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Writer's pictureJen Sullivan

What it's Like to be Me

Updated: Jun 27, 2023


Me with my dog during a mental health break from work in 2016

Random comment the other day: what is it like to be me?


It's stressful, that's what it's like.


You get to solve everyone's problems and be empathetic, but rarely do you receive the same in return. Partially because others cannot comprehend the workings of your mind...because it doesn't work like most people's. And when that stress becomes too much, you're labeled as dramatic, negative, pessimistic, or, the one that personally pisses me off, a "whiner." This is your entire life.


Everyone has simple solutions to all of your problems, except they are things you've already tried and didn't work. They work for others, but not you because your mind works differently.


You are usually expected to do what is best for everyone else, regardless of how that affects you. And you do it because you're the hero.


Nothing you do is ever good enough, so eventually you just stop trying. And when you finally crack because you've been under far too much pressure, no one will help you put yourself back together. No one CAN help because they don't think like you. And the ones that do are struggling to keep themselves sane.


You are supposed to magically get better by pretending you are fine or reading books that are written by "experts." You are supposed to see expensive specialists who will put you on medication that makes everything worse. In essence, you aren't supposed to be you because, in society's eyes, there is something wrong with you.


No one can possibly understand you. Not to the extent that they could ever actually help you. They think you are arrogant because you know you are different. They think you are weird because you don't think like them. You don't fit in anywhere.

You sink into a pit of anxiety, depression, and despair. You pass the time with things that are boring and you sleep more than usual because you have no energy. You continue on because you know that "this too shall pass."


Eventually, your brain starts to rebound and you feel yourself returning to normal. YOUR normal, not the "normal" of society. Because you're special. You continue the best you can until your brain recovers and you can be the hero once more.


And then you start the cycle all over again.

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