There are things I've missed out on that I will never have back because of my mental illness. I mean, yes II have a relationship but it has been a battle for both of us to keep. Positive results, but we never had that fun, innocent, easy going courtship that so many have. I have never had a child with a normal babyhood: my eldest boy had constant chronic hearing problems that resulted in tantrums and violent outbursts, speach delays and what felt like years of crying and shrieking, poor boy. I was not stabilized enough to deal with it properly, and I can only cringe when I think of what we both went through. My current son is Autistic, and I have heard that it miht well be a combination of his fathers family's Aspie heritage and my bipolar that left him as he is. I don't feel so much guilt, but I do feel grief about it. It is another way that Bipolar has stolen both from me and those I love.

I've spent years doing coursework that others finish in half the time. I have had to go reduced course loads when others have been able to go full blast. I have lost friends I loved dearly, i have siad things I should never have said to another human being, and I have even come to blows thanks to this Illeness. On that alone, I am afraid that if I really examined what I feel about having this, if I let myself give it the grief it deserves, I will start crying, and will cry until I die.

But I don't think I'm a waste. I am not the greatest, no where close, but I have been able to make a very pale, shallow and easily missed mark, but a positive one, in this world. I know that I am loved, even if I did not have my family. It's just I know so much went wrong

Huggss, Berries. No, you're not alone. We have our losses. Life doesn't dole stuff out fairly, or you'd have your own queendom. Of that I am sure. Take care, brave Berries.