The mind is an incredible thing, and to science, accomplishes what no supercomputer ever made or conceived of can do – by its components alone, creates a quantity bigger than the sum of its parts: consciousness, self-awareness.  The mind truly is the final frontier of medicine – how it works, why it works, what breaks it, what fixes it, and so on.  These questions have not been answered fully, or there wouldn’t be people like me around.

My nickname at two years old was "The Senator."  I would dress up for any occasion, and this habit earned me this nickname.  And, as a child and young adult my aspirations and dreams were to enter politics, to shape laws and do good things for people.  But, with the spectre and stigma of mental illness tarnishing my name today, I think I would have a difficult if not impossible time attempting to achieve such a goal. 

Others can say: "Never say never – never say impossible," but the fact remains that the political arena is not fair, is not level, and your opponents will use whatever is most damaging against you, and will manage to wipe their fingerprints from the smoking gun when they are through with it.

It saddens me, this loss of my sole remaining childhood dream – that despite my great desire to help, to change the system that rewards those who pay the most to one that rewards those who deserve the most, I will not achieve that for myself in this lifetime.

Having washed out of two careers because of my OCD/Depression/Anxiety problem and with my childhood dreams of accomplishing great goals in politics dashed, I reach a harrowing conclusion that I am not good for much.  I have problems working in an environment that is broken, for when I try to fix something that is broken, I intrude on someone’s political turf and get burned for it.  My mind is constantly, deviously, designing plans to attack my soul with terrifying thoughts and painful feelings of guilt.  I feel guilty waking up and not working.  I feel guilty being a leech onto society.  I feel guilty that I cannot muster the courage to fix myself, that no matter how hard I try I can’t fix myself.  People are bravely facing bullets and bombs halfway around the world, and yet I cannot muster the courage to face my own thoughts in my head!  It leads me to think of myself as useless, that I am no good for anything if I can’t conquer my own internal demons.  And, God forbid, when I do make a genuine mistake, my guilt complex goes into overdrive and beats myself up.  I cannot distinguish the good guilt from the bad guilt, the responsible guilt from the needless guilt.  And no matter the new approach I take of my own initiative or that of my health care providers, my mind designs a new and terrible way to punish and torture myself.

I want it to end.  I want these feelings to leave – I feel hopeless and guilty and am powerless to stop them.