fight the good fight

There are people who fight every day . These people who push against the feelings coursing through them: the tension, anxiety, fear, depression, confusion, the list goes on and on.

There are other people. the ones who think mental illness of any kind makes a person inept. there are people who think that we, the diagnosed, cannot lead a normal, well-balanced life. "They" think we cannot make good decisions.

I discovered a website tonight - www.bringchange2mind.org

I've been feeling for a few months that I could do more to stomp out the stigma of mental illness. So, I'm putting myself on the line. To prove that despite a diagnosis, I am a functioning, fighting, responsible adult.

I was lucky enough to get the trifecta. Anxiety disorder. OCD. Depression.

The anxiety is the worst, and it comes with a fun side dish - agoraphobia.  Agoraphobia, which many people think means I can't leave the house, incites anxiety in me at the strangest times. But mostly, it causes a compulsion in me to run away from whatever place I am in, and go somewhere alone. Because it is the fear of embarrassment, the fear I can't escape from a situation that makes me agoraphobic.

The OCD lives mostly in thought processes and it is mild. Sometimes my thought processes get going in circles and I can't stop them. I do not count, flip light switches, or clean my hands until they are raw. Those are very real symptoms and compulsions. I just don't have them.

The depression.  It doesn't hit me too often, but it lies beneath the surface. Waiting to tell me I'm not good enough, didn't try hard enough, or that I did the wrong thing.

I fight these disorders. They are not who I am. They do not define me.

I get up in the morning, most days go to work, and fight through another day of not feeling balanced. Not feeling great. I don't talk about it a lot outside of my trusted circle, because people do look at you differently.  I shouldn't have to hide this side of me. But I do, because I don't want to be treated as less capable. I am more than capable. It's time to stop enabling the people who make generalizations.

Make your mess your message. If Robin Roberts can keep sharing a message of positivity and changing the world after surviving cancer, only to then find out she has MDS from the chemo, then I can put a message out there too. What I deal with is nothing compared to the struggles of so many people.  But it is a struggle. And it is a mess.

So here's my message. Don't discriminate against people with mental disorders. Sure, some of them to commit heinous crimes and need to be in a controlled environment. I don't deny that.  But that's not all of us.  And I can guarantee every person with a DSM diagnosis would rather be "normal" at least in some ways.

Take a second, think about it, before you make a judgement.

More to come.