Thank you Capriciousness, for starting this thread. (And for being you!)

This is something I've thought about a lot. Maybe too much. There is no doubt in my mind that I would not have joined the Army. Talk about crazy and impulsive. Then again, I wouldn't be getting benefits, or all my health care and be taken such good care of in my senior years.

Perhaps I would have been published by now. Then again, without the spark and the talent that I know is a by product of my illness, I might have only been a mediocre writer and would never have had a chance of being published at all.

Without it, I might have had a family and not married the same kind of man three times. (cheater-abusive cheater, user, loser sociopath and abusive alcoholic, pathological liar, narcissistic user, loser and cheater) I see a pattern here...

But then again, I would not have been able to experience the full range of human emotion that we do; from the horrific to the sublime. I might not have been an artist or have the capacity to be so transformed by the beauty of our world or be as intelligent or compassionate or kind as I know myself to be.

It's a trade off and only my higher power knows what other paths I might have tred. And without it, I might have been ordinary and boring and dull and never have known how amazing life can often be.