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There is little difference between being Spanish with mental illness and being of another race with mental illness. The cultures and customs are different, but the illness causes the same heartache. Every Spanish culture is different. In my case, family is of great importance. Every birthday, holiday, baby shower, sweet sixteen, wedding, and funeral was a huge event where all members of the family would get together. Even if there was tension between families, we all came together.

I remember feeling a lot of anxiety during the first year of high school about pollution in the environment, the rain forests being destroyed, and being biracial. I started to feel ashamed that I didn't look Spanish because in my high school you were teased for being or looking Caucasian. I felt a lot of shame because I always heard racial terms for Caucasians. When classmates found out my last name was Spanish, I was no longer "the white girl."

I am of Puerto Rican and Irish decent. I am proud of both heritages today, but underwent a lot of confusion about my races. What really prompted my illness was an attack-I was "jumped" by three girls. It's a long story, but created new anxiety, a fear of people out to get me. This was one of the fears heightened during my first psychosis.

Three years ago, I became the only person in my whole family diagnosed with a mental illness. It was very lonely yet I received a tremendous amount of support. Most of my family is Catholic although some have converted into other religious faiths. Most of my family members feel that I shouldn't be on medication-as if there is nothing wrong with me. They believe that I have a gift of hearing spirits and seeing visions. I believe that too.

My family and I are very spiritual, but I believe now that it is possible to have a gift and a mental illness instead of one or the other. The Irish side of my family never really discusses what I went through. It's a topic they don't bring up. There is a bit of denial and maybe shame as well, but their understanding of what happened to me is more "rational" than my Spanish side of the family.

I think every family that is confronted with mental illnesses goes through denial. They might believe that it may be a bad spirit in the house, a fault in the way the person was raised, drugs, a weakness in character, or anything else that would make sense other than something that came out of thin air with no warning sign or reason, something that just is, that just happened. My parents thought I did drugs or that someone might have caused it to happen to me (I was fifteen when I was first diagnosed and was drug-free at the time). They also thought that I might have experienced trauma of some sort, which they believe I have blocked out. Whatever the case, there was no explanation.

Today, a few members of my family also suffer from mental illness although not as acute as mine. They take medication as do I. I feel less alone and special because I am no longer the only one. I feel more understood and have grown closer to those in my family who know by experience and not by reading books or seeing representations of mental illness glamorized by Hollywood movies or horrible cases of crime in the newspapers. The words "I feel" are used by most Latin countries compared to the words "I think" used by many European countries, which shows that the Latino cultures are more emotional than the "rational" way of approaching a situation. That's really the little difference I have experienced being Latina with mental illness. My advantage is being Caucasian as well and able to differentiate and compare the two points of view.