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One of the things that happens when you get diagnosed with a disorder is you figure out what can trigger or cause your illness to act up. If you are diagnosed with a mental disability you know how important this is. It helps you became aware of your issues and it helps you focus and work on them. But one of the things to really keep in mind is your disorder isn't you.  This is something I've struggled with for over a year now.

Bad days will come and you might feel like you are the walking, talking, disorder you are diagnosed with. But thats not true. You aren't. When good days come, and the light comes up, you notice feelings you haven't had in awhile. Feelings, interests hobbies start to come back up.

The mentally ill community puts a lot of focus on us being sick. Even in the community we aren't people. We are walking talking illnesses. We are BPD, We are depression, we are anxiety, we are OCD, we are these disorders.

Often I hear people use disorders as a part of there identity, its apart of who they are. Its like you meet someone and they say "I'm Sarah, I like anime, sea animals and I'm depression." When you think about that. People don't shake hands with those and say
"Welcome aboard, My name is ___ and I'll be your caption for the sailing today. And I have a heart murmur."

Our identifies are always going to change. What we hold on to in the long run is what matters the most. Our identities are shape most of our lives. As a young adult I have freedoms to change mine now by checking out other religions, beliefs, things I put on and in my body. And so on.

And the fact is, its always going to shift. We pick up interests and hobbies and we drop things that weren't really something that interesting.  We become interested in topics and others drop from our scope of interest.  Think of it this way, we pick up books we think might be interesting. We sometimes don't finish them.  Sometimes they suck, the pacing isn't right. Story telling isn't there. Something with that book and you don't click. We put them back.  Donate. Other books we love and we will re-read and re-read. We will suggest them to other people.

When I see people see themselves as the light of "BPD" Or the light of "Depression" I notice a lot of who they are dies. We become empty shells of illness. In ways we self sabotage. We watch those with the same disorders and we watch how they crumble. And as we watch them from the rumble, we copy. We fall over, we put our own explosive in us and we light them and watch them go off.

Interests? Hobbies? Those go down the drain when the illness takes hold. When people get diagnosed sometimes there full being just drops.

I spent a time 'searching' for who I was. Who I am is who I've always been. I've been me.

I'm Sarah.
I like the ocean.
I like Anime.
I like Japanese fashion.
I love cats and video games.
I like laughing.

I'm not..
BPD
I'm not...
Depression.
I'm not...
Anxieties.
I'm not...
PTSD
..
..
ect.

I have those issues.

I have lots of issues.

But, when labeling them, when getting diagnosed. Take it from me. Getting lost isn't worth it. Maybe you learn a thing or two, but you could learn those same values most likely if you just try and look at stuff from the outside.