I think I tend to skirt around the worst parts of the never-ending war with my brain. As other sufferers know, it sounds whiny or drama queeny to evince the full depths of the pain, and why invite insult with candor? Even though I know it’s good for me to admit just how crap it is to war with my brain, I am sure people don’t want to know that my husband gets stuck carrying all the weight. That I spend most of my time in my computer chair because the thought of going anywhere else is too painful. That simple things like convincing myself to bathe are resounding victories.

And yet, skirting around these things is doing myself, and all my friends who have mental health problems a disservice. We are not lazy or bad people just because ablests cannot appreciate the misery that is being constantly at war with oneself, a war where we cannot lay down arms lest we be overrun. It’s sad, because at least 1 in 4 people will have some sort of mental health problem in their life, though thankfully not that many will have reoccuring problems. And there is also the fatal flaw that most of us fall victim to at times, and that is our conviction that if we can get over something or do something, then obviously everyone else can as well. We all do it time to time, but it’s definitely something that could stand to go away. It’s just a superiority game, and while it’s fairly argued that we can never fully do away with such things in our species, I’d say it doesn’t hurt to think about it and try to do a bit better than base nature.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to celebrate the victory that is clean hair, take my meds, and hope my brain is polite enough to not find something nasty to fixate on. May your brains be treating you kindly as well.

<3