Today I am about do something that I've been wanting to do for a year. Fear and doubt is what has kept me from doing it. Kept giving myself dumb excuses. I promised myself that when I was strong enough and recovered I would. But the thing is that, I have come to a point of acceptance that I am never going to be fully recovered, that my condition is something that you can’t recover from and have to learn to live with it. I realized I had a total different perception of what being strong meant. That after all I’ve been through I am as strong as ever and that I am actually recovered from what I now call “The unrealistic vision of your future self, ignoring, not considering and not accepting your condition”.
So now that I have come to perfect senses and accepted what I have I am ready to do this. That I am brave enough to do something so big. What I’m about to do is one of the scariest things I have done in my life. I know that as soon as I press the publish button this post right here will change my life completely because I’m about to expose my true self. It terrifies me that I am about to take this mask that I have been wearing for too long yet I will feel free that I was brave enough to take it off. So here it goes. Everyday I wear this mask that truly hides who I am, I wear it because we live in a society so close minded that I am completely terrified that people will shame and deny my true self. This mask is perfectly designed so that I can be seen as a perfect and happy teenager. As someone who has all life figured out, already decided what college she wants to go, great ACT scores, does well in school. All of this is considered as a teenager who should be pretty happy with the life she has and should not complain. The truth is that I am not that. I have a condition that makes my life be far away from perfect. It makes me suffer and turns my life upside down.
I have a mental illness and its called Bipolar Disorder.
It has changed my life completely in every single way. Luckily one of those ways happened about a 16 months ago when I discovered that I could put all my feelings into writing, it became my passion. Being involved in this I discovered a website and became part of their community by writing stories. Seeing the success of my stories has inspired me to keep writing and become a mental health activist. I have been hiding a talent and passion behind the mask of my disorder and I feel its time to show the world. Today I take my mask off, show my true self and share a hidden passion that has motivated me to keep moving forward.
