and during that time I realized that alot of them were a lot worse off than me. It made me take a different look at my own life and my response to my own situations.

I realized then that my condition was a lot more serious than anyone ever thought. While I was hospitalized, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I was prescribed medication at the time by the attending psychiatrist.

Once I was released to go home, I started seeing a number of psychologists and psychiatrists for my treatment.

I went through a series of medications from Prozac, to Paxil, Neurotin, Zoloft, trileptal and more. I have a box with all the empty medication bottles that I have taken over the course of the last few years. Some worked well for the depression but had horrible side effects. Others only made the condition worse and made me rage. Zoloft made me even more suicidal and I almost ended up in the hospital again after taking that.

I thought, at times, the treatment was worse that the disease itself. I had worked with numerous counselors, but none of them were able to help me, until I went to Caroline.

I met Caroline through the Family Services Counseling Center after I attempted Suicide on January 2, 2004.

I had become depressed again.

I had been taking medication, but after I lost my job with Voest-Alpine because of my depression, I also lost my insurance. I had to give up my medications because I could no longer afford them.

I did good for a while util I developed a relationship with a man I had met at church. His name was Steve. He was a quiet man, very subdued and very attractive. I was instantly attracted to him.

Anyway, a relationship developed between us. He was married, but going through a divorce. They had been seperated for over two years. He had three boys.

Kat had taken an instant dislike to Steve, though she could not give me any genuine reasons why.

She made my life difficult to say the least.

At first I took my relationship with Steve slow. I knew he was going through a divorce and I didn’t want to do anything morally wrong.

But as I continued to see him, my feelings for him grew. He was quiet, and gentle, and thoughtful. Yet, as my feelings for him grew, Kat’s aversion to Steve only grew as well.

This presented other problems between my father and I. Because Kat would criticize Steven in front of my parents, they grew not to like him even before they ever met him.

He did no have a great job. But it was a job he had to have in order to keep his boys. I did not look down on his for this.

However, things came to a head with Kat and I and my parents.

Steve and I were going to go out on our offical first date to the movies. Kat was totally opposed to the situation. She kept calling me at work, yelling at me, cursing me, and whatever else she could do to make me upset.

When I drove over to my parents house to talk to her after work, she said some terrible things, told me how much she hated Steve and wanted nothing to do with him.

My dad got involved, told me a few things that really hurt me and I ended up storming away from the house in a rage.

My parents came after me. We had more words. I told them they were making my relationship with Steve to be something dirty and immoral. I told them all I wanted was for someone to care about me, to share time with me.

I ended up driving home that night. I could not stop crying. The urge to killl myself was so strong, stronger than it had ever been in my life. I marched into my bathroom and took two bottles of sleeping pills. I took fifty to sixty pills that night.

Steve came for our date and found me half concious . I was barely able to stand or to walk. He rushed me to the emergency room. They took me in almost immediately and called poinson control to get the treatment method to use in order to save my life.

I was in the hospital for five days while they gave me liquid charcoal to disolve the pills in my stomach. Steve came to see me every day and wrote me letters and gave me cards.

He let me know how much he cared and loved me.

He talked about us developing a stronger relationship together. I felt elated and happy that he would take such a strong interest in me. I had never been loved by any one and I found it hard to believe that he would love me.

We continued to see each other after I was out of the hospital.

But I only grew more depressed as time went on. Kat hated him even more and resented his presence in my life.

The middle of January rolled around and Steve informed me that his divorce was final and that there were no more ties to him and his ex-wife. This made me very glad.

By now Kat was a constant thorn to us and I wanted to call the relationship off. But Steve would not hear of it. He begged me to stay with him.

We ended up continuing to see each other, but we hid it from my family and from Kat. My father despised Steve as much or even more than my daughter did and he had never met Steve.

Well as the months went by, I fell more and more in love with Steve. We talked about getting married and having a family together. His ultimate goal was for us to move to Livingston where we’d build our own home and raise our own children.

When I look back on things, I see how really foolish I was. He had played a game with me all along. He had never intended to marry me or to have a family with me. He was controlling me in every situation.

His divorce had never become final as he had told me it had. So, in essence, he had lied about it. And he continued to lie about it and cover it up for months afterwards. Even as we were being intimate, he kept the truth from me. Even his mother and sister kept the truth from me.

But I noticed a change in Steve and his personality. Maybe it was the lies that caught up with him, but his moods changed often. He could make up his mind what he wanted to do with his future. Anytime I mentioned marriage, he told me I wasn’t ready.

We began having problems. He was continually late for dates upon which I could not track him down at his home or on his cell phone. I became suspicious that there was someone else in his life.

I tried to break off the relationship with him, but he threatened suicide. So I stayed with him one more night. But the last night we were together was the last. He became so violent with me out in public when we went to see a movie. The who event was a fiasco. He cursed and yelled at me, told me he would never take me to the movies again and why wasnt’t I paying our way into the movies.

I eventually walked out on him and left him sitting in the theatre. I took a ride home with a virtual stranger because I could not reach any friends or relatives to come and pick me up.

The next morning he called expecting me to go to Livingston with him as if nothing had happened. I gave him back his house key and told him it was over.

The breakup was horrible.

Steve called thirty or forty times, came back the house after I told him repeatedly that I wanted nothing more to do with him. He started sending me suicide letters and making threatening phone calls.

I eventually called the police and they notified him to leave me alone and that if he came by my house again he would be arrested for criminal trespassing.

He stopped calling. Instead, he had his son call me.

Eventually the calls stopped. But emails started from his mother telling me how I had done her son wrong and what a terrible person I was.

I believe Steve and his entire family are crazy. They all need help and I am glad to be away from them. I see now that I never would have been happy with that family. I would have been far worse off than I am right now.

It was a true blessing how things worked out. God was working on my side the whole time, I just never knew it. Leaving Steve opened up a whole new world for me which has changed my life.

Scripture:

Ye shall not steal, neither deal falsely, neither lie one to another.

Leviticus 19:11

How many times have you lied to someone and hurt them terribly? How many times have you been lied to and hurt deeply? Before telling a lie, we should take the time to put ourselves in others shoes and wonder how we would feel if we were the one being lied to. A lie, no matter how small, can do worlds of damage. It can ruin friendships, tear families apart, and destroy the best of relationships. Truth and honesty should be a part of every relationship. It is better to tell the truth and suffer the consequences, than to tell a lie and get caught in it later. More damage can be done by covering things up than just being honest. Do your part today to resolve any secrets and lies you’ve been holding onto. A burden will be lifted and you will be filled with peace.

Dear Lord:

Help me to be honest in everything I do. Please don’t let me lie or cover things up that may cause those I love to be hurt. Give me wisdom to know what is right and wrong and the courage to stay away from those things that are dishonest and will cause me to fall and stumble into sin. I ask for your guidance in my every thought, word and action. Help me to be the person you want me to be.

Amen!.