If You Think You Are Losing Your Mind

By Mary Heath

My name is Mary Heath, and I am recovering from mental illness.

I hope this book has helped you come out of the closet. It is okay to admit you need help. I hope everyone that reads this book will understand that whatever is causing you stress, depression or anxiety is a gift.

When you accept who you are and share that gift with the world, your life has a purpose. The pandemic isolated everyone from the world. It caused everyone to be left alone with their thoughts. When you are mentally ill, you are always alone with your thoughts. Everybody knows what it is like to live in isolation with your thoughts.

Now that you know what it is like to live with mental illness and overcome those negative thoughts, go out and be the Good Samaritan.

Many people wonder if we have a disease that will cause people to become infected and lose their minds.

The disease will cause people to walk around like the walking dead. That time has already come.

Covid has caused mental illness to multiply throughout the world.

Unfortunately, the outward signs are missing, but the mental illness is there.

The good news is there already a cure for the disease.

"You Are The Cure!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887932521

Book preview

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If You Think You Are Losing Your Mind

Mary Heath

Copyright © 2023 Mary Heath

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88793-250-7 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88793-252-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Note from the Author

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Beginning

Realization

Forgiveness

Renew

Hope

Experiences

Imagination

Thoughts

Internalize

Voices

Attitude

Dialogue

The Good Samaritan

References

Note from the Author

I have endured pain and loss, I have felt broken, I have known hardships, and I have felt lost and alone.

But here I stand, trying to move forward, one day at a time. I will remember the lessons in my life because they make me who I am.

Stronger.

—A warrior

Most people think the nuclear war will destroy the United States and the world. My greatest fear is mental illness. If the United States does not find a way to treat mental illness, I think this country will enter a civil war in a matter of years. Mental illness will lead to more violence and mass killings. It will pit groups of people against each other, leading to even more conflicts.

People want to label those suffering from mental illnesses as crazy and evil. For many, the only solution is to put them in jail or a mental hospital. This is not the solution. After the pandemic, there is real potential that half of the world will suffer from mental illness. I hope this book will serve as a wake-up call. It is not too late to help people living with mental illness.

All of us eventually will come in contact with someone who is mentally ill. My hope is that all of us will make the same decision that Chris Rock made at the 2022 Oscars. Will Smith walked onstage and slapped Chris Rock. Chris Rock made a conscious decision not to fight back. That is the decision all of us will have to make. Do not fight back.

Allow a mentally ill person to calm down and think about what they have done. You will not only save their life but also perhaps the life of other people they come in contact with.

Preface

I know that my family and friends will read this book. They will all think, I cannot believe Mary Heath wrote this book. How could she put herself out there like this? How could she embarrass herself like this? I have consciously decided to experience a spiritual death in hopes that others might live. This book is meant to be a letter to the mentally ill and everybody who knows someone who is mentally ill. Sometimes, we think we are the only person with these weird thoughts of violence and hatred.

Trust me. You are not.

I understand what the voices in the head are saying to you. This book, I hope, will show you how I began to quiet those voices. I will not say the voices are completely gone. I do not listen to them anymore. It seems like every day, we hear on the news about another mass killing. People first want to say, That person is so evil. How could they kill that many people? If there is one thing I hope everybody takes from this book, it is that mentally ill people are not evil. We are not crazy. Mentally ill people have thoughts just like everybody else. The difference is that, for some reason, our thoughts are of pain and anger. Our thoughts are How can I get rid of the pain and anger that I feel?

Some people shut themselves away from the people who have hurt them. For others, they think they will kill all the people who have hurt them. Neither situation is good. This book is not meant to make excuses for mass murderers. But it is meant to help people understand the pain and anger that mentally ill people feel daily. The worst part about this world is that people think there is nothing they can do to stop suicides or mass murders. I believe this to be untrue.

