I pushed my laptop aside and curled back swelling with nausea, stomach creaking like a rusty hinge while my head swirled. All of my plans to sit down and write this post and others vanished and I was once again constrained by the limits of my body.
I take pills every night to treat bipolar disorder. They keep my mind stable and running steadily along but I still deal with physical side effects from those meds that often derail my best intentions.
Those days are hard. It’s difficult not to believe I’m somehow failing when I crawl back to my bed and forgive myself once again for the undone things.
It’s hard to think of mental illness as a gift, especially on the days I’m stuck in bed while summer’s daylight carries on without me. But in some ways it is. Or at least it is when I choose to see the simple things that make life beautiful and worthwhile.
Call it therapy or self-preservation, I call it small grace, but really it’s nothing more than paying attention to my life.
Continue Reading at The Art of Simple
