A few days ago my daughter was
playing the song “The Monster” by Eminem featuring Rihanna. Immediately the
hook caught my attention. I googled the
lyrics and the next thing you know it was my ringtone. Since gaining awareness of the Bipolar
disorder I live with, I tend to secretly diagnose others (especially
celebrities). I felt at ease once I
discovered a community of people who were like me and almost immediately the
stigma and shame was lifted. The reassurance
of knowing that I could not only function but excel in life, in part due to the
illness was a huge wake up call. Prior
to my research on Bipolar disorder and depression I had always expected to fail,
eventually, it was in my mind inevitable.
Constant praises from friends and family for my accomplishments were
always plagued with the fear of knowing depression was lurking around the
corner. I began to embrace that I am
blessed with a fierce amount of creativity (even if it is short lived, lol). I now work feverishly but with more focus
when manic all while preparing properly for the inevitable. Hopefully this time when I crash, I won’t
take all that I have built and sacrificed for with me. Constantly rebuilding wouldn’t be so bad if
it didn’t come with the consequence of watching my family suffers with
instability.
It feels like a blessing and a
curse as I can’t imagine who I would be without the creativity, which to me is
my only claim to fame. My dream is to be
happy, to one day live my life free from depression. My goal in keeping this online journal is to
meet more people like myself, share stories, and learn from one another all in
a hopes that I’ll discover a way to make my dream possible. I apologize to my readers for my lack of
formal training in journalism; composing complete sentences, paragraphs and
other grammatical errors that may cause you to want to take a red pen to the
entire post. Hopefully, I’ll find the
time to take a course in the next few years.
My Professor constantly scolds me, “at a graduate level you should be
able to write a paper using proper APA style” and I agree but I’m a little more
focused on content versus delivery which is another one of my issues to be
discussed at a later time, it’s not what
you say, it’s how you say it. I digress
I don't know if "The Monster" would be considered a mental health anthem but I commend Eminem for having the courage to openly
discuss his demons. His song fuels my
theory that if more public figures would admit to the mental illness in which
they live, it would become more acceptable.
Much like the stigma that is slowly being removed from the LGBT community. Individuals with mental illness would be seen
as more of an asset once the world realizes how many of its leaders, icons,
legends, and innovators belong to “the club”.
Again, I have my suspicions on who is living with mental illness, but I’ll allow them to “out” themselves J
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