After 6 months, and allot of aggression, my parents were told they could take me home. They said they didn't want me in their home and they could do whatever the doctors wanted to do with me. So I went to the state hospital, you know the one for people with mental disorders. After 9 months, many different antipsycotic drugs which caused nerve damage, I was put on state disability, given a bus pass and was told to make sure I took my meds.
Now in my state, disability paid about 160 dollars a month and I had only been on it for one month. Since I was considered to not have a mental disorder I wasn't allowed to participate in the community mental health system so I couldn't get a case worker to help me find housing.
I soon ran out of money and found myself on the streets. I went to the homeless shelters. The anxiety it caused to be around all the aggressive people that lived there was too much so I went to live in parks.
A few months later I was beaten again, I assume for someone's kicks. So I had another TBI. This one wasn't as bad and the hospital sent me on my way after stitching my wounds up. I was back on the streets again.
The same thing happened over and over. Living in parks, being arrested for vagrancy, having head injuries, living in parks, having head injuries, being arrested for vagrancy. It was a record skipping over and over. No one would give me a break. Maybe it was because I could carry on a conversation, I don't know.
Then I got the bright idea to pretend I had a mental disorder in the attempt to get involved in the mental health system. Mind you this was about five years of the same thing. I found out that this wasn't that great of an idea other then the fact that I got someone to help me find a place to live. But everything has its costs. I was forced to take medication that wasn't right for me. I didn't take it because it caused me such bad reactions.
When they did a blood check they found out that I wasn't taking it and they gave me weekly shots. So now I had severe reaction all the time. They saw this so it was back to the state hospital again.
I was a human guinea pig when they saw that certain drugs were causing me bad reactions. They tried this and that, never listening to me when I said that I had many head injuries and I thought they were causing me problems because I had never had these problems before the initial TBI. They said that this was some form of delusion and the pooh poohed me.
So I bit the bullet and told then that the medication they were giving me was doing good. Oh how hard it was to keep the fact that I was freaking out from them.
After 6 months I was let out this time on SSI with a case worker from mental health because they now thought I had a mental disorder. I got an apartment.
I've had a few brain injuries since then. Everytime I get hit it seems I have a TBI, but finally they listened to me and did all the proper tests and found out, yes I do have brain damage. 15 Years after I started telling them I had a brain injury they finally listened.
Now I'm off of the antipsycotics that caused me so much distress and I'm on some new medication that helps a little, although I don't think that they will ever find the right medication. At least not in my life time.
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