REACTION

My famly was told I suffer from a chemical imbalance, a fact psychiatry has yet to prove. I was an accomplished athlete and enrolled in honors English, honors French, honors math and honors chemistry classes in a high school for gifted teens. I was subjected to a battery of tests including an eeg and various intelligence tests when I was first admitted to a psych hospital. According to my test results I was very intelligent, proving a chemical imbalance was causing my depression. My family was happy that nothing they did to me caused me to become suicidally depressed.
I had to look deep inside me and learn about me to overcome my depression. I quit blaming myself for being bad and no longer believe I suffer from a chemical imbalance. I realize I’ve been reacting to the way I’m being treated by my family. I tell them I feel hurt when they talk about me in front of me as if I can’t hear what they are saying. I tell my sister how angry I become when she accuses me of being selfish. I was asked to go to a movie with her one Sunday and I was told all the way to the movie house, during the movie and the long drive home how she was sacrificing her first free day from work for me. I told my mother I too sometimes feel embarassed to be seen with her because of the way she dresses. I tell my father when he is doing something that is endangering my life. I showed him the pile of newspapers I already have and pointed out to him that the three batches of newspapers he just brought over now constitutes a fire hazard in my apartment. I now make statements about how I feel while I’m feeling it. I am showing the family I have never suffered from a chemical imbalance, but I suffer from the way they treat me.