Hey! Where's My Shoelaces?

By Sara Fail, aka Sarebear of Centerville, UT
Source:  "Pie-Bolar Served w/ 3 Flavors of Anksia Tea," Dec. 23, 2005.  Posted by Sarebear at 5:23 PM, http://piebolar.blogspot.com/2005_12_01_piebolar_archive.html
 

  An analogy that has been useful for me lately, is one involving everyone being issued with a pair of "shoes" as they are sent down to Earth, to live, from heaven. Not everyone gets shoes that fit as well as others; not everyone gets the color or style they'd like; not everyone gets a shoe suited to the functions that are needed.

  And, not everyone receives shoelaces.

  I posit that, with my mental illnesses, I was issued shoes, but no shoelaces. I have repeatedly stumbled and fallen, my whole life through. I didn't even know what I was missing, although the inevitability of falling, and the repetitive nature of it, seemed to indicate that I was missing SOMETHING, as I grew older and wondered. No matter how hard I tried, one shoe, or both, in the most difficult times, would fly off and I'd fall on my face, with varying degrees of trauma depending on the situation.

  And sometimes, it would be quite awhile before I even could, or would, get up again.

  Sometimes, I'd just crawl.

  Sometimes, I'd just lay there and sob.

  I've hated those shoes, and hated the "unfairness" of it. Why do others get to race on past me, while I must repeatedly eat dirt, over and over again? And be expected to WANT to get up, even though I am running with faulty shoes; with some essential component missing, which I couldn't compensate for even if I knew what I was missing?

  But, a year ago, I learned after many, many, many years, that I may be bipolar. And have a variety of anxiety disorders. As the year wore on, the rapid cycling nature of the bipolar became defined, and the possibility of OCD became painfully clear as I began to discuss things with the psychologist that I always thought were "just ME". For my whole life, I thought all this stuff, all this inability to "fit" with coping, being capable, in society, in the