Unbalanced

From a youth filled with abuse, the author joins the US Coast Guard as an RN and is shipped to Baltimore, MD with her young son. Here, she finds a gay and lesbian community and discovers a side of herself she did not know before. Under the influence of a delusion, she makes an unsuccessful suicide attempt and gets diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The author loses her nursing license due to her mental illness, and she gets her heart broken and goes back to her hometown. Here, her depression lifts, but her psychosis remains. In 2004, the author has a spiritual experience and converts to Catholicism. Her son acquires paranoid schizophrenia, and in 2011, he commits suicide. Her psychiatrist prescribes a third antipsychotic medication, and along with her own coping skills, she is today free of all mental illness symptoms.