Quote:
Originally Posted by tecomsin
I was doing a google search to see if I could find anything still left on the web about my mother and found out I made it on to a wikipedia list of significant Canadian Jews. I am not violating my anonymity by saying this as there are a lot of people on it, more than a 1000 I think.
I haven't worked in more than 5 years so this is based on my accomplishments before that. It didn't appear in the first 100 of google results if I just search my name, so it is an accident that that particular wikipedia list has not only my last name but my mother's first name and the surname she changed to after she divorced.
My son was impressed but my sister didn't even respond when I texted that to her.
I feel great to be able to toot my own horn about something for a change.
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tecomsin, thanks for sharing this story! Not only am I happy you found that list, but I really appreciate the positive message it represents.
Way too often, people (with a mental illness or not) fall into times when they feel dissatisfied with their situations or often, themselves. Everything can seem horrible. It can be easy to forget the good in ourselves/others and our accomplishments. Many people can start to minimize them exceedingly and look at themselves as worthless or hopeless. It's simply not the case, for anyone!
I mentioned earlier that my 30th high school reunion is coming up. I never attended a reunion before, but plan to in May. I was looking in my yearbook, and even found some old grade reports that I kept from my junior and senior years. At that school, each teacher would not only provide a grade each trimester, but a paragraph (or three) about each students' performance, characteristics, etc. The grade reports started to make me cry, as did looking at my past teachers' photos. There was praise by the teachers, and also comments about how I was clearly too hard on myself.
I've been thinking a lot about this high school reunion lately. What do I say to people? I've been on disability for over eight years? I don't even have any children. Would I seem to be a failure to others, even though I showed so much promise earlier in my life?
Well, I know I'm not a failure! I've actually accomplished a great deal. Maybe some of the "usual" accomplishments are past tense, but they existed, and will mean something for the rest of my life. And then what about these last 14 years I've struggled with a major mental illness? Honestly, they were so extremely difficult! I know now how much strength it took for me to survive them. A strength many people don't have. We are all extremely strong here. No one call yourself weak! If you do, it's the illness talking.
In my final high school advisor report, my teacher and advisor wrote:
"...Sometimes one's last weeks in high school can be quite sweet--if one has already...figured out how to deal with all the rules and all the people, and has confidence in one's ability to learn. If this isn't quite a sweet time for [BirdDancer], it's because she hasn't quite mastered all of the above. But there's still time!"
I went on to do a great number of things and achieved a lot prior to the worst years of my illness 15 years ago, and yet, despite more seemingly laudable accomplishments of the past, I hadn't yet "mastered all of the above" that my teacher/advisor mentioned. I now think I have, even sitting on my bed today, without a career, still on disability.
My life is hopefully far from over. There's plenty I can do in the future, and I look forward to it. However, I feel pretty darned satisfied with what I've done and learned in my life. I feel mostly at peace.
As side notes, that same teacher/advisor noted my tendency for "logorrhea" in a report she wrote in my junior year. I still need to work on curbing that!
My moodstabilizers and antipsychotic alone don't cut it. Also, I graduated at the top of my class in high school. I didn't feel like I deserved to, at the time.