The Way I Am

I'm still not entirely sure on what the point of this blog was, or who I'm writing it for. So far I've tried to write as though I'm explaining things to an 'outsider', to someone living a perfectly normal life and drawing attention to the ways that make me and what I'm going through different. Really though, the type of people likely to be reading this are those who are in the same or similar positions. All my friends and contacts now that I've built up over the years are people in the same situation, linked together by a shared empathy and understanding that we've all had limitations placed on us and trying to find ways to express ourselves that let us break free of our shackles.

There are a million blogs like that out there, so what do I really think I'm doing differently? I'm an identical drop of water in the endless ocean, convinced that I can be a beautiful and unique snowflake. Maybe there was no real point to this at all, just an empty void to throw my thoughts out there into, tossing them into the abyss under the delusion that my echo will answer me back and we'll strike up a meaningful conversation.

Something I've noticed though with all the other blogs like this out there is just how defined by the illness they all seem to be. I was watching an episode of House the other day where one of the characters wondered, how would you introduce me? As a doctor, as black, as a car thief? I suppose I'm in the same boat – no matter what I might strive for or try to be or achieve, its almost always going to have to include this as a caveat. If someone asks, what does your brother/son/friend do, the fact that my illness is the reason for it is always going to have to come up within the first two lines. I don't have a job, I'm not at college, because... .The fact is that its not normal and that it needs an explanation for why my 'scenic' path as I've described it is the one that I'm travelling down, always pointing out that its not by choice and that really of course I'd rather be on a different one.

So I've pointed it all out, but what for, what have I really achieved by laying it out like that? I've not come to any conclusions, just made myself look smarter by drawing attention to the fact that I've noticed it instead of working on fixing it. Its a good technique, especially for debating or arguing – set out all your points in the form of a question, that way if you're proved wrong then you were only being wise and spurring on a thoughtful debate!

In the end though, who we are boils down to the sum of our experiences, and for anyone else out there like me who's travelling down a path that they can insist they didn't choose, it still doesn't change the fact that they're sauntering their way slowly along it anyway. This path I'm on has influenced everything about me, even down to my looks - I have long hair mainly because there was a period of time where I wasn't able to get out to the barbers, so had to just let it grow. I happen to quite like the person that I've become now (and my extremely cool hair) – I'm fully aware that its not 'the same as other people', but for the moment I've convinced myself I'm that snowflake floating down from the sky, waiting to change the world when I finally land. Everyone in the world will have changed and grown as a person over the last decade of their life, if I tried to rebel against an imaginary construct of 'the illness' and discard everything that its influenced me into becoming, then I'd just end up with the mind of the 13 year old that I was, playing Pokémon and wanting to push girls into the mud.

Oh, wait a minute...