Letter to My Mental Illnesses

Hello, 

There’s no need to introduce myself, we know each other well, don’t we? As such I know that you have a habit of finding new ways to creep into my life – you’re always going to be here I suspect, so I suppose it’s time I had a proper conversation with you. Embraced you. Accepted that you are, and always will be, a part of me. 

Well I’d rather not start with the negatives, so let me thank you. You have taught me strength in ways I could never have imagined just a few years ago. You tried to break me – hell, you still do – and yet my scars hold power as a consequence. So thank you for that. And thank you for teaching me kindness, empathy and wisdom. If it wasn’t for you I never would have known what to say to my friends in distress. I never could have overcome issues unrelated to you. If you’re going to stick around you might as well teach me some more of those lessons, because I appreciate them, I really do. And thank you for showing me how lost I was. Thank you for teaching me who I am. Do not mistake me, I am not you. You are a part of me yes, but in realising that I have seen some of the other parts of me that I failed to notice previously. Pretty amazing really. 

Now if you were a physical person I would probably beat bloody at this point. I would scream at you until my throat was raw. I would cry at you, how dare you try to take me away, how dare you try to take my friends, how dare try to cause my family such pain. I would shout at you for every opportunity you took away from me – I wanted to go on that trip. All those days I missed. I actually wanted to be able to go to lessons and focus. I wanted to be around my friends. I wanted to be able to be a stupid teenager for just one day without there being the constant reminder that at any moment I could be struck with the feeling that my heart might explode, or the knowledge that addiction is in my blood.

Yet note I speak in past tense. For in the end, whether you taught me, or I found ways to learn it through necessity to survive, I realised I didn’t really want those things. For every opportunity I missed, I was presented with something else that formed me. And the ones I didn’t miss were golden as a result. If I could let go in the ways I wished, I wouldn’t be me. I wouldn’t be able to see the world in the ways I do. 

Still, know this, if you were a person I saw you run at someone else – god forbid someone I love – I would not hesitate to put myself between you and them, for no one deserves that pain, and my dear we are not done fighting yet. 

Seriously though, you are just made of hopelessness and chaos. Some days I think, surely my mental illness must be exhausted because I sure am, but no, there you are again. So come at me. Come at me with everything you’ve got and watch me rise, because I have come too far to give in to you. I will take the creativity from mania and your chaos and I will make something beautiful. I will take the desperation of your darkness and the shaking mess from your anxiety and I will use it to cling to the others who are suffering to make sure we get through. To ensure that you never have such a grip over another person’s life. Come at me – I think you forget that you are a part of me. We have to find some way to live in harmony or we will destroy each other. Come at me old friend, and watch me grow.