I don’t want to be killed by this disease, this reality. I just want to survive.

“Just.” As if it’s simple. It’s not. Survival has been my life. I suppose it’s everyone’s, but I think some people spend less time thinking about it than others.

Or perhaps, their survival isn’t as precarious as mine.

No. It’s vanity to think that. I know it because I can’t help but watch the suffering everyday people and think, “why don’t you have to be on medication? Why do you get through the day without the sense of impending doom striking your heart with palpitations and your mind with thoughts of death? Why do you get through it without crying and wishing you could die?” And I think, “Are you stronger than me? Is that what it is?”

But when I talk to them, I know the truth. They’re in denial. They’re so scared, they can’t even admit it. They can’t face it. I’ve learned that what I envy is willful self-ignorance and fear. I can’t envy that any longer. I’d rather be on medication. I’d rather know myself, know why it hurts, and know the steps I need to take to deal with that pain more efficiently, most healthily.

My survival is no more precarious than theirs. I just face it, and that’s a harder thing to do intellectually, emotionally. Just because they don’t cry, doesn’t mean they suffer less. So everyday, I face it. And every day, I get better at dealing with it.

True, I don’t have a choice. My genetic make-up and my experiences have turned my mind in on itself. But I address it. Instead of trying to minimize it or deny it, I embrace it. What else can I do? Repeat the same mistakes over and over again? Commit myself to a life of errors and loneliness, surrounded by people who don’t know me and don’t know themselves? That sounds like hell to me.

That’s the suffering I see on the faces of the people in grocery stores and malls: the realization of having built their own hell strikes them behind the eyes, and there it lingers for a lifetime. They’re forever shocked and appalled, barely making it through the day. At least when I barely make it, I grow stronger, braver, smarter, more intellectually agile and emotionally capable. They grow dumber, more ignorant, more traumatized. They victimize themselves. I’m a survivor. And there’s nothing “just” about that. I need to start giving myself credit.