This is sort of a train-of-thought, free-form rant! Be warned. Mainly because it helps me organize my thoughts for later today.

My new therapy sessions seem to be rather "free-form" - discuss whatever comes up in my mind. If so, I have a theme for today - it's the "big question" I have grappled with for TWO YEARS. Two years today, as a matter of fact. And, I HATE IT. Because it's a stupid question,

I already know the answer intellectually, and it drives me to the point of absolute despair, because I can't resolve the question emotionally.

What if I really am "crazy"? Does it matter? Does it negate everything good about me? Does it make me "less worthy" than "normal" people? Does it make me underserving of being alive? There are myriad ways I can ask the question.

I have thought about it so many ways over the past two years - in the context of shame and stigma, in the context of society's resources, in the context of civil rights and natural rights. I have overanalyzed the hell out of it, and I never get anywhere emotionally.

I can frame it many ways, too - mental illness, psychiatric injury, trauma. Call it what you want - it's all semantics in the end. Does it "make a difference" if I call it injury vs illness? Does it "make a difference" if I say "I have" versus "I am"? Does it make a difference if it's PTSD or CPTSD or Bipolar II or Bipolar XCVII or Ugly Purple Spotted Creeping Crud Disorder or Martian Aquatic Poultry Dementia Syndrome?

It boils down to the same set of symptoms, behaviors, and feelings.

The question itself has an ugly implication, which I have gone over so many times in my mind. If it WERE true that "being crazy" negated my right to exist, does that apply to just me? Am I somehow "that far gone" or "that different" or "that special"? Or, does it apply to everyone? What does that imply for ... everyone else who is "crazy" or has a mental illness, or a psychiatric injury, or is just a little eccentric or doesn't mow their lawn on time? Does "being different" from "normal" somehow make me "less than". Does being "mentally ill" mean I don't have the "right" to share in the responsibilities and benefits of society? Does it mean that I should die? Does it mean that the Nazis were right, the "defectives" should be purged for the betterment of all mankind?

The further out I take that question, extrapolating it from the very personal to the very general, makes it more and more obvious that the answer is NO. The answer HAS to be NO. Because if we had the kind of world where the answer was YES, none of us would want to live in it. We had a taste of that world in Europe 1933-1945, and it was completely unacceptable, anathema to everything a decent civil society should be. It was, IMHO, the greatest tragedy and travesty in all of human history.

I need to FEEL, to ACCEPT, to BELIEVE in my core, emotionally, spiritually even, what I KNOW intellectually. That I am alright, that I am acceptable, that I am as "deserving" and as "equal" as anyone else in this society even if I have/am/suffer from/have contracted/am afflicted by X, whatever X may be, PTSD or Bipolar Type 1,408,383 or Neptunian Dolphin Pox.

Because X should not be my identity. I have other medical conditions. I don't go around saying "I am asthma" and feeling that diminished lung intake capacity due to brochial constriction and swelling somehow "negates my right to breathe" or "negates my right to run" or "negates my right to use up society's oxygen".

But I do that to myself because I was told I was "mentally ill." And our "enlightened society" may not be the Third Reich, but we still have a long way to go in terms of tolerance for mental illness. So, when I was told I was bipolar II, it stuck a knife in my chest that I have yet to pull out, a veritable dagger of fear right into my being. It made me question if I was somehow deserving of the "special kind of Hell" that is reserved for "those poor bastards" unlucky enough to draw the really short straw and "go crazy". It made me feel condemned to lose everything important in life. It made me feel hopeless and far less than human or equal.

A powerful, toxic brew of poor medical care, my own hyperaroused imagination, a giant helping of the worst anxiety and insomnia in my life, and I fell apart.

Since then, I have been lost, bitter, unhappy, confused, scared, ashamed, well ... pretty much every negative emotion. I have NOT felt peace in any sense, physically, emotionally, or spiritually, for TWO YEARS now.

AND I HATE IT. HATE IT. HATE IT.

It has GOT to stop.

So, today, if it goes that way, I intend to ask the big question and get an answer. Live or Die? And, if the answer is "I am to live", then I need to heal.

Because I won't live like THIS the rest of my life, be it one day, one week, or decades. Misery is no way to live.