A blessing and a curse.

I would describe my mental health issues and my good memory as both a blessing and a 🤬 curse.

Some people in my life, who aren’t that educated, think that having a mental illness is the worst thing ever, but I beg to differ. My experience of mental health issues has taught me a lot about life and has made me a wiser,  more empathic, and compassionate person.  I can see behind the mask that some people wear in their interactions with the 🌎 world.  I work hard on showing empathy and compassion 🙏🏽.  My faith keeps me grounded and optimistic about life.  If I am faced with a choice of being reactionary or pausing before reacting, I nearly always choose to wait rather than react.

I do have a good mind, although some uneducated people think my mind is damaged 💔 😢 but I also have a great memory.   This great memory can be a curse because I know and I remember all the circumstances that cause the onset of each period of mental illness occurring in my life.  For my own stability, I know to put those memories and incidents out of my mind and use mindfulness as a positive way of achieving that. If I focused on the memories that cause me to become unwell I would never get well. I can’t change the past, but I can make sure I am a better person in the present and future sense. I’ve learned to live with my issues and see the glass as being half full.  Mental illness is most definitely not a curse, but a blessing in disguise because it allows us to examine what it actually is that makes us tick, it makes us develop skills of understanding what makes us unique and better people. It means that I consciously think before I act.  It is a skill that I have developed over time and keeps me well 99% of the time. There has to be a particular set of circumstances occurring in my life that bring about my issues and I spend 100% of my time being conscious of my mind, my feelings and my reactions.  Not easy to achieve but possible to achieve if you are prepared and willing to make the effort.