Throwing Away the Negative's.

  Sometimes I wonder if I am putting too much importance on telling people my story. My theory is that, the more people I tell, the more people will know and not turn their cheek to truth of mental illness. Throughout this journey I have been told how important it is to share your story. Some days this may be true, and some people in particular need to be made more aware than others. It truly is up to the "ill" to educate the "normal". I put quotes around these words because I do not believe them. Not even for a second. I do not believe that I am mentally ill. I am just mentally different. You put illness in the title, and there's no way you're ever going to feel good about yourself. And that brings me to my main point. Have I put too much importance on the label? Well, haven't we all? You hear "bipolar", and the stigma flows in. You have automatic thoughts of what that word even means. You put it in a category. And there it stays. Now, I will say this. What happens when the person with the "mental illness" starts to own that title? They don't think, "my name is so and so and I like this and that". Instead you introduce yourself as, "my name is blank, and I have Bipolar Disorder". Why is this fair? I'm not going to lie, I have had much struggle with this, and still do. A lot of times, my first thought isn't, my name is Laney. Sometimes its "I am Bipolar". Like that's how I need to identify myself to the world. To identify myself to myself. To identify myself as my "flaws". Flaws being another word I do not believe in. My Bipolar Disorder is not a flaw. It is not an illness, it is not a disease. I don't want all of these words in my vocabulary. They put negative connotation on my every day activities. It puts a negative connotation every time I take my pills, and when I go to therapy, when I go to my psychiatrist appointments. And all of these things are not negative or flawed. They are me taking charge of my life. They are me not letting this "disease" consume me. And that's where most of the stigma is. "Oh you take pills? Oh you go to therapy? I'm sorry." You have no idea how many times I have heard, "I'm sorry". Really? You're sorry? Because I'm not. Yes it can suck. There are days I want it to go away forever. There are still days I don't want to be alive. There are days I look at someone else and see how easy they really have it. But that doesn't mean I'm sorry to have what I have. To be in this body and in this mind. My next endeavors are to take all of these negative words out of my thought process, and out of my life. Because to me, the words "illness", "disease", "flaw", are truly flawed themselves. That is the only context I believe the word flaw is needed. When I tell people, I don't want to hear, "I'm sorry", "that sucks", "poor thing". I want to hear, "then you must be really creative", "you must be really kind and sensitive to others". Because most people don't know, these are traits of having bipolar disorder. Yeah that's right! Positive traits to Bipolar disorder. Hard to believe? Well its about time we all see these illnesses in these sort of ways, rather than the "flaws". Its time we see schizophrenia as being insanely intelligent. Bipolar as being super creative and having a heightened ability to see the things around them. No one ever thought to look at the positives. Most don't even know that there are positives. And most don't even care to know. Its time we learn the facts. Its time for a revolution. Its time we walk, just like every other revolution in history. Time we walk for the positive, and burn the negatives, without a trace of them to be found.