I Am Beautiful

Mental illness is both my blessing,

And my curse.

My beauty,

And my shame.

I love being able to experience my emotions so intensely,

To love so hard and so purely,

To be so full of joy I can't contain myself.

But I hate feeling the pain.

I hate how I overthink every conversation.

How every word can so easily cut like a knife.

How easily I can make something out of nothing.

I hate how small, meaningless things can cause bouts of panic, tears, and steal my breath from my lungs.

But I love the beauty of being broken.

I love the perspective it's given me.

I love the intricacy of a bruised psyche.

The love it gave me for music,

And the love it gave me for words.

My mental illness kills me, but also saves me.

Some days I want to take my own life.

Some days I'd never wish for any life but my own.

You know,

It took me a long time,

22 years,

To realize that my mental illness is not my identity.

I am a separate person.

Bipolar mixed affective disorder and PTSD do not define me.

But to truly love myself,

I had to learn to love them too.

I had to learn to give myself the unconditional love I want so badly to give everyone else

And I'm finally getting to that.