Growing Up With Mental Illness

            Hello all, welcome to “From the Mind of One Tim Cubbin!” My name is Tim Cubbin, and I’ll be your narrator!

            So some of my previous readers know that I have bipolar disorder and am a mental health advocate, topics I discuss very often in this blog. I know it’s a taboo subject, a topic not talked about enough, not mainstream, not understood, and that is why I take it upon myself to fight the stigma. This post is here to discuss my childhood battle with mental illness, up until the point where I became a teenager, and I will likely continue this story in future posts, but for now we’ll talk about my life up until I was diagnosed as bipolar. This is actually very hard for me to write, but I feel SOMEONE has to do this, why shouldn’t it be me? I hope my story will go on to help and inspire youths going through similar difficulties in their lives and make them not ashamed of their diagnoses as honestly there is NOTHING to be ashamed of. So, let’s begin.

            In my first five years of life, I was, let’s say, difficult. I couldn’t sit still for very long, I had nervous ticks such as hair twirling, nose picking, and saliva bubble blowing, and I blurted out things a kid is instilled not to say. I know a lot of kids do similar habits, and that’s what led to my first diagnosis, attention deficit disorder (A.D.D.). My father, apparently didn’t truly believe in mental illness at the time. He just though my actions were things that could be cured with a good ol’ spanking, an hour of silence in the corner, soap in the mouth, denial of privileges, exclusion from meals, and a “go to your room.” (Back then, “go to your room” was a punishment. I didn’t have a television or video game console or computer at the time, so being exiled was difficult, which actually helped develop my love of reading and writing, for lack of anything else to do. I could read third grade level by three years old, not to brag.) I was punished a lot as a child, which my longtime friends know. Day care had several minor complaints about me, which my dad overreacted to with the aforementioned punishments. Finally, when I was five and in kindergarten, my school social worker told my parents to take me to a psychiatrist. My dad, as you can surmise, thought it was a waste of time and money, but my mom acquiesced. After one session, the psychiatrist decided I had A.D.D. and prescribed a bimonthly session and a daily dosage of Ritalin. (This happened all the time for children currently around my age. Any odd behavior meant a snap label of A.D.D. and a bottle of Ritalin. I don’t know how this applies these days, I have no children or any children in my immediate family, but feel free to send me a comment to fill me in, I’d really like to know. No one has ever left me a comment to my blog in my entire career of over a year and I think one is LONG OVERDUE!). Again, my dad thought the medications were a waste of money, he believed they wouldn’t do anything and that it was a quack trying to scam them. His assessment seemed to be right as my “defective” behavior didn’t improve.

My memories of the next few years are a blank due to a head injury fourteen years ago, so I only have a few snippets of my past. I lost my first love Sarah of a brain tumor when I was seven years old. (The general belief of if she were still alive today, we’d be married, successful, and have five amazing kids.) Also, my parents got divorced when I was eight years old. I, of course, at the time thought it was my fault. I believed that if I weren’t so defective, my dad wouldn’t have left and we would have stayed a family. All of my psychiatrists and therapists have told he that the divorce wasn’t because of me, which is what they tell every kid, but it took me a long time to accept it wasn’t due to me. (There is now someone I can attribute it to, but I don’t like to discuss this person as they are a nonentity in my life now and a waste of both my and your time to talk about.) My custody arrangement meant I lived with my mother, but had visitation with my dad every Wednesday, every other weekend, and every other holiday. I had the feelings that many young kids feel: I idealized both my parents and hoped they would get back together. I took me four years to get past that one.

Flash forward several years, as I have very few memories after that until I was in middle school. I was still on meds, there was tension in my family, which blew up when I was thirteen. I was one of the kids who never cleaned his room. One weekend, my dad said if I didn’t clean my room by the next visitation period, he would throw everything on the floor out. Every kid thinks that would be an empty threat… except my dad meant it. As my possessions went in the garbage bag, an argument started, culminating with me saying the words “I never want to see you again!” and him replying “That can be arranged.” Of course, I figured this would be a mad on and he would get over it. I did not see my dad for over a year after that.

Word spread of my father abandoning me, my being on meds, and my odd behavior made school difficult after that. I was heavily bullied, and I acted out a lot. I can’t discuss my life after that due to restrictions of content on this blog site and I’d rather not relive the time too much as it is difficult and painful.

When I was fourteen, my father contacted me online and we reunited, but I got the hard news: he was moving to Texas. His exact words were “There’s nothing keeping me in New York.” This deeply impacted my mental state, and the day before my first day of high school, I had a major breakdown and was sent to a mental hospital for almost a month. That was when the doctors reassessed my condition of A.D.D. being a misdiagnosis and decided I actually have bipolar disorder. My medications were changed completely, and my life massively changed. I was released September 30, 2002, and on October 1, 2002, my new life began.

That’s where we’re going to end. There is a chance we’ll talk more about my teenage years, but just not now. I know I’ve been going on for a while, so if you’re still with me at this point, you are THE BEST! (I say this every time as any of my prior readers will know, but I want you to know that I actually really do mean it.) I hope my story was understandable, that it actually reached you, made you learn about the struggle those with mental illness go through, and maybe even inspired you if you are a youth with mental illness. I totally encourage you to comment or retweet my post or follow me, that would be awesome and I will totally say you are THE BEST! I will follow you if I don’t already follow you! Also, feel free to look at more of my posts on this blog. I talk about other topics of mental illness, but that’s not all. I write essays, short stories, editorials, essays, poetry, book reviews, and more, so please see if anything else hits your fancy. (Does anyone say that anymore, or am I just old?) Anyway, thanks for reading, I’m nowhere near done with this blog, there will be a lot more content coming up, so until next time, Tim Cubbin… out!