'Am I Using My Mental Illness As a Cop-out?'

There’s something so comforting about finding a label. For the first couple weeks after my bipolar diagnosis, I felt untouchable. At last, there was the answer to the question I couldn’t put into words. But it’s starting to hit a bit different now that I’m settling down. I’m starting to wonder, Are we more than our mental disorders? 

The selfish part of me wants to blame everything bad about myself on the bipolar. But nowadays, giving the excuse of mental illness feels like a cop-out, like I’m pushing the blame onto something that can’t be punished. I’m having trouble determining what’s me and what’s my illness, what I can change and what I can’t. It could be the case that the world is filled with bad people and I’m just one of them.

Do you think it’s possible to separate yourself from your mental illness? Is that even something I should be trying to do? Am I, at the end of the day, just … bad?

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