Hello. I just want to rant because I'm not coping very well. This is a huge rant of my life story with mental illness/trauma and I don't expect anyone to read it. But maybe it could help someone feel less alone, I don't know. 

My panic disorder and OCD started in childhood. I got severely bullied by a large number of people at school, plus had a negative home life and some childhood abuse. I ended up quitting school at 12 and refusing to leave the house for a number of years.

I then had an extremely traumatic and gruesome medical emergency in which I almost died, which worsened my anxiety disorders and kicked off my medical/health/contamination phobias. 

I ended up landing in a psychiatric unit where I lived short term. That was because I had a singular panic attack that had been going for 6 weeks without a pause or break. I thought it'd never end.. but heavy duty medication as well as being forced to do things through tge day eventually helped. 

I met my ex husband, obviously I was vulnerable and didn't have much going on in my life. He was significantly older and we got engaged when I was 17.. great idea. I was with him for 12 years and he became extremely abusive. All financial responsibility of our life was on me for years, while I was in college, he was verbally abusive and then he also started hitting me on top of it all. My OCD and anxiety were severe through those years and I started drinking far too much to try and escape the torment. 

My college degree was incredibly difficult to get through, was very demanding with high contact hours, long commute, while also working and dealing with abuse+severe mental illness+substance issues. I managed to complete the 9 years of study but it felt like it shaved years off my life. The stress of my 20s felt immense. My job was also stressful and physically demanding. I went without sleep because my ex would pull me out of bed to fight with me, then I'd cry on the couch half the night. Plus the shiftwork messed me up. 

I eventually broke up with my ex husband and the divorce was a long 1.5 year process, messy and difficult. 

Here's where life finally started to pick up... I fell madly in love and I realised this is what love feels like. I'd never truly known it before. It was an epic romance story where a long term friend and I finally admitted we loved each other, which could never happened before, as I was unhappily but loyally married. We had a whirlwind romance and I thought my life was finally... happening. That it wouldn't just all be trauma and misery forever.

But fast forward 3 years and we were still deeply in love but I still had my issues with drinking, still could not "heal" from trauma or lifelong mental illness despite seeking lots of therapy, and I still couldn't cope with my mental health. On top of that, I developed a chronic illness which left me with debilitating fatigue and other neurological issues (autoimmune). After 4 years of suffering with the illness, I felt so defeated. I desperately wanted to live life with my fiance who is the love of my life.. but I couldn't make my body do what I wanted anymore. 

Then we found out we were expecting a baby. Very scary but I thought maybe this is our lives beginning, maybe we can do this. I was scared of birth defects and disabilities because of my own health problems and also because I've been working in disability for over 10 years and the assault I've encountered by people with intellectual disability has contributed to the PTSD. I knew I couldn't handle being around clients anymore and decided to take all my accrued leave that I saved up over a decade. 

Then we got the news that our baby has tested positive for one of the rarest conditions in the world that causes severe intellectual disability. I already wasn't coping so it's broken me. It's not an official diagnosis and there's a chance the baby doesn't have it, but the only way I can attempt to find out is by having invasive medical procedures that pose risk to the baby and myself, and would have to receive blood products which can transmit infections. This is extremely triggering for my anxiety/OCD/PTSD/medical trauma and I feel stuck in an impossible position with no way out. On top of that, my fiance was diagnosed as having a heart attack and is now seeing a cardiologist. They don't think it's as bad as what was first assumed, and they think the original testing was done improperly, but he was diagnosed with heart murmur as a teen and his whole family has heart issues, and his tests are still a little abnormal. 

I feel like my life has been more than I can take and my physical health has crumbled. It feels like the world around me has been constantly falling down and I have been trying to hold everything together until I have nothing left to give. I'm Christian and I question everything I do and think. I feel like I've tried so hard to improve my life and not be a victim but the harder I try, the worse it gets. I feel like God doesn't see me, if he's there. I don't stop praying and I don't give up but my soul feels broken and I mourn most of my life. Sometimes I wonder why I was kept alive when I almost died. I medically shouldn't have survived it, it was a miracle.. but what for? So my life could just be a meaningless struggle? I try to focus on gratitude and helping others, even if it's just giving support to people going through a similar issue on reddit. But I'm broken. My heart is broken. Life has been like chasing a dangling carrot on a stick and I have nothing left to give. I can't fight and run anymore, I'm too exhausted. 

I live in what feels like a prison now where everything is for my baby but I don't know if he's ok or if he will make it or if I will make it. I don't eat a lot of what I want, I can't drink, can't take my meds, no sex anymore, there's no escape. I try to have faith but receive bad news. I know you shouldn't compare but after the separation, my ex went traveling and got a new girlfriend and they had a baby 9 months later. Their baby is totally healthy as far as I know. Am I being punished? Is this a test? Do I just need to hold on and my needs will be met, God will take this nightmare away? Or has he forsaken me? I don't want to spend the rest of my life taking care of an intellectually disabled (and likely physically disabled) child when I am disabled. Please be more gentle on me God..  I'm not as strong as you want me to be