About the Author:

Megan Mansyur

“Don’t waste your time being what someone wants you to become, in order to feed their list of rules, boundaries and insecurities. Find your tribe. They will allow you to be you, while you dance in the rain.”― Shannon L. Alder

Employing the above mantra throughout my life, I have been able to maintain authenticity in the face of confining societal compulsions towards blind conformity. Alongside this, I have also strived to overcome the barriers imposed by the academic, professional and social communities within which I have studied, worked and interacted within, respectively. Barriers largely resulting from the stigmatization and internalization of my ADHD, and later Bipolar, diagnoses.

Despite having been placed into the Special Education Classroom during my elementary education, I was nevertheless able to graduate as a member of the National Honor’s Society from Pequannock Township High School. Only later to be discouraged and discounted from applying to a PhD program for graduate level work. Yet still managing to graduate Magna Cum Laude as a Psychology Major from Rutgers University. And finally, culminating a very rigorous academic journey effectively completing two years in Doctoral studies at Rutgers University School of Law. That being said, I know exactly what it feels like to be placed into virtually every categorization on the scholastic continuum, managing nevertheless to maintain confidence towards the ultimate realization of academic success.

As a child diagnosed with ADHD, I vividly recall the shame induced upon me by peers and teachers on account of my attention difficulties in school. Yet despite shouldering this societally deemed, “handicap,” (i.e. diagnosis), I have persistently made it a point to overcome the stigmatization garnered by the label and reinforced by the academic and psychiatric communities.

Growing up in the suburbs of North Jersey, I was one of three of the only Hispanic students in a predominately Caucasian, suburban community on the outskirts of New York City. My culturally monolithic surroundings led me to mainly identify myself as a mainstream American native; although, at times, I have also felt strongly compelled to embrace the proud Cuban culture into which I was born. Gravitating towards journalism since early adolescence and developing myself in written forms of expression throughout my college education, I have taken to writing, at this juncture of my life, in order to give a voice to my experiences as a Cuban American who has struggled with mental health diagnoses and lived to tell the story of its’ cure. Understanding and working with the limitations inherent to the, (treatable), cognitive, behavioral, and emotional behaviors categorized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (e.g. the DSM),
has been a propelling factor leading to my obsession with the study of Psychology. Academically and recreationally, I have sought to evaluate diverse aspects of the field and examine its drastic influences in American life. I have done this through immersing myself into both scholarly and mainstream research, practicing introspection, analyzing experiential knowledge, and arriving at factually based conclusions on the basis thereof.

Through this blog, I seek to educate viewers and elucidate a more accurate understanding of the diagnoses laid out by the DSM. By sharing my story and offering more solution focused approaches to address the psychological and behavioral behaviors presented in the DSM, I hope to enable those suffering from the diagnoses documented throughout the manual and their families to find success, mental health and emotional equilibrium. Through dispelling the myths associated with these disorders and bringing the truth to light, I shall endeavor to bring readers out of the shackles imposed by the misperception that mental health conditions are life-long pathological states treatable solely through indefinite psychopharmacological and therapeutic intervention. Join me, as I expose the dynamics of mental health diagnoses and raise the world’s awareness of these, one view at a time.