I love that I’m not entirely ordinary.
Several years ago I watched ‘The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive’. Stephen Fry spoke to different celebrities living with bipolar disorder and gave them this scenario: if there was a button right here on the table that you could press to take away your illness, would you press it? Each person said no, and I just couldn’t understand it.
For a long time I wished to be ‘normal’, thought it ‘unfair’ that I had to deal with things that my friends didn’t, I felt I would give anything to be like everyone around me and not have to feel the way I did.
Now that I’m older though, I understand why people answered no to that question, and these days that would be my answer too. This ‘disability’ is a part of me, and is part of what makes me who I am. Sure there’s a lot of shit that comes with it, but there’s also so much that I couldn’t imagine life without. I would hate to no longer be able to experience emotions in the way I do, I couldn’t live without the intensity and complexity of the mind I have. I am able to experience feelings and think in a way that many people I speak to can’t understand, but that I think makes my life and my mind exceptionally beautiful.
