Book excerpt: For as long as I can remember I've struggled with my mental health, I've lived my life surrounded by people who are either ashamed of me or tell me I have nothing wrong. Those in my life have never been understanding of me, or understood why I do what I do, from self-harming to starving myself to being full on catatonic, I've lived my life in the shadow of the stigma of mental illness, the stigma that unfortunately my family and friends believed over what was happening in front of them. Nothing about my story is glamorous, beautiful or anything you should want or wish upon yourself. Nothing that has happened to me would I want anybody to go through, I wouldn't wish this on anybody because my mind feels like a personal full-time prison, something of which I'll never be able to move away from, this is with me for life. My mind gets so loud, the thoughts are screaming at me to do something or nothing. Sometimes I wake up in a fear of panic seeing those haunting memories replaying over and over in-front of me, I walk down the street and I think I see those I've lost even though I know it's not really possible. I wake up crying every night to a point where I'm fearful to close my eyes at night.