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Mental Illness is a Flame

This idea has been sitting with me for about a week now.
I tried to make it into a song, but my rhyming skills have died a lot since I was an angsty high school teenager.

I believe I was born predispositioned with mental illness. I was born a match.

My childhood ignited the flame.

I never fully understood the science behind mental illness until I was in my early to mid twenties, when it got the worst of me.

That is when I grew out of control.
I was in a very codependent relationship from age 17-19. That was the wind blowing lightly, spreading embers.
I got into drinking and drugs and entered another codependent relationship at age 19.

I got pregnant when my then-boyfriend and I were broken up. Gasoline.
Resentment. Gasoline.
My son was diagnosed with an incurable defect. Gasoline.
I became addicted to pain meds.
I could never work full time.
My life took a completely different path than I expected it to and I didn't know how to find a trail for myself. I spent so much time looking back at the other trail I saw.
Instead of looking at the map, I looked into the forest and fear instilled.

My brother-in-law committed suicide. Wind and more gasoline.
My husband at the time moved away to take a different job to help cope with the loss.
I climbed out a window at nine-months pregnant to escape a devastating house fire. Gasoline.
By the time I moved east to be with my husband, the fire was so out of control, he didn't know how to contain me.

He tried to sprinkle water on me.
He looked out the window to see how much I had spread, but you can't contain a forest fire with a garden hose.
I went to counseling. The flames remained.
The only thing that put the fire out, was going right back to where it all began.

When I joined CoDA (other folks in recovery will understand this) I was very anxious to get to the fourth step.
I took a long, hard look into my soul; to find the source of the flame.

I tried looking around for the fire marshal for so long, I didn't realize all along, it was me - I was the only one who could contain myself.

With meds and therapy I am a beautiful glowing light, able to shine for those who need it. When my mental illness gets the best of me (yes I still have bad days) I remember who is in control. This too shall pass. I do not have to let this consume me.

"Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of,
But stigma and bias shame us all."

 -William J. Clinton
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