When Amanda2 was sick she feared others finding out and the impact on her social and working life.

Transcript

There was a whole lot of self-stigmatization and a fear. And I still see that creeping up even when I agreed to do this chat. I thought oh no, if I go on here and talk publicly about falling and becoming completely psychotic what will that do to me, how will that change the narrative of who I am professionally and personally and as a mom. And even though I didn’t have that insight when I was sick, I didn’t know that’s why I was fighting it, but I think that probably had a lot to do with it.

I remember being so scared of the Child Welfare taking the kids, of my employer finding out what I was going through. Like I was, I mean, when I worked I was doing capacity assessments on folks, right. And determining if people were capable of deciding where they lived and then here I was, somebody who thought that – I was completely paranoid and thought I had special powers and was falling apart at the seams, I couldn’t even get to the grocery store. I was just so fearful. I was so fearful that something was going to happen or that I was going to be diagnosed with something and rendered unable to take care of my kids and myself. It was scary

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