Embrace

You need glasses to see, you need crutches to walk. Some people need medicine to help their minds function properly and there is no shame in taking medicine if it is the proper medicine for you. Medicine is a very controversial topic and mental illness is a very taboo topic. I am bipolar type 1 and that is a very stigmatized label. It is very scary and often not thought kindly of. Yet I share my story boldly and proudly because I am on the proper treatment plan and I have the support system in place to keep my red flags in check. I am so well taken care of that I can literally e-mail my psychiatric doctor and hear back from her in the same day. I had to fight for that type of treatment.

It took me quite some time to get to this level of comfort with my mental wellness, but I have gotten here. There is no shame in saying you need help with you mental wellness and there is no shame in saying you have a mental illness. So what, your chemicals are imbalanced? Where is there shame in that? No one is perfect. Some people have shitty haircuts, and some people have imperfect bodies, and some people have big noses and some people have small noses. We are all built differently and we should find the beauty in our differences and seek help and treatment when we discover that we need it.

We should not be embarrassed by our flaws, we should embrace it. My bipolar disorder has made me feel things so intensely and so overwhelmingly that I can’t even explain it. I have so many emotions. I feel things so much deeper than humanly possible because of my mental illness. I am thankful for it. I wouldn’t experience life at the capacity that I do without it. Yes I need medicine to balance out my delusions and stop them for occurring, but I don’t stop feeling things. I still have an empathetic way for experiencing life at a deeper level than most do. I laugh harder, I cry harder, I smile more. I am the biggest cheer leader and the biggest supporter because I can feel what other people feel and put myself in their shoes because my mental illness allows me to do that.

I am not saying that people without a mental illness do not have the ability to do this, but it is widely known that people with bipolar disorder use different areas of their brain than other people so they experience life in a different way. My experience of life is different than yours. And people with bipolar disorder surely will understand what I am saying. And people with anxiety experience life differently, and so do people with depression. There is NO shame in having a mental illness. Embrace it, get help and appreciate that you experience life in a different way, you use different parts of your brain to live life differently than most people.

So live a life you’re proud to live. Find the right medicine for you, find a psychiatrist who treats you well. Embrace therapy. It will do wonders. And live your dreams! Do not be ashamed of having a mental illness and do not let it hold you back from anything.


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170124144000.htm