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5 Reasons Having a Mental Illness Makes You a Badass

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I am not ashamed anymore. I am not ashamed of my diagnoses. I am not ashamed of feeling too much. I’m not ashamed I have to attend group two days out of the week and I’m not ashamed of taking medications. For years, I was frightened to tell anyone about my mental illness because of the fear of being judged and the stigma, but not anymore. I decided to break the stigma around mental illness and come up with five reasons why having mental illness makes you a badass.

1. Princess Diana had depression, bulimia nervosa and suspected borderline personality disorder (BPD).

That’s right; a real-life princess went through what you are going through. You’re in good company, among others like Demi Lovato, Oprah and Ellen Degeneres.

2. You keep trying even when things don’t work.

You struggled through medications not working. You struggled with trying to find the right therapy that was best for you. You always keep trying, even if it feels like nothing is working. You decide to keep fighting for a cure.

3. You survived every time you thought you couldn’t.

Every single day, every minute, you decide to fight for your own life. You fought to stay on this earth and you fought to stay alive. You chose to tough it out because deep down, you knew it was going to get better.

4. You feel so deeply like no one else can.

Not only do you feel deeply for yourself, you feel so deeply for other people. You’re empathic. You take the time to listen and understand people. You recognize emotions and people’s thoughts and feelings and you can tell even the little change in someone’s mood. In a world where we are taught not to feel deeply, you rise above it. That’s what makes you one hell of a person.

5. You keep showing up.

Every therapy session and every psychiatrist appointment, you sit there with a book or coffee in your hand and you show up because you want to get better. And you believe you can.

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Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

Originally published: April 6, 2018
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