Tina:
Substance use disorder is the only disorder that I know of that you have to get better before you’re allowed to get help and that was the case with me.
I have been denied services and treatment because I was still sick, especially considering mental health and mental illness.
I was told by psychiatrists to get sober before I was allowed to be seen by them and I was told by treatment centres that I had to get help with my mental illness before I was allowed to be in treatment.
Stigma has affected me on all levels. Self-stigma stigmatizing myself for what I think I am or I think I was. Stigma from a structural sense, so
Institutions, hospitals anything like that.
You’re finally ready to ask for help and to try and get these treatments and to try and get better and you’re just, it’s an uphill battle. You just keep on having to ask so many different people and wait for so many different treatments and jump through so many different hoops, when all you’re trying to do is get better and get help that’s all.
Ever since I started using substances, I think I always I always kind of knew that I was using them differently than the people that I knew. I didn’t either know or didn’t want to know that I had a problem or an issue for years, until it started affecting every single aspect of my life and my family and my friends didn’t want to be with me often.
I couldn’t hold down a job. I didn’t want to be with me as well as well. I didn’t like who I was and I wanted to go, I wanted to not be in this life anymore and for some reason, I decided to stay and keep on fighting and get better and I did.
