A Treatise from the Back of my Closet

I wake up very day feeling lucky (ok- maybe not right when I wake up). Some days I don't consciously think about it but I know that I do. Each day -- either consciously or unconsciously I am fighting a battle -- and every day that I wake up feeling lucky I know that I am winning. Sometimes it is not even clear who or what I am struggling against. Sometimes I am fighting with myself.

Having a mental illness is like that. There is no clear enemy -- ever. It's not like having cancer -- you don't just wake up one day and say -- "I have been invaded by something alien, this disease" and round up the troops of friends and family and start a war. And yet is not so different from having cancer or any other kind of illness. It IS an illness.

Instead you wake up and know that there is an ominous force that lurks inside yourself -- and you might not be able to see it but you know it's there. Unfortunately, no one else can see this illness either. Sometimes people can see the symptoms (usually when one is extremely ill) so often times the symptoms are mistaken for the illness. People treat you and your behaviour, often affected by the illness, as though you are the illness itself. As if YOU are a disease, something or someone to be avoided. People stop being your friends, lovers leave you, some people feel like they can't trust you anymore.

But just like any other illness, mental illness is just that, an ILLNESS not a PERSON. It's just that much harder to tell. Like anything that affects the brain, mental illness affects your brain -- but not necessarily your MIND. But sometimes that is very hard for other people to tell.

There have been times in my life when I have felt possessed by my illness. Like that is all anyone can see. Unlike other illnesses, mental illness affects the way you think, the way you feel and how you perceive the world around you -- often to your own detriment. It is very difficult because so little is still known about the human brain. Mental illness requires us as human beings to rethink the way we conceptualize the brain, the mind and the human body. So often we consider emotions to be something separate from our physical bodies -- when this is clearly not the case. In the case of mental illness the imbalance of certain chemicals in the brain can cause all kinds of symptoms from mood swings to delusions. It is often easier for people to see these symptoms as the disease. But, I am not Bi-Polar because I have mood swings, rather I have mood swings because I am Bi-Polar, because there is a chemical imbalance in my brain that I have little or no natural control over. It is also difficult because so often when a person has an illness of this sort they can't tell that they do. Unlike other types of illnesses where when a person discovers one or several symptoms they know they are ill and go to the doctor, mental illness can severely affect a person's self-perceptions. Usually a person knows that there is something wrong but it is difficult to articulate what it is or how it feels. Sometimes attempts to describe the feeling inside my own brain when I have no control over it sounds like pure insanity when merely an attempt at simile or metaphor to describe something for which there is no lexicon.

There have been times in my life when I have felt like a prisoner trapped inside my own body -- I cannot articulate what is wrong, or how I really feel because everything is overshadowed by the illness. There have been times when I have felt like I am what is invisible -- that I am silently screaming and cannot be seen or heard. But I know I am lucky. I have received the help that I needed. I am here, and am well and able to live my life -- and I appreciate that I am very very fortunate. Yet there is a part of me that wishes I had never gotten ill, even though I know I am a better person because of it.

Really, I am. I am able to see the world in a different way than I might have otherwise been able to. I am a much more compassionate person. I also know that I can't take things for granted, not merely that I shouldn't, but that honestly and truly I can not. I think I am a more determined person. I might not be any more ambitious than I was before, but I am more determined to make my dreams a reality right now today and not wait for the unknown to come and spoil my plans. I am more optimistic, more spiritual and just overall more thankful to be alive.

I know that having this illness has cost me many things. I have lost many friends for one, it has severely affected my relationships with members of my family for another, but ultimately I feel that I now know who my true friends really are. I consider it a barometer for testing things. I have been tested to see how strong and just how determined I truly am. It also tests my friends and family. When I start dating someone and they are scared off by the fact that I have a mental illness, I sometimes feel lucky because I find out right away who really likes me for me. It also reveals to me many things about other people that they might not otherwise reveal to me right away. It lets me know what people's prejudices truly are and not what they tout them to be, how loyal they are etcetera. If someone is willing to dump me because I have an illness even if they have never seen me when I am sick than I am better off knowing it straight away -- it saves me valuable time ... because my time is valuable. Time may not be money but it is worth a lot more to me than that. I have wasted too much of my life being ill or unhappy to waste a minute of any day with people who don't really care about me and are full of false pretenses.

There were times in my life when I felt cursed by having this illness. Sure that I couldn't overcome it's limitations, that maybe I was being spiritually punished for some wrongdoing I had committed, but ultimately I know that the many negative experiences have made me that much more grateful for all the positive things in my life.

There have been times when getting out of bed was so difficult, when trying to think straight made me cry from mere frustration. When I was so afraid of myself that I didn't know what to do or where to go or how to explain what was wrong. But in the end that makes everything I do feel like a little miracle a mini-miracle. The fact that I graduated from University, that I have been able to overcome stresses and fears that are not the same ones that everyone else has, in addition to the ordinary ones surprises me some days. Yet I do not write this as some sort of self-congratulations or to show that I am special or in any way better than anyone else. I don't even write it for myself.

I know that I am not alone at all. I know that thousands, no millions, of people suffer from mental illness everyday. I am writing this because I want everyone to know what is like even though I know I can never truly explain. I write this because I want every person with any kind of affliction to know that it can be overcome, and that it is NOT easy, but still possible. And also I want people to look at me and see that I am proud of who I am and not ashamed.

There is a stigma against mental illness that appalls me. I want everyone to know that it is a type of prejudice and descrimination, and that it hurts. Maybe the victims of this prejudice aren't marching in parades with placards. Maybe you won't see them on TV advocating your respect. But whether you know it or not you see them every day, you know them. They may even be your friends or members of your family. They may not march in protests because they are too busy living every day and that is where the real battle lies. But they deserve your repect nonetheless. They do not deserve your derrision, or to be the butt of your jokes or to have their rights and personal liberties taken from them without their consent. They are people just like you with illnesses that are frightening and scary. Imagine being trapped inside a nightmare unable to wake up only to realize that you ARE awake and that all of your friends and family are telling you everything you perceive is untrue. Believe me it is WAY more frightening than any horror movie or dream you could ever have.

Ily