Mentally ill people seek the same things everybody else is seeking: love, peace, and joy. When you see someone struggling—this could be a classmate, coworker, family, or friend—go out of your way to tell that person you love them. Go out of your way to include that person in an outing or party. Not only are you saving their life, but also possibly the life of someone they are thinking about killing. If writing this book can save one person's life, my living will not be in vain.

Acknowledgments

I want to dedicate this book to my parents, Leo and Reatha Heath. Interestingly, when I started writing the book, I was not going to dedicate the book to my father. Originally, the book was only going to be dedicated to my mother. Then I thought about what I was saying, and the voices were still in my head, and I still had not let go of some of the anger I felt toward my father.

My father was a hardworking man. But he was very domineering and abusive. He could not read or write. He would borrow money all the time and never pay it back. He abused my mother a lot. As I continued writing the book, I realized what I was doing. I was still listening to the voices in my head that told me I should hate my father. I began to quiet the voices. I began to think to myself. My father could not read or write. He worked as a sharecropper and on construction sites. He barely made enough money to get by, but he raised ten children. He made sure that all of us went to church every Sunday. He gave us our foundation for life to live by. He was not good at showing love.

But I do not doubt that he loved all his children. I can only imagine his stress when raising ten children off $10 an hour—the mental illness and stress he must have felt. My mother never worked outside the home and cooked two hot meals for her family daily. Other kids would come home from school, and there was no one there to greet them. My brothers and sisters and I would come home every day to a loving mother. I grew up on the street called Mitchell Drive.

Just about every kid on that street called my mother Mama. I did not understand how lucky I was to have her as a mother. I have decided to use some of the proceeds from this book to start a scholarship in the name of Reatha Heath. My mother believed in education, and I want to educate as many young people as I can in her name.

I also want to dedicate this book to my brother Roster Heath. He is a successful minister in Georgia, and he and I met for breakfast in early 2020, before the pandemic hit.

We talked about how mental illness had affected our family. One of his children moved away because she was ashamed of the family. After talking with him, I made up my mind that I would write this book. I have been thinking about it every day since that day we talked. My brother helped give birth to this book. I cannot thank you enough for your love and support.

Finally, I want to dedicate this book to everyone suffering from mental illness. Reading about how other people deal with mental illness has helped me. I think many people with mental illness are in jail right now. I hope this book will find its way to you. Before you committed the crime that put you in jail, you were probably like me. You were searching for love and security anywhere you could find it. Unfortunately, it leads you down the wrong path. I want to say to all the mentally ill people that you are not alone. There is a community of people who love you, a community of people who understand you. My prayer today is that you will read this book no matter where you are. You will reach out to someone suffering mentally and be their Good Samaritan.

I would also like to dedicate this book to my mentors. Every day, I start with meditation and listen to positive talks that inspire me.

The people who inspired this book are the following: Oprah Winfrey, Michael Beckwith, Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, Neville Goddard, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and Victory Over Violence founder, Fred Watson. I cannot thank you enough for your powerful books and speeches that changed my life.

Introduction

As I write this book, Russia is at war with Ukraine. Most believe Vladimir Putin is mentally ill. Why else would he attack a peaceful country? The devastating pictures of war we see are hard to watch; people are fleeing their homeland as bombs destroy their homes. The frightening part is to realize the United States is currently fighting its own war.

Ukraine is being destroyed by one madman; the United States is being destroyed by mentally ill people who own guns. More people will die from gun violence and crimes in the United States than people at war in Ukraine if you look at statistics. In essence, the problem is the same of mentally ill people feeling trapped and isolated. They begin to lash out at the world. I submit to you that Vladimir Putin is no different from any other mentally ill person. He has more weapons to use against the people he feels have hurt him.

Mental illness is a disease that should be treated with medicine. Yet people are afraid of being stigmatized by society and labeled as crazy or insane. These people keep their illnesses hidden and suffer alone and in silence for decades until they eventually kill themselves or someone else because no one wants to listen to them or care for them. Even doctors are afraid of taking responsibility for this terrifying situation.

