Natalia Salinas M.S.W., L.C.S.W: Shares Her Recovery from Mental Illness Story with Helpful Insights

By Natalia Salinas

As mentioned in the title, this is my personal recovery story with my personal insights. I have a huge fear that those who read my book will think I am too mentally ill to be helping others. However, I also have hope that those with serious mental illness can read this book and be inspired to not give up on themselves simply because they have mental illness.

Having mental illness is not something I am proud of, but I have worked hard to no longer feel ashamed. I hid my mental illness for far too long. I am grateful for being alive despite my various suicide attempts. I am strong, relient, and loveable!

Initially, I wanted to include a lot on "teachings" I do with my client's, but this material seemed dry without the context of how I am actually helping. I also did not want to off put any of my clients by sharing too much about any specific stories. So, I maintain the entire book about myself and my struggles. I truly hope my book helps my readers. Maybe it will help you understand yourself; maybe it will help you understand someone you love; or maybe you are simply curious and want to read about how one can suffer from mental illness and have a wonderful life regardless.

I am grateful for you picking up my book and considering reading it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667805016

Book preview

Prelude

I’m glad I waited until later in life to write about my life. Most of my life I felt torn apart and literally crazy. At one point, I just started to write. I had always written my feelings and the events in my life; from every boy I’d ever kissed to every suicide attempt I ever made. However, growing up I hated looking back and hated myself, so eventually everything would end up burned or shredded. I avoided my past to the point that I simply became forgetful.

I have such a varied background that when I was told I have Dissociative Disorder (previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for mental health disorders) I did not believe it. I could see how perhaps it was difficult for someone to understand that this one person had so many ways of being, but surely this is not what was meant by Dissociative Disorder. However, while in therapy for an extended amount of time, I started to discover that besides the things I knew to be my history, there was also a part of me that I did not know well, but was told about occasionally.

Having the insights, I now have, gives me a more objective view of my life. I decided to write this book with the hope of helping others. May the suffering I’ve had and lessons I’ve learned serve to help at least one person! I have new hope in life. I finally love myself and take care of myself. And most of all, I try to no longer focus only on my struggles and suffering, but on how I can give back with my life and experiences. I hope to retire early and do more.

CHAPTER 1

My story begins in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico in 1975. Mexico was wrought with internal conflict throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The Mexican Partido Revolucionario Institucional, (PRI)-ruled government under the presidencies of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, Luis Echeverría and José López Portillo, which were backed by the U.S. Government, on one side and left-wing student and guerrilla groups on the other. During this war, government forces carried out disappearances, estimated at 1,200, systematic torture, and probable extrajudicial executions. It was Mexico’s Cold War—a period in which Mexico’s single-party government systematically sought to squash and eliminate dissent.

The darkest points in this war were the massacres of Tlatelolco of 1968 and Halconazo of 1971. The Halconazo Massacre has never been acknowledged formally by Mexico’s government and no one has ever been convicted in connection to it either. It is said that the Mexican government paid Halcones to attack and kill students in 1971. There was a widespread, but difficult to prove, belief that some masked protesters were actually government agents provocateurs, a common tactic widely used in the USA during this same time period. Torture was another tactic used by the PRI-run state in its drive to keep the numerous guerrilla groups and political dissidents repressed. While torture was illegal in many countries during this time, the numerous authoritarian regimes that sprung up from the Cold War used it to great effect.

There were several barely connected groups fighting against the government during this period. Among these was the September 23 Communist League. They were at the forefront of the conflict, active in several cities throughout Mexico, drawing heavily from Christian Socialist and Marxist student organizations. In Guerrero, was the Party of the Poor, led by the ex-teacher Lucio Cabañas, who fought against landholder impunity and oppressive police practices in rural areas. Eventually the army found and killed Cabañas on December 2, 1974 in an attempt to cause his movement to fall apart. However, then another school teacher turned revolutionary, Genaro Vázquez Rojas, founded the National Revolutionary Civic Association (ACNR) in response. These two leaders and their movements emerged as the armed phase of this social struggle. On October 2 and June 10, survivors and activists march every year through the core of Mexico City in commemoration of the hundreds killed in these massacres.

I start with this because when my mother was eight months pregnant with me, my father was kidnapped and tortured by Mexican officials for his political activities and beliefs. He went missing for three days and during this time, my mother believed my father to be dead. My mother recalls having a conversation with me in her womb praying that I would avenge my father and help to change the world. That I would help destroy capitalism and create something fair and just for the working class. It seemed like a miracle when my father returned home. He talked about being tortured and left for dead by Mexican officials in an effort to extract information.

My mother was twenty-three years old and