Thank you all. Thank you, Red Panda, especially for being so kind. I know what I wrote is in itself stigmatizing - it is where I was about mental illness and the mentally ill when this started. A mix of arrogance and disbelief "not me, doesn't happen to guys like me, I am
"better than". I know how wrong that is. I have met many fellow travelers on this road, and it has been eye opening. I have met some people who I do feel fall into the malingerer/social parasite category. But that is the exception. Most of those I met suffer with dignity and make lives in spite of their conditions. I dare say I have met people who are the superior, morally and intellectually, of many "normals" who look down on "us". Because I do see myself as part of the Us who endure the effects of MI both medically and socially. Many people give me hope from their experiences, but some comments in threads really scare me - ones along the lines of "don't tell anyone. I told people at work and lost my job" or "I told my friends and they abandoned me." Because again, it may not be what usually happens, but it might happen, and in my mind, the worst case scenario is always what is gonna happen. Always. At the hospital they called it catastrophizing, which is a good term, also black and white thinking - I dwell in the black.

In the Battlestar Galactica remake, the Cylons came to understand that human imperfection, human frailty, human mortality was actually not only not to be feared, but that diversity and the human condition, even if at times difficult, lead to a vitality missing in their culture. They ultimately came to embrace it, and the survivors of both races came together to forge a new society based on the new mutual respect and tolerance, and came to see by that point survival of both races required mutual cooperation.