It is not too late to save the United States and the rest of the world. We must begin to care for the mentally ill. If we don't, the United States will look like Ukraine in just a few years.

* * * * *

The president of the United States, government leaders, pastors, and policemen cannot solve the crime problem in the United States. We must all become Good Samaritans. We must all reach out to our family, friends, and coworkers. After all, we are the people who can recognize if someone within our circle is suffering mentally.

These individuals may not be able to pinpoint what is upsetting them or express what is wrong. Still, they know that something is amiss because they behave differently than usual or behave in strange ways.

One thing you may do to attempt to engage your loved one is to write down some instances of what you believe are currently generating stress in their life. This way, you have something to refer to if they refuse to talk about it. By doing so, you can speak to the individual healthily and encouragingly.

People suffering from mental setbacks need positivity and encouragement to acknowledge what is bothering them. I want to emphasize people are not evil; they are mentally challenged and need help.

If you have a friend who is depressed, don't just say, Everything will be okay, or something along those lines; instead, support them by being compassionate! There's also the question of how terrible the mental health condition is—some people have mild difficulties (for example, anxiety), while others have more serious disorders (e.g., bipolar). If someone is suffering from something other than chronic depression, little more than plain old-fashioned support, compassion, empathy, and understanding is all that you will have to extend their way. As a society, we can curve the violence in this country by helping the mentally ill.

Let our hearts be stretched out in compassion toward others, for everyone is walking his or her own difficult path. (Dieter F. Uchtdorf)

Chapter 1

Beginning

To the one soul reading this: I know you're tired, you're fed up, you're close to breaking, but there's strength within you even when you feel weak. Keep fighting.

My name is Mary Heath, and I am recovering from a mental illness. I know it would be a rather abrupt start, but I feel like telling you how it is to be a mental health warrior would be the best way to start. No offense, it took me a long time to admit and say that, and I am free now, and all that I have is a label of a mental health warrior!

More power to the word, as the shame and fear of admitting to my illness has kept me mentally hostage most of my life. I couldn't see myself as a warrior until I realized that mental health is just as important as physical health. Now that I am ready to come out of the closet and speak to the world about what I have been through to empower many others going through similar life experiences, I have decided to write this book.

I am writing this book because my purpose in life is to help anyone living with mental illness. I choose to say living with mental illness instead of suffering because the word suffering has a negative connotation. Suffering implies that people with mental illnesses cannot live a satisfactory life. However, the stereotype notion is completely wrong.

People with mental illness are empowered and motivated to live their lives to the fullest, though the negative judgment and environment surrounding them embark on their satisfaction to dampen it.

My early childhood was spent in a small town called Warrenton, Georgia. It has grown significantly over the years, though I think it still has only one traffic light. My parents were sharecroppers, so we didn't have much growing up. We were poor and content with our simple life.

I am the ninth sibling of ten, which also did no favors for our financial situation. However, poverty did not impact my life experiences, as I had nothing but happy childhood memories. However, this was what I thought of my life and not everyone else around me other than my immediate family.

If I talk about the bubble of my thoughts, I was poor, fat, and short yet content with whatever God had blessed me with. I had a big fat family, bread to eat, a bed to sleep in, and five pairs of clothes for five days of the week. However, the world had a different vision.

When I was about five, we moved to Decatur, Georgia. I graduated from Toney Elementary and Columbia High School. I remember feeling like I was different from others when I started school. I always felt like everybody rejected me, whether by peers or teachers.

While I have learned to appreciate my beauty over the years, as a child, I did not like myself either, but that had nothing to do with my mental health. I was overweight and desired to be as physically smart as other kids, not because I adored them but because my friends and others around me were getting on my nerves. I knew people made fun of my weight, and thus, I wanted to get smarter. I was a subject of logical criticism.

My parents did not have money to buy us many things, so I only had five dresses for each day of the week. I was always