Is it me or are we all a bit crazy?

I heard that if you thought you were crazy that you really weren't cause real crazy people don't think they are crazy. But hey I know I'm and I don't try to rationalize it, I try to "control" it and I guess in ways have been very successful....did I mention I wanted to be a psychologist or a counselor however even with my depression/bi-polar? state I have not sought out any medical help. Why? Because I know the stigma attached to mental illness in our society, to be medically labeled "depressed/bi-polar" is a mental illness, one that stays with forever and in our medical records. Did you know it can affect your ability to be covered by insurance, sure its not supposed to be but it is...I know this because I've was a psychology major, I worked in a medical clinic with doctors. So as sick as it all seems maybe also cause I'am Korean, its not ok to be depressed or sick.

Even during my turbulent teen years when I tried killing myself, my family didn't know. Nor do they know know...WTF, even though I lived with my parents until I was 30 years old, before I got married and moved out (hell I'm really way more traditional than I believe myself to be) they never knew. I used to be a alcoholic too...I needed it to function, to come outside of myself, liquid courage, to face people, to speak, to be me. When I think back now of how self destructive and in pain I was, I feel sad for the girl I used to be. In ways she is still inside of me, although the woman I have become is much more confident, assured but sometimes that little lost girl comes out. All I know is that I don't want that little girl to know my children, that is I don't want them to ever feel so much self hatred and pain, to never feel good enough, smart enough, attractive enough...i want them to have all the security and self confidence I lacked.

I know of the ugly things one can do to their body, their soul, only to deepen the wounds and make things worse. In ways my son saved me, did I mention I was a unweded mother at 20, pregnant at 19 and by a Mexican home boy. Yep looking a me people think they have me figured, I look together, typical Asian woman but I'm so far from it. I was the black sheep, I say was because I become "respectable, human" after I married my husband in 2003. Did I mention I didn't know how to handle my family caring about me and showing me respect. I did not know how to handle them asking about me, caring whether if I ate or not, if I was sick, or busy, up until I become "human" I was the unmarried, single mother. Even when I was going to school I never spent real time studying, I worked my school around everyone else, I didn't get good grades, heck I barely made it. I was busy being a good daughter, well trying to make up for fucking up, bringing shame to my family for being a single mother and with a bi-racial child. But you know what that child was the one that made me snap outside of my own self hating ass to become someone. I enrolled myself back into city college cause I knew I had to give him more, it wasn't about me anymore, I had become that stigmatized single welfare mom. Did I mention I was on welfare too. Yep I was the loser, black sheep but guess what I did more for my parents than my brothers did.

Living with them wasn't an easy ride, good lord far from that. My mother would remind why I hadn't followed her direction to get a abortion, even up to a few years ago she would say see you should have listened to me, even though she and my father adored my son. She knew how hard it would be for me, she knew he was no good and wouldn't be there for me, she knew of all the pain I would endure. And yet it was she and my family that caused me the most pain, after all I could care less of what others tought of me, it was always their acceptance and loved I sought.

I do understand that it is because she loved me she told me to get an abortion, because she knew what a hard time I would have.....but hell I was already having a shitty time as it was. But my son is the one who saved me from myself, to stop being so damn egocentric to focus on someone else besides myself. So I stopped being obsessed with my eating and stopped taking laxatives, yes I tried to make myself vomit but I couldn't, so I would take laxatives and also diet pills. Man even when I think back I'm amazed at how sick I was but I remember so clearly all the pain I felt with it all. Sometimes if I find myself telling someone of my past I feel like its a lie cause their is so much bad things in it. I call myself a statistic because almost anything that can possibly happen growing up has happened to me and looking at me now no one would be the wiser.

But I'am here today, I know I'm not ok but I can be, I want to be....when I feel awful I can reason myself that I don't want to feel that way, that certain things can't helped and that I cannot control my thoughts but I don't have to act out on them. That's the difference now and then I don't act out on the ugliness but contain it....I have felt better, I know their is a good place inside of me even if I can't feel it now. The fog has lifted but the pain is so raw, I don't think about my father because I know it will consume me and I want to go on, I have too. So each day is a battle, some days not so bad as others never less it lingers.