Not normal.

[naamah_darling]

Thank you all for your kind words the other night. I haven't been back to reply to comments, but I will try. I will say that it meant a lot to me, what you all said. It genuinely for-real helped, and I feel a lot better today. I don't deserve readers as wonderful as you

Comments

[naamah_darling]

The part that stinks is that I WAS a kid, essentially. But starting at around age 16, I started making adult decisions about my future because I had to. It doesn't seem right or fair -- probably because it's not -- that I was having to make those kinds of choices while still at an age when I couldn't put massive parts of my life in perspective.

[naamah_darling]

I think it's pretty remarkable that the biggest decision -- the person I decided to spend the rest of my life with -- is still working out pretty well! Even if we split tomorrow -- not bloody likely -- we still had a longer good run than most folks get.

[the_xtina]

Oddly enough, the only time I tend to notice people talking about "the past makes us who we are!" is during those "if you could change one thing about your past" memes.  I usually ignore those memes because any one thing I'd want to change would mean weeks of plotting out how my life might have turned out, to see if changing that one thing would be worth it.

I... don't take things that lightly, sometimes.  *cough*

[reneekytokorpi]

After I read this, I sat and thought about how my experiences shaped my life, and this is my conclusion: because so many of my struggles have been health related and my family and friends are so stable and supportive, if these health issues had not happened I likely would have grown to the be the same person in many ways, because the base was already there. Most ways, probably, as most of myself was formed before I became seriously ill in 8th grade

[apocalypticbob]

A lot of this sounds pretty normal to me, which would come across as blase' if you didn't also know that I was a bipolar teen living in a really fucked up situation, too.

I can tell you that, personally, being diagnosed at an early age didn't do much for me except give me something to point at when I said I wanted to kill myself. A lot of shrinks didn't know how to deal with what was then called "manic depressive disorder" and the medication options were incredibly limited and frequently experimental, with side effects that were pretty bad, especially for teens. I hear that is better now, and if I had access to affordable healthcare I might be tempted to try again, after the last bad dip I had. I really should have been eating my Thanksgiving meal in a hospital...

[veedub]

from my own experience, trying with all the energy i could to pass for normal and knowing i just couldn't do it were pretty damn painful as well. that trick never works. it took over 50 years for me to heal from that.

now i can say FUCK NORMAL! and because i'm old, and old people are supposed to be a bit eccentric...it's normal.

